My guess is that if you are reading this, you’ve probably seen the YouTube video I made a couple of months ago. \u00a0There is a line in there that my kids like to tease me about. \u00a0Well, there are a few actually. \u00a0But the one that I take the most flak for is: “You learn to text, and to pray.”<\/p>\n
As my sons often point out, no one makes phone calls anymore. \u00a0If I want the instant gratification of communicating with them and getting a response, they\u2019ve told me, I should text, not call. \u00a0But I’m a terrible texter. \u00a0Truth is, I haven’t really learned to text, and despite Jack’s patient lesson on my cell phone a couple of months ago, I rarely text either of my sons.<\/p>\n
The praying is another matter. \u00a0When my boys were little, I think I believed that if I was a really good mother, and paid attention, and did everything right, I could keep my children safe from harm.\u00a0 \u00a0In some kind of unspoken pact with the universe, I kept up my end of the bargain; I made sure my boys buckled seatbelts, cut grapes in half, wore bike helmets and ski helmets and mouthguards and jock straps. \u00a0We had regular check ups, talked things through, looked both ways.<\/p>\n
One March morning seven years ago, the phone rang with the news that my best friend’s son had been killed while trying to stop a fight on his college campus. \u00a0He was twenty-one, two months away from graduation. I remember my friend saying, at the end of that terrible week, after her beautiful son had been cremated and all the friends and relatives had left to go home, “How am I going to live without him?”<\/p>\n
Somehow, she has lived. \u00a0She carries great sadness, and yet she carries on. \u00a0She has learned to smile again, to make Christmas dinner, to be steady for her other two sons. My own older son is in college now, the other in high school.\u00a0 And there is not a day that goes by that I don\u2019t sit down, put my hands together, and give thanks for their lives, for the very fact of their existence on this earth.\u00a0 I\u2019ve long since let go of the naive belief that living well and doing good work is any kind of insurance against suffering. We live well and do good work because we are able.\u00a0 And because it\u2019s our job, as humans on this planet, to make ourselves useful and to express our love through both word and deed.\u00a0 There is no deal. The fact is, what happened to Morgan could happen to any child.\u00a0 And any illusion we might have of control or security is just that, an illusion.<\/p>\n
The world is perilous and wonderful, both. Terrible things happen, and blessings rain upon us. Our children make good choices and poor ones.\u00a0 They take risks, make mistakes, learn from them, and march, inexorably, toward their own destinies.\u00a0 And much as we may love our sons and daughters, we also learn to accept the fact that love is not protection.\u00a0 It\u2019s just love.<\/p>\n
Prayer helps me to remember that. \u00a0So I sit quietly, saying \u201cplease.\u201d\u00a0 And \u201cthank you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My guess is that if you are reading this, you’ve probably seen the YouTube video I made a couple of months ago. \u00a0There is a line in there that my kids like to tease me about. \u00a0Well, there are a few actually. \u00a0But the one that I take the most flak for is: “You learn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,26,27,31,32,8,9,10,14],"tags":[173,188,198,209,342,418],"class_list":{"0":"post-185","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-change","8":"category-faith","9":"category-family-life","10":"category-grief","11":"category-healing","12":"category-parenting","13":"category-parenting-boys-parenting","14":"category-parenting-teens","15":"category-soul-work","16":"tag-faith-2","17":"tag-gift-of-an-ordindary-day-video","18":"tag-gratitude-2","19":"tag-healing-2","20":"tag-praying","21":"tag-texting","22":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/600x600.png?fit=600%2C600","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}