Summer Vacay: Where is Mom’s Coffin?

by SARAH CONDON on Jul 17, 2014
Mockingbird

Officially speaking, William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying tells the story of Bundren family traveling to bury their mother, Addie. Quickly in the narrative she dies. Children and husband must fulfill last request to take Mom’s body on a 40-mile trek in a wagon to be buried in Jefferson, Mississippi. Written in 1930, it dances the line between modern and post-modern literature. Different characters’ voices take over each chapter, and as the book progresses, the reader is given a complex, dark, and intimate narrative.

Unofficially, I believe it is a book written about a mother who simply wanted her family to take a vacation together, even if it involved hauling her corpse around. And Mr. Faulkner just wanted everyone to talk (and sometimes yell) all at once. Like you do on family vacations.

Don’t let the gorgeous Instagram photos fool you. This is the season for family vacations and in real life they are always #nofilter. While it might seem like a strange parallel, I think William Faulkner had a fantastic understanding of the theological implications of a family vacation. Like Addie Bundren being hoisted about in her coffin, parents love the idea of a family getaway. And yet, when the whole brood heads to the Grand Canyon, the messiness of life becomes oddly compact. You plan a big, freedom-promising journey and end up all together in a hotel room/car/tent. And there you are. All together in a small space, annoying habits exposed.

I had the good fortune of going on some pretty serious family vacations as a kiddo. No, I am not going to tell you we went to Europe. Or regale you with stories about all those times at our lake cabin. Almost every year we loaded up in an old suburban and drove from Mississippi to New Mexico. I had one backseat and my little brother claimed the other. For the first few days my mom would remind us that it wasn’t going to be the end of It’s a Wonderful Life that we had all imagined.

Creating a Summer Rhythm

by Rhett Smith

Striking a balance between being super busy and doing nothing over the summer can often be difficult for families. Hopefully in the process of communicating expectations for the family a good rhythm can unfold between busyness and rest.

Lots of kids, as well as parents, come to the end of the school year completely exhausted. Sometimes a period is needed for families to rest and rejuvenate before launching fully into busy summer mode. But the reality of family life today is often that both parents are working, and therefore kids need to move quickly from school into summer activities.

Depending on your family, you may have characteristics that help you go about finding the right rhythm. But here are a few suggestions that I have found to be helpful:

Create “White Space” – As you look at your summer calendar, make sure there are days on the calendar where there is nothing planned. There should be “white space” on those days. In our busy world, it’s important to have days where kids and parents don’t have something to do.  These days allow families to be spontaneous and creative in the absence of planned activity.  I recommending purchasing a large white board calendar if you don’t have one, or drawing a calendar on a white board. Capture

Live Fruitfully and Honestly: Life Assurance From E.B. White

There are moments in every life when the shadow of uncertainty descends, when we lose our sense of purpose, when finding joy seems an insurmountable hurdle.  E.B. White, the beloved children's book author of Charlotte's Web, wrote this letter to his niece on the occasion of her own uncertainty — something I wish I had read when I was lost. His words are reassurance that a life lived fruitfully and honestly needn't be difficult or very far from reach:

"I know just how you feel, Judy. Frustration is youth's middle name, and you mustn't worry too much about it. Eventually things clarify themselves and life begins to divulge a steadier destination. In a way, our lives take form through a simple process of elimination. We discard what we don't like, walk away from what seems to inspirit us. My first job was with the United Press, but I knew within half an hour that my heart was not in it and that I would never be any good at gathering straight news under great difficulties and with the clock always running out.

The Value of Volunteering

While parents everywhere worry about raising spoiled kids, they also go to great lengths to shield children from things like poverty and disaster.

Teaching your children that life can be hard and empowering them to make change will lead to increased self-confidence and empathy for others.

It's no big secret that little kids love to help. From the moment they are able to mimic their parents, they begin helping. While some of their help might not actually seem as helpful as it is intended, the important thing to remember is that they love to help.

Helping others is the best way to build a strong sense of community and compassion. It builds empathy and teaches children to think about and respect their surroundings, other people in their community and the world as a whole.

Family volunteerism is a great way to introduce the concept of community service to even very young children. Even toddlers can lend a helping hand when it comes to planting a community garden, packing gift baskets for sick children and playing with animals at a local animal shelter. When you take the time to volunteer as a family, you teach your children that we all need to take care of one another, and we can have a lot of fun doing it.

The benefits of instilling a strong sense of community service in your child are numerous

Take it, Break it, Share it, Love it

Making Communion Meaningful For Children

In the second season of the TV drama Mad Men, young and rising advertising copywriter Peggy Olson lands the Popsicle account by comparing a mother’s act of taking a twin pop from the freezer, breaking it in two and giving it to her children to the ritual of sharing in the Sacrament of Communion.

Sharing a Popsicle, she tells the executives, is not just something that you do in the summer heat, but a ritual that is enacted all year around. No matter if it came from the freezer or from the ice cream truck, each time you: take it, break it, share it, love it.

A shift has occurred, during my lifetime, to openly welcome children to participate in the sacrament of Communion no matter their age. I can remember the very first time I participated in Communion as a child, and the discussion I had with my parents that morning in preparation.

Communion is unique in that it is not just a story that we tell or a service that we attend, but a fully sensory experience that we have together as a community. Clearly these are the kinds of experiences that can be especially meaningful to children. 

Communion: I Serve You In The Love Of Christ

by Jill Clingan

I felt a tap on my shoulder, startling me from my reverie. It was a spring Sunday morning.  My husband was upstairs helping with the kids. I was sitting alone in my pew.  The service was winding down, and it was time for communion.  As I was sitting in that pew, with my head bowed, I probably looked the part of a pensive, meditative worshipper.

But I was not praying. I was staring down at the spiral bound notebook in my lap. The tap on my shoulder was so startling because I was afraid I was going to get caught, and I immediately sought to conceal the small book.

I had not been jotting down sermon notes or composing a pre-communion prayer. Instead, I had been scribbling out my to-do list, a list that spanned laundry and homeschool prep and long-overdue emails and housecleaning. As I stared down at my completed list, I felt overwhelmed and a wee bit panicky that I was sitting quietly in church rather than ticking something off of that list.

The tap on my shoulder had distracted me out of a meditation more tellurian than sacred.

Children and Eucharist

by Genelda Woggon

Our grandson, born in the late 1980s, was blessed to belong to a church that did indeed honor the rich spiritual potential of the young child. At their Sunday morning Family Eucharist he was welcomed at the Table of the Lord to receive the Bread and the Wine along with his parents and the parish community. It is his generation that will be among the first in the Episcopal Church to never remember when he was not fed at the Table of the Lord.

It was his mother’s generation, however, that came of age at the time that General Convention of the Episcopal Church in 1971 asserted that “admission to communion is to be based upon baptism alone, not upon baptism plus Episcopal confirmation.” This was not a decree that came to fruition overnight – but a long . . . slow . . . process that is still unfolding in various stages in different places around the country.

It took almost another 10 years for this to really begin to sink in. In 1988 the General Convention made it necessary to make yet another statement saying it “unequivocally affirms that all baptized persons, regardless of age, may receive communion.”

This was the turning point for infants and toddlers to be really invited to the Table – but always at the parents’ discretion as to the exact and most appropriate time for each child to receive. . . . . It was quite interesting to see the differences in how parishes responded – to some degree based on geography and cultural dynamics more than on liturgical or theological reasoning.