When He reached the place, Jesus looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.” And he came down quickly and received Him with joy.
Luke 19:5-6

Lord, this week help us to remember that in spite of our sinfulness, You will always come to us if we are ready to receive You with joy.

I’m a bad mother. I might as well admit it. The fact is, yet another September and October have come and gone and I have once again failed to take my kids apple picking. Never mind that we have baked plenty of apple pies, never mind that we planned and pulled off a huge Oktoberfest event hosting dozens of children and their parents for a day of cider-drinking and pumpkin-carving, never mind that my kids spend the better part of their days playing outdoors and are by no means deprived of “fresh air” experiences. As my oldest pointed out yesterday, we did not go apple picking this year and we did not go apple picking last year, and we used to go every year, so what gives?

Perhaps it’s the fact that I can buy apples in bulk at the wholesale store and I get exactly the variety I want at a better price. Perhaps it’s the fact that it takes us at least an hour to get ready to go anywhere, it takes 30 minutes to drive to the nearest orchard, and then it would take about 3 ? minutes for my six kids to fill their bags with more apples than we could possibly use in an entire winter season.

Whatever my real motivation, I feel rather comfortable assuming my role as a bad mother for yet another fall season. Busy moms have to pick and choose among many activities and commitments and select those that best meet their family’s needs. Besides, this morning I baked a PUMPKIN pie, and no one is complaining.

I love bleach. I know some moms who use all kinds of fancy laundry products. They pre-treat, they soak, they scrub. I prefer bleaching. Here’s my secret method: When a kid comes inside from playing out in the mud puddles or spills something like red Kool-Aid or motor oil (don’t ask) all over himself, just follow these simple steps:

1. Strip the child, wipe all skin surfaces clean, and send child to bedroom to re-group and re-clothe.

2. Separate soiled clothing into two piles: Bleachable and Unbleachable. Warning: Do not be misled by overly-cautious clothing labels. Clothing manufacturers are notoriously nervous nellies. If it’s silk or spandex, it’s unbleachable. If it’s your kid’s very best Sunday outfit and you’d be devastated if the colors were altered in any way, it’s unbleachable. Everything else is bleachable.

3. Using extra detergent, wash the “unbleachables” in your washing machine using the normal settings. If they don’t come clean, give up and put them in the “bleachable” pile as a last shot at salvaging them.

4. Wash the bleachable pile using plenty of detergent and a generous measure of bleach in hot water. Dry in high heat.

5. Remove clean clothing from the dryer, marvel at the new colors you might have created, and return clothing to child’s dresser drawers to be soiled again another day.

With the proper perspective, doing laundry with a hefty helping of bleach can be spiritually uplifting. For a diehard bleacher, the inspiring words of the Psalms are never far from mind: “Cleanse me with hyssop, that I may be pure; wash me, make me whiter than snow.” (Psalm 51:9)

I have got to start setting a better example around here.

Just yesterday afternoon I overheard myself shouting in my loudest “angry Mama” voice: “EVERYONE MUST STOP SCREAMING!!!!”

Then last night as I was struggling to get my troupe of reluctant kids ready for bed, I moaned out loud, “I am sooooooooooo tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiired of listening to all the whiiiiiiiinnniiiiiing.”

And this afternoon I put the cookies out of reach and announced, “No more sweets- you kids eat too much sugar!” even as I was nursing a bellyache from eating too many handfuls of Brachs candy corn myself.

Oh, and please don’t tell my kids that the strict schedule I have posted for daily chores and school work is more about keeping their idle mother disciplined and productive than it is about their responsibilities.

I can remember when I was kid I promised myself that when I was grown I would do lovely forbidden things like stay up all night and eat a whole batch of brownie batter straight from the bowl.

“I can’t wait till I’m a grown-up and can do whatever I want,” 8 year old Eamon mused recently.

“Well, it’s not all fun and games,” I countered putting on my mature mother hat. “Grown-ups have jobs and families to take care of and bills to pay. Being grown-up is a big responsibility.”

Pass the brownie mix.

Motherhood keeps me grounded. It’s hard to maintain lofty notions of your own stature and grandeur when your day-to-day duties consist of meeting the physical needs of others- filling bellies, mopping messes, and wiping rear-ends.

Even early on becoming a mother forces a woman to focus on the physical as hormones overrun her body and the physical discomforts of pregnancy disrupt her daily life. Babies are needy and clingy, wanting only to be nursed, cleaned, dressed, and cuddled. Toddlers need reassuring pats, hugs and kisses, and laps to crawl into. Even when older kids become less clingy, much of a mother’s energy is still devoted to meeting their physical needs- grocery shopping, preparing meals, washing clothes, and doing dishes.

While it’s a humbling thing to be so simply and physically focused, I find it freeing as well. Usually, God’s will for me is clear and uncomplicated. Hold this baby. Wash these clothes. Make this meal. I have to admit too that on most days I relish the raw and earthy pleasures of motherhood. Nothing smells so sweet as my babies’ flesh, nothing feels so lovely as the squeeze of their smallish bodies or the wet warmth of their mouths against my own skin. The nicest thing about embracing motherhood is that it embraces back.

I didn’t want to teach my 9th grade CCD class last night. It had been a long, busy weekend and I had the beginnings of a headache. It was cold outside and I was tired. Besides, the adolescent boys in that class usually make the teaching experience.well, let’s say less than rewarding.

But playing hooky is not an option for the teacher, and so I went to class. With my students, I try to walk the fine line between being “cool” and being an authority figure. I let them play video games on the office computer before class time and we usually chat a bit about sports or school activities before opening our books. I do not allow disrespectful behavior or foul language, though, and it is a constant struggle to keep them on topic during class.

Last night was no different. As I tried to lead them through a chapter outlining the teachings of the Church about the Trinity and the Virgin Mary, our reading was continually interrupted with off-topic comments and questions like “Are we gonna have class on Halloween?” and “Does anyone know the score to the Patriots game?”

We were also interrupted, however, by off-topic questions like “How do we know we can believe anything in the Bible?” and “Why did Jesus have to suffer so much before he died?” I answered these off-topic questions and some of them led to off-topic discussions about heaven and hell, the gift of faith, and the terrible power of sin. These were important questions that kids this age should be asking and that they might not have an opportunity to ask elsewhere. I was grateful to be there to hear them and to help answer them– in order to do that I had to show up in the first place. That’s something I should remind myself of the next time I am dreading CCD class.

Our grandmothers and their mothers before them had a good idea. Women used to schedule their household chores throughout the week, Mondays for laundry, Tuesdays for baking, Wednesdays for cleaning floors, etc. I always thought this notion was kind of cute and kind of quaint but it wasn’t until recently that I thought this simple approach could actually work for my modern day life.

Yesterday we had a “baking day” here. With a large family party coming up this weekend, I gave the kids a light day of schoolwork and devoted the rest of the day to baking food for the event. I gathered recipes and ingredients, cleared the kitchen counters, and got to work.

It was very liberating. Little bodies pushed chairs to the counter and climbed up to watch, but I didn’t mind. We were baking. The laundry piled up and the older kids disappeared to play outside, but I didn’t mind. We were baking and that was all I had to do- I didn’t need to chase down kids and make them do schoolwork and I didn’t need to think about other chores. Today was for baking and that was enough.

Soon the house was filled with delicious smells and the counters were lined with lovely things like homemade rolls, pumpkin bread, soft pretzels, cookies, and pie. When my father-in-law dropped by unannounced, I felt compelled to apologize for the state of the rest of my house but then decided just to keep quiet.

“You’re busy!” he said as he surveyed my crowded countertops.

I wiped my floured hands on a dish towel. “Yes,” I told him. “Today we are baking.”

The other evening I entered our living room to find Dan sitting on the couch with his head in his hands. Alarmed, I thought maybe he was sick. When I asked him what was wrong, though, he mumbled something I couldn’t quite understand.

“What did you say?” I sat down next to him.

He looked at me with a pained expression. “We really need to capitalize here,” he said.

Capitalize? Were we having some financial difficulty I was unaware of? I was considering the wisdom of pressing him for more information when suddenly I noticed there was a baseball game on television. The Red Sox had two men on base in the bottom of the fifth versus the Yankees and they needed a hit in order to “capitalize.”

I’ve struggled with this kind of sports intensity for as long as Dan and I have been married and I long ago learned the futility of making such superior statements as “Puh-leeease! It’s only a ballgame!” For Dan, when it comes to sports, and most especially when it comes to Red Sox baseball, it’s never “just a ballgame.” It’s an epic battle between good and evil. It’s the little guys fighting against all odds and achieving what no one thought they could. It’s a veritable example of the human drama, it is real-life, and Dan lives it.

That night I decided to find something else to do, and when the inevitable happened and the Red Sox lost, I tried to distract him by chatting about other things until we went to bed. The series between the Red sox and Yankees continued with games lasting far into the night for what seemed like days on end. When the Red Sox started winning these games, I started sitting next to Dan and watching with him.

Last night was the worst. I found myself sitting on the couch, peeking at the game through anxious fingers, holding my breath, and thinking things like, “We REALLY need to capitalize here.”

When it was nearly midnight and the bottom of the ninth, the Red Sox had a sizeable lead and I actually dared hope they might win the game, win it all, make history against those evil Yankees.

“Should we get the kids up?” Dan asked tentatively.

“Oh yes, let’s!” I answered. This was something they should see. This was the triumph of good over evil, the little guys finally coming out on top, history in the making, and I didn’t want them to miss it. Bleary-eyed, the kids lined up on the couch with goofy grins on their faces. When the final out was made, the game was over, and the Red Sox were victorious, the kids let out a whoop while Dan stared at the television in disbelief.

“We actually won. We beat the Yankees,” he said weakly.

I smiled as I felt a mix of joy and relief well up inside me. Just a ballgame? Puh-leeeease!