And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah: And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live. But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive. And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men children alive? And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them. Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty. And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God, that he made them houses. And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive.

Exodus 1: 15-22 KING JAMES VERSION (KJV)

Genocide. Extermination. The End. The Apocalypse.

That is what the Hebrew midwives were facing. It was theirs to do. And what would they do when faced with such darkness and threat of violence? What would they do in the end- because that was the threat. As insignificant as they were, they did what was essential to save baby boys from genocide, the extermination of their people, the end of their race, the apocalypse now. The midwives did not choose to be born in such a time, but they were. And it was theirs to face. And they did.

The midwives possessed a piety that was born of the fear of God. Not man. Not monster.
Who did the midwives fear? The King? The mothers birthing sons? The enforcers? No. They feared God. This fear led them to disobey the King’s command and show great compassion to the mothers and sons of Israel.

The fear of God in Shiphrah and Puah produced courage, love, and wisdom.

This wisdom was a womanly wisdom, and it manifested as a deception. A lie. A device. A brilliant story about how amazing the Hebrew women were at the birthing stool- delivering their babies before the midwives could get there.

Would this device save the Hebrew children? Long enough. Just enough. We see at the end of this story, when the midwives out-maneuver the King, he commissions ALL HIS PEOPLE to cast the boy babies into the river. His clandestine plan to murder the babies failed, so he had to come out with his evil plans. The midwives did not participate in the darkness- they forced it into the light.

And God rewarded them with children and families of their own. Healthy and thriving families- houses.

Because God’s plan for saving the world through His Son Jesus Christ would not be thwarted. Not then, not now, not ever. His plan for the Incarnation required participation. A long line of the Righteous Ancestors of God.

I am drawn to this story over and over. I see it as a roadmap for the end. Whatever that end may be. I pray for and walk towards the piety that is born of the fear of God.

Follow your bliss.

This seems to be the primary psychological path to a happy life that is set forth by the sages of our day. When I was younger, I rejected this idea as being the opposite of God’s will. I believed that what I wanted was always in direct opposition to God’s will. Happiness was not the goal. Only obedience. It never occurred to me that the first step in doing God’s will is discerning the difference between my own will and God’s. Discernment is the crown of wisdom. How could a layman like myself hope to arrive at a level of knowing God’s voice and His will? After much reflection and questioning my own thoughts and beliefs, it would seem that God’s “voice” is not much different from my own consciousness. It is “me.”

The jury is still out on whether the division between God’s voice and my own is possible in the deepest parts. Can I make this distinction on my own? Is it possible to separate my own will from God’s? On a moral level, discerning God’s will is pretty dialectic. The Bible is full of “do this” and “don’t do that.” One can arrive at God’s will by reading His commands and by hearing those commands preached and taught. In this way, man’s conscience is purified and reprogrammed in a sense. This process is fine and good and well worth pursuing. However, I want to know God’s will in the inner parts. Does my own conscience bear witness to the truths that lead to doing God’s will? Are these truths self evident?

For a mom of five, living in the world, and working in this current system of trade, politics, and economy, the path to discernment is messy. I do not have a clear-cut rule to help me along the way. My days are full of diversion, interruptions, and switchbacks. I will set out in one direction only to find myself in the same place. This leads me to a kind of spiritual apathy and despondency. Spiritual despondency is like a treadmill, a whole lot of work but going nowhere.

Turns out this going nowhere builds muscle and slims, but unless one gets off the conveyer belt the fitness one gains walking miles in one place is never actualized. This is what a lot of spiritual pursuits feel like to me. Working hard, but not doing God’s will, or at least feeling like I am.

This is not the life I desire to live.

So how do I live the life I desire? A life of doing God’s will? I have found that following my bliss may be a better way to discern. When the soul is enlightened by the Law of the Lord, it properly orients itself to happiness. I believe it is impossible to discern what truly makes us happy without the law and commandments of God, the great tutors. However, this law is written on every man’s heart. We are without excuse. It is ultimate self knowledge.

If you know what makes you happy, truly happy- you can know God’s will. You can know yourself.

To watch the movement of the soul is a discipline that must be practiced by those who wish to live the life we desire. A happy life. A life of doing God’s will. For example, when the soul experiences a movement toward strife or anger, it is imperative to examine the current course or thoughts and beliefs. What am I thinking and believing that is causing this movement away from happiness? To repent from a false belief that is causing suffering is to do God’s will.

This is the tragic reality of the unrepentant sinner. To believe that sin will make one happy is the greatest suffering. I’ve never known an unrepentant sinner who was leading a happy life. This is a great training tool for children who are young on the path as well. A mother can ask, “Did that make you happy when you lied? What happened to your heart when you told the lie? Be still and look. What would make you happy now that you have done this?” It never fails, my children know the path back to happiness, and it is always the path of obeying God’s commands. God is ultimate reality. Ultimate bliss.

We were created so that by grace we may be happy with God in heaven. Heaven can be actualized on earth. It is in doing God’s will. Following God’s commands is ultimate happiness. Suffering is the caricature of sin. Suffering exists because we have not yet done God’s perfect will . We are not yet humble. I still experience suffering. However, I know by reading the lives of the saints, and by Christ’s example as well, that I can suffer without suffering. To be that happy… To be perfect…

If the soul is suffering because of unforgiveness, forgive. The joy that comes when we forgive an enemy is the indication that we have done God’s will. This examination of conscience is applicable to all sin. Look where you are unhappy. There is sin there. With this belief, it is easy to understand that to suffer is not the sin, it is our response to our hardship that creates the unhappiness. This is my understanding of, count it all joy.

Sin does not make us happy. If this were true, God would have played a cruel joke. He would have placed us in a reality that ensured our misery, death, and ultimate separation from Him. In contrast, the path to God and living the life we desire is pathed in happiness. This happiness kindles a relationship, likened to a warmness of heart in knowing God in the inner parts. This for me is communion. Friendship.

Follow your bliss. Not like the pagans, but as a child of God- created to be happy with Him in heaven.

This is how to live the life we desire. Heaven on earth. A happy life here and in the world to come.

It is 5 am.
A breathing machine. Early morning headlights. The neighborhood rooster. All sorts of mundane thunders. Not a one has disturbed my slumber.

Yet, the silent shuffle of a scared seven year old wakes me like a cold glass of water thrown in my face. It’s amazing really. How is it that I just know she is there, without a word, without a sound?  The door to our bedroom has been open to children for 17 years, and in all those years my husband and I have comforted each of our five wild and crazy-eyed kids through unthinkable childhood nightmares. Kids can dream up some twisted stuff.

It is a wolf this time.

I part the covers and she crawls under with me.  I feel her.  Her body fits perfect next to mine, a sure sign that very soon it won’t.

A few words about how to deal with imaginary fears, this wolf nonsense has to stop.  I squeeze her and kiss her. Meanwhile daddy, who has been silently assessing the situation and is returning from a trip to the bathroom, begins to remove whatever is piled on one end of the futon at the foot of our bed.  I hear the items hit the floor with blunt thuds, sounds like laundry.  I thought I put all the laundry up from there this afternoon. Slade assures me it’s not much of anything, mostly pillows.  A comfy spot is made, and I lift the covers, a signal that Elinor needs to make her way down there.  She knows the routine.  We all know the routine.

Elinor joins her brother, 3 year old Sam, he’s at the opposite end. He started out the night in that spot, unwilling to sleep in his big boy bottom bunk alone.  I worry that their feet will touch and war will commence. It’s happened before.

I try to settle back into my pillow.  My lower back is stiff, and my feet are hot.  I roll a few times, but it is no use.  I am awake, no going back.  I hear my husband, already relaxed.  I envy his sleep skills, singularity is such a luxury.

I am still thinking about the wolf.  Elinor said the wolf was trying to eat her.  What does that mean?  I resolve that the kids are watching too many cartoons.  I wrestle with how existential cartoons are these days. It is so cruel to lay such heavy societal burdens on our babies.  That’s it, we are taking a break. No more cartoons for awhile.  No more wolves, no more unnecessary burdens.

My house shoes and a new robe are on by this time.  I close the door on my sleeping brood and head to the kitchen, consoling myself with the quiet opportunity to sip coffee, pray, and write. I am already planning an afternoon nap.

Standing at the kitchen sink, filling my old-fashioned coffee pot, I look across the road and see that my neighbor’s kitchen sink light is shining, one square light in an ocean of black.  I wonder if it is LeAnn, my friend and mother to seven children.  Is she up too?  It could be anyone in her house, a kitchen sink light at 5 am could be anything.  The possibility that it is LeAnn comforts me. I say a prayer for her.

Prayer.  The thought comes that a single prayer prayed with attention is better than lengthy prayers said in distraction.  When I push the button on the coffee maker I make my way to the icons.  A single prayer with attention.

Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be Thy Name…

When I finish I return to my coffee and pour a cup.
And now here I sit at my desk, attempting to write about my role as an Orthodox mother. As I read over what I have written so far it occurs to me that not much more needs to be said.  The story of my morning is the story of my life as an Orthodox mother.  The melody changes, but the drone note remains…my heart bound by God and my family.

It’s hard to tell whom I love more, my family or God.  The two loves are so connected it is impossible to distinguish where one begins and one ends.  I do not think this is a wrong path for an Orthodox mother.  How can the humble love of either compete with the other…together they work as one.
How love works on us.

Perhaps some will assert that those who speak about the role of an Orthodox mother should be more specific.  I myself love to snoop on the details of the daily lives of Orthodox mothers.  Hello Instagram! However, I feel that while I glean much instruction from others, the real heart of Orthodox motherhood is unseen, wrapped in a mystery that makes it beautiful and strange and infinitely diverse.  There is nothing more fearsome for me than to look upon the humility and love of an ordinary Orthodox mother.  I try to mimic, and in some ways mimicking has been my lifeline as a convert.  In other ways it has set me up for major failures.

When we converted seven years ago I sort of had a crisis in my mothering- major plot twist.  The first wave of conversion brings with it a romance that is akin to falling in love, the second wave is like homesteading; establishing new routines, new traditions, new disciplines, new recipes, new everything.  I am currently in a third wave of conversion; I call it remaining. At some point, I have to stop converting and be Orthodox, be a Christian.  I have to accept that there is no such thing as an Orthodox mother, at least not in a singular or static form.

It is not Orthodox mother- it is Orthodox mothers. There is not one definition, only a million experiences.

We are different, you and I.  Different stages.  Different circumstances.  Different husbands.  Different children.  Different everything. And yet, we share so much.  We share in our love of God and family.  We share in our need to repent and dig deep and lean heavy on the strength of our Father.

Like modern cartoons, I believe that much of the modern spiritual writings, commentary, and opinions stir up existential angst…like a wolf come to eat us. Perhaps if I gave one piece of advice, one humble instruction, it would be this- pray. Stand before God with an open heart and pray. In prayer, God provides. If books and blogs have failed you, even if your priest cannot help you- God can. As mothers we can pray. Pray always.

My heart’s desire is to encourage you, to connect with you in the struggle.  If you are weary be refreshed in knowing that the Orthodox way is the way of love.  Let that love wash over you and break your heart and fill you up.

The sun is up now, and I promised my chicks pancakes.  The house is churning with arguments, math lessons, and PBS.  I have a to-do list that’s long and my back is still tight.  You understand. Somewhere in all of this there is life, the life of an Orthodox family.

Just something I thought would be a great share for fall.  I am taking my littles to the park today with a quilt, a picnic, and a copy of Mother West Wind’s Children.  It’s going to be a wonderful sunny day, great for a nature hike.  I will be using my Boba Wrap…baby wraps are wonderful, don’t you think?  And I love their slogan…Freedom Together.