Learning and Living Inspiration

I was introduced to Charlotte Mason's education method or learning philosophy a couple years ago, very briefly.  Recently, much by happenstance, I was once again reintroduced; God knew I was ready for it now.  Another homeschooling mom, Christine, planted the seed when I was really just starting to pick everyone's brains about all things homeschool.  It seemed so overwhelming at the time that I shut down on learning more about it....  Today as I sit and type this I find that there is so much of it I love.  I am still learning of course, but we will be implementing a lot of her ideas, or rather my interpretation of them, into our learning, and frankly, into our life style. 

But what I really want to talk about is the thing that has been touching home in my soul.  You know, that inner place that can be restless or at peace.    We can be at peace, even when everything around us is wrought with turmoil and strife.  We can have that inner peace..... It is attainable! I think I am really discovering some keys to it for my life.  I have found that thing so many of us have lost; I am on a path of discovery, a path toward discovering the "Mother Culture."

I'm looking for my  "Mother Culture" sweet spot.  I didn't realize I was missing it until I seen it was gone. 

Frankly, I thought a mother's lot in life was to not tend to herself and to worry about everything beneath the heavens.  I mean, admit it....  when the socks are missing who THINKS she has to find them?  We complain and nag.  Its like our uterus develops a homing device for all things lost in the universe (or we think those we love think it has!)....  Perhaps the real conflict is our own desire to control......  We feel out of control because we have lost our way, so we grasp at every straw we can find trying to bust our way through.....   Here we are trying to control virtually everything around us.  Yet, what we need to really do is relinquish that control and rely on God to show us the path He set before us.  

Because of this control struggle we kind of forget to take care of our needs and we focus on stuff we shouldn't focus on.   Our lives, and thus our family's lives as well, suffer the dreaded consequences (heart disease, cancer, diabetes...and more).  For decades we have been told that its  normal to be burning our candle at both ends as we try to have our cake and eat it too.  We're told its the way it has to be as we work, attempt to make a semblance of a home, have friendships with others, and take our children to seven activities every week ....  We run on empty, ALL. THE. TIME.  When we ponder the possibility that we don't need to do all that with other women we think are friends we might be told we are dysfunctional or oldschool/old fashioned.  We might be made to feel like we have developed a third eye, or a horn.....
 

I don't want it all.  Nope.  Not any longer.  Don't need it!

We were created to be a helpmeet, not to be the do it all fuss bucket with harried words and unsmiling faces that many of us have become.  Many of us bemoan our motherhood and long for "Mom's Nights Out."  I am not putting that down....  I enjoy chatting with other adult women as well, but why is it that the last decade or two this has become so needed by us women?    Have we somehow lost the meaning and spirit of the "Mother Culture?"  Did we ever know it?  Are we grasping at way to fill this void in our lives?  Yes, I think we are to a certain extent. 

I think we have lost it.  I think we tossed it out like old rubbish.  When a woman has said she wont travel the "modern" road we bully her.  We make snide comments and call her all sorts of names and even taint her family by our comments and innuendos.  Yes, we vilify the woman seeking the "Mother Culture."  We vilify her so that we feel better about denying our own desires to embrace motherhood and the culture surrounding it, whatever that might mean to us.   

At one time it was widely accepted that a woman would embrace the culture of motherhood.  Today people dabble in domesticity, they play at it; but through their play they are breaking the fibers that bind it.  You can't play at something so important.  You have to live it and feel it.  You have to embrace it.  We can't dabble in being a mother.  Dabbling robs our children and harms us.  There is NOTHING subservient about the Mother Culture.  Its about feeding the mother's soul so that she not grow weary.   Its about finding that peaceful sweet spot that seems to allude most of us. 

The "Mother Culture" is not about denying oneself.  Any simple reading should quickly dispel that notion.  Its not about wearing long dresses or having long hair, although many mothers might do those things.  Its not about sewing and baking your own bread, daily....  but again, many mothers might do those things.  Its about being a mother and enjoying it.  Its about making a house (apartment, boat, RV/trailer, mobile home, etc.) a home regardless of your circumstances.  Its about your children feeling loved, even if your family can't provide all the things that their friends have.  Its about finding peace in the here and now that God has given you. 

It may not be what you think of when you hear the term "Mother Culture", it may not be what I have in my mind today, but I am looking to having more of it in my life.  It feels right.  To gently guide my child, to be the maker of our home, to fulfill a role I  think God means for me to have. ... To embrace this culture I was given six years ago.  Yes, my Mother Culture Sweet Spot.

Its my journey and I hope you stick with me as I share it occasionally.  It feels like coming home for me.  My soul has found some needed peace and rest, and it happened in God's time. 

 

 

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