I walked my daughter in to four year old preschool in September 2012. I had no idea what to expect. It felt wrong to drop her off and drive away. It felt wrong to drop her off with strangers when for every single second of her four years she had been supervised only by people who loved her dearly. All I kept thinking was the milestone this was and how ten years from then, I would pick her up from her last day of eighth grade.

That day was today.

I always knew I would mourn the passing of my babies’ childhoods. I think that much is given no matter how much you love who they are and the times you are in.  We love them so much at every stage that even overwhelmingly positive changes bring about some grief.

But honestly… what I didn’t know was the amount of gratitude I would feel pulling out of that parking lot today.  Not gratitude for today, but gratitude for all the days that came before today.

I dropped her off ten years ago, and she only knew one person at the entire school, and that little girl wasn’t even going to school the same days she was.  I picked her up today as a young woman who knew everyone in the building she was leaving. 

She was loved.  She loved.

I sometimes, for the briefest of moments, will consider the amount of money we are paying to send four kids through Catholic school from preschool through high school.  We aren’t wealthy people. Our lives would look so much different if we didn’t have to write out those tuition checks.

Yet when I pulled out of that parking lot today, I knew that every single cent was worth it because every single cent went into making my baby girl who she is today.

She won’t remember her fourth grade night of wonders. She likely won’t remember dressing up like a museum docent to present a report in fifth grade. She won’t remember all of her All Saint’s Day Costumes. She won’t remember the reverence with which she held her little First Reconciliation booklet or the look she gave me walking back from receiving her First Holy Communion.

She may not remember them, but they have become part of her fabric, part of the collective unconscious that will make her what she is destined to become.

I laugh when I think about how I thought I was leaving her with strangers.  All of those women and men who taught her have become like family to her. We have heard about them around our dinner table for ten years now. Some of them are teaching her little sisters. Some I am sure will become mentors for years to come.

They were all great teachers.  She hasn’t had a single teacher I would have changed in all ten years.  But they did so much more than teach her math or science or history. They respected her. They respected her as a student and as a person and as a child of God.

I wanted my children to go to Catholic school because I wanted them to love God. What I didn’t know at the time was how little my own love of God was. These teachers taught me to love without ever needing to say a word to me. They taught me how to love God because they taught my daughters how to love him. And they brought me to him through them. They have left a mark on every single aspect of our lives. They have helped make my family who it is.

The biggest part of me is grieving years already spent, but the second biggest part of me is grieving the friends who she will not see every day.  We don’t have kids over often. It just never really seems to happen. But still, these girls who M has been friends with since honestly before the time she can remember have been such a blessing to her.

I don’t make it any secret that I’ve always been weary of bullies. I saw the dangers they could pose, and I wanted to protect my daughters so much from that. The funny thing is that I was so afraid of the downfalls of girl friendships that the benefits just kind of snuck up on me without me even knowing it.

As we pulled out of the parking lot today, M showed me a gift a dear friend gave her. Obviously I’ll keep the details private, but what struck me so much was just how appreciated my girl was and how much she appreciated her friend in return. Friendships like that don’t come easy. They take year in and year out of knowing and caring and laughing. And what a gift it is when you see them for what they are.

As we pulled out today, M kept saying, “I can’t believe it’s done.” So much is said in that sentence. All that was to be, all the experiences, all of the tears and the laughter, all of the rocket math and vocabulary quizzes, all of the secret crushes and best friend promises, all of the tests studied for, poetry read and narratives written, all of what life has been over the past ten years.

It’s finished.

And so I was crying for my baby girl today who is no longer a baby. But more so, I was crying out of gratitude. Some times a place isn’t just a place. It’s not just a building or a job or a school. It’s a history. It’s her history. It’s our history. I couldn’t love my baby girl as much as I do without feeling overwhelming thankfulness for the place that has made her so much of who she is.

The post Goodbye Eighth Grade first appeared on Amanda M Knapp.

So we are one week away from Holy Week, and I haven’t *really* gotten any Easter gifts for the kiddos yet. Number two just told me the other day that she doesn’t believe in Santa anymore. While I would neither confirm or deny, I assume that her saying that elves making presents seems far fetched means she just might find a big human-sized bunny hopping all around the planet in one night might be the same.

Oh well. I still hope there’s magic.

Anyway, I wanted to share a few books with you that would make great stocking stuffers for the little ones (primarily under 10) on your list. I don’t do pretty pictures or elaborate crafts, but I do know books.

The Wordless Weaver

I knew I needed this book as soon as I heard the title. This is a fictional story about a real object – the Shroud of Turin. In the story a girl with no voice sets about weaving an object that ends of being the shroud. The book reminds me of all that is good and holy about things made from our hands and our hours.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect with this book, but I was so enchanted with it. I’ve had many discussions with friends about how to keep littles interested during the family rosary. My biggest recommendation is always to stick with one rosary. It works best for us! But it’s also great to have visuals. I reviewed the Sorrowful Mysteries, and it is simply beautiful. Each page has the prayer the kiddos should say (hurrah for lots of page turning!) and a beautiful work of sacred art for the whole family to contemplate. It’s stunning.

Marian Consecration for Families with Young Children

We used this consecration a few months ago and it was beautiful. We learned so much about Mary, and my daughters were able to enter into her experience so easily through the beautiful illustrations, thoughtful commentary, and insightful questions. While this is intended for families with little children, older children can definitely get just as much if not more from it. I used it with my kids all the way from 4-12.

Stations of the Cross for Kids

I’ve been talking about this book a lot on my Instagram. It has transformed our Lent. It has been a wonderful way to end each day reflecting on the Passion of our Lord. It has brought up solid discussions and steeps us in prayer. I know that Stations are mainly said during Lent, but I just couldn’t leave this off the list. It is a must have.

God the Father and the Best Day Ever

This is salvation history for littles… with rhyme. It starts with our Fall and ends with God the Father saving the world through the life, death, and resurrection of his only begotten Son. It’s a delight. I would say this gears more towards 4-6 year olds.

So those are my favorites for this Easter. We don’t only do spiritual books for Easter, but I like to include them.

Please note, if you decide to purchase any of these books using the links above, you will be helping to support this blog financially.

The post Books for Easter Baskets first appeared on Amanda M Knapp.

So friends, I wrote a book. That sounds ridiculous to me, but it’s true nevertheless. I wrote a book.

It’s called Trending Towards Hope: Short Reflections on Anxiety, Depression, and Hope. While I’ve been writing about such issues for years now, this is a bit of a risk for me, putting it all down into one place and calling it a book.

But we weren’t called for safety. We were called for more.

During all those years when I struggled with so much anxiety and during the times I struggled with depression, I always asked why I had to suffer in this way. After all, when the suffering is in your brain and in your heart, it’s hard to escape from, and it colors everything you do.

I always heard an answer though, and that answer was that I have a voice and I am willing to share my wounds.

When I was struggling the most with depression, I searched high and low to find a book that pointed to my exact struggles. I never did. Surely there are books that were intimate glimpses into these struggles, but no two people are the same, and as such, I just didn’t read my own experience. It made me feel so much more alone.

So I took many of my previous writings that are no longer available online, and I reworked them and I worked them into a book. I don’t speak authoritatively on anxiety or depression just as all of those other writers that I read do. But I do speak of my own particular brand of illness. My hope is that somewhere out there someone struggles in the way I did, and they will find their experience in my words.

That’s how bridges are built.

So anyway, right now it’s only on sale with the Catholic Moms Bundle. This is a good thing because you aren’t just taking a risk buying my book – there are 21 other resources in there by other writers and artists. Some are about Lent, but others are about self care. I’m including the list below.

The good news is these are great products. (I’m using quite a few myself.) But the bad news is that it’s only on sale until tomorrow – January 29th.

So head over here and check it out. You won’t be disappointed.

And if you do decide to purchase, please use the link below to support your friendly neighborhood blogger.

God bless!

https://transactions.sendowl.com/stores/8100/202715

Other Resources in the Catholic Moms Bundle

• Seek simplicity as a family with “7 Days to Simplicity” by Heidi Indahl
• Bolster up your homeschool with “30 Days of Praying for My Homeschool Video Challenge + Journal” from Mom For All Seasons
• Find whole-person health with “A Beginners Guide to Wellness with Faustina” by Catholic Fit Moms for Life
• Study the Saints with “Canadian Saints Kids Activity Book” by Bonnie Way
• Print and gift detailed “Catholic Saints Valentine Exchange Bundle” from Catholic Paper Goods
• Handout adorable little cards with “Catholic Valentines Bundle” by The Kennedy Adventures
• Give littles penmanship practice with “Color and Trace Sheets and Valentines” from The Washington Homestead
• Help your girls appreciate their value in Christ with “Coloring Pages and Inspiring Prints” from Prayer Wine Chocolate
• Uncover the depth and beauty of Scripture with “Come and See: A Gospel of John Reading Guide” by Someday Saints
• Teach your first communicants with “Confession Lapbook + Ten Commandments Mini Book” from Sara J Creations
• Define your household’s unique calling with “Family Mission Statement Guide” from Annunciation Designs
• Create new Lenten traditions with “Feast Fast Feria Family Lent” from Barefoot Abbey
• Finish Lent strong with “Holy Week Prayer Journal and Paschal Candle” by To Jesus, Sincerely
• Entertain and educate with “Learning the 10 Commandments with Billy the Puppet” by Faith and Puppets
• Listen to the stirrings of the Holy Spirit with “Lent 2021 Quote Journal” by Lindsay Schlegel
• Celebrate the liturgical year with “Liturgical Living Weekly Meal Planner” from Catholic All Year
• Learn embroider for beginners with “Offer It Up Embroidery Pattern” from Happy Nest Home Goods
• Create a full set of peg dolls with “Printable Peg Doll Wraps- The Passion Set” from Catholic Icing
• Study the Passion for young children with “Stations of the Cross for Families with Young Children” from Elevator to Heaven
• Create a visual aid for taking to church or staying home with “Stations of the Cross Spinwheel” by Arma Dei
• Refresh your spirit with “Treading Towards Hope: Short Reflections on Anxiety, Depression, and Hope” by Amanda Knapp
• Rewire your mind with “Why Affirmations Matter” by Catholic Mom Vibes

The post My New Book first appeared on Amanda M Knapp.

I’ve been trying to remain silent. I’ve been trying to stay off of social media and the news media.

What that basically amounts to is me on social media while watching news networks stewing that no one is saying what I want them to say.

So I’ll say what I want to hear.

This world is not going to change. The people in power are not going to do what we need them to. Our leaders, for the most part, are more interested in advancing their own interests than in advancing the betterment of the people and our country. They’re exceedingly human in that regard.

But let’s take a moment and look around. How many people have you hidden or blocked on Facebook or Twitter because they were too divisive? Or even just because you disagreed with them? Are you more likely to hide those with whom you disagree? How many people feel safe disagreeing with you on their page or on your own? How many of the phone calls you make are talking about what is wrong “out there?” How many of your anxious hours are spent wondering why the other half of the country has gotten things so wrong?

We, my friends, are the problem. We get the leaders we deserve. If division didn’t work to win votes, our elected officials wouldn’t rely on it. If leaders weren’t able to stir up passions to violence, on both sides, they wouldn’t do it.

In none of the civil unrest over the past 12 months have the leaders participated. They aren’t there marching on the streets protesting racism or storming the halls of Congress protesting elections. They don’t need to. They have us to do their bidding. And in the meantime, we are granting them more and more power.

We live in a world that is so full of chaos that it’s hard to find a moment to think a clear thought.

But we must.

I think we can all see that we need some kind of social and moral revolution here, and I’m sorry to say that we all have an overwhelming amount of work to do. But it’s not on social media and it’s not in writing letters and it’s not in attending protests of any persuasion.

It’s work in our hearts.

We need to heal our own hearts and our own minds before our country can ever heal.

One person with a lot of power can sow a lot of hatred. Millions of people, intent on serving their neighbor with love and respect can sow ever so much more love.

We simply do not have the luxury of waiting for others to do it. We must do it ourselves, and we must start now.

How?

We must pray for our enemy.

We must seek that which we have in common and amplify it.

We must put an absolute stop to demonizing our opponents in our own heads.

We must avoid conversations that pit us versus them.

We must assume good intentions about those with whom we disagree. Believe it or not, we all want what is best for our country.

And we must do all of these things in front of our children.

The revolution we need in this country isn’t out there. It’s inside. This very well might be the single greatest step we can take for our country, our family, our future, and our soul.

The problem isn’t out there, my friends. The brokenness is in every single human heart. The more firmly we believe the other side is the problem, the more intently we have to look into our own hearts.

Be the change can’t just be a pretty quote we read in our planners. It must be what we live by and what we exemplify for others.

I don’t think people want to feel this hate and anger and anxiety. I think if people see us flourishing and peaceful, they will want that too. Our own peace can be the greatest testimony we have.

So please. Close your eyes. Silence your hearts. Turn to God. And please let’s just see each other as human beings again, Imago Dei. After all, he doesn’t love us one single ounce more than he loves our greatest enemy. He also doesn’t love us a single ounce less.

Please follow me on Facebook or Instagram.

The post We Need to Stand Up and Be the Change first appeared on Amanda M Knapp.

I enrolled in a poetry class in graduate school. One month later I dropped it. It wasn’t so much that it was entirely over my head as much as I had enrolled in more courses than I could handle.

And it was over my head.

I used to love poetry as a kid. I wrote countless poems. I would keep them in a purple binder, and once a week or so, I would rewrite them out neatly and I would redo my little table of contents. I loved those poems.

What strikes me about this memory isn’t the seriousness with which I took my poetry. I was always kinda weird like that. What strikes me is that I wasn’t afraid of poetry as a child, and yet somewhere along the way I became afraid. Like many of us do.

As many of you know I started homeschooling my kids this year. One of the first read alouds on my first day was “The Land of Nod,” by Robert Louis Stevenson. I’m not entirely sure if it was the poem itself or if it was the sentimentality of that moment, but I fell in love. I fell so much in love, in fact, that I framed the poem and hung it in my daughter’s room.

For me at that moment, it encompassed childhood – the wonder, the mystery, the bigness of it all.

What that what Stevenson most wanted me to get out of that poem? I’m not entirely sure. But it’s what I got out of it, and that’s just fine with me.

I think you could say that that poem and Favorite Poems of Childhood (Dover Publications) is what reignited my love of reading poetry with my children.

Ironically, it didn’t really reignite my love of reading poetry by myself. To be honest, that always felt awkward. It felt odd to sit down with a book of poetry and ponder even though pondering prose is what I do with the majority of my very meager free time.

But then I opened Poems to See By (Plough Publishing,) and it taught me love poetry for my own sake.

The first poem I read in there was “The World Is Too Much with Us” by William Wadsworth. This book is illustrated by a graphic artist, and as such, all the poems are laid out as graphic art. I wasn’t expecting this, but I was enthralled by it.

Here I saw Wadsworth’s poem from the early 19th century alongside technology… and all that serves to dehumanize us… in the 21st century. Just this evening I was reading through “Ozymandias” by 19th century Percy Bysshe Shelley depicted across images of modern day terrorists and that fateful at sea “Mission Accomplished” display of George W Bush.

My first reaction to all of these poems was awe. The illustrations made me slow down, they made the language more accessible, they made the story more real.

All of a sudden I was no longer afraid of poetry. I was back to that 10 year old girl who saw poetry as something that belonged to me and to anyone who wished to take ownership.

But seeing it portrayed in these historical lights can also start to play tricks with your brain. It forces you to ask questions about who holds the meaning of the poem – the writer or the reader. After all Wadsworth clearly wasn’t referencing the new iphone as he penned his work.

So it seemed to me at first that these illustrations were not historically accurate… until I remembered that history repeats itself, that no human story is ever really new, and that the experiences and feelings that make us human transcend time and particulars.

In essence, any of these poets and the experiences they share belong to us all, they belong to the ages, just as poetry belongs to all of us whether we grasp all the subtle nuances and allusions or not.

I end this year feeling much richer than I did beginning it. I feel this world that held so much awe and fascination for me as a child was given back to me. It’s like reuniting with an old friend or even an imaginary friend. Someone who lives in the recesses of your mind where wonder and awe reside.

Perhaps that is where we are most human after all.

Photo Credit

The post Poetry Belongs to Us All first appeared on Amanda M Knapp.

When I was younger, I used to love the idea of yoga and inner peace and radiating joy and inspirational quotes. My walls were always filled with quotes – some in beautiful frames and others written hastily on post it notes and tacked haphazardly on the wall.

Truth be told, I still love inspirational quotes, and I was reminded recently by a friend of the importance of surrounding ourselves and our families with words of truth.

It would be easy to blame me becoming disillusioned about all the other zen-like attempts at inner peace on 2020. After all, I think we’ve all had our foundations rocked.

But for me, it started long before that.

It started somewhere in the years when, for me, standard cliched quotes about centering oneself and finding one’s truth started to ring hollow. I followed what the world told me would bring me peace. But it only brought me confusion and anxiety. No amount of mind-emptying deep breathing, centering poses or peaceful candles could bring my heart to the place that it needed to be.

It was around that time that I stopped looking within for peace and I started looking above.

Truth be told, in some ways it’s more difficult to seek peace through God. It’s more difficult because it asks something of us.

The peace of the modern world is a peace that tells us we can find happiness when we follow our bliss and refuse to be constrained by traditional morals or ethics or rules or belief systems. It is a peace that expects nothing of us, and precisely because of that, it also doesn’t deliver much to us.

It’s fleeting.

On the contrary, the peace of the Lord asks us to sacrifice. It asks us to take a stand. It asks us to renounce and affirm and pick up our crosses and march forward. It expects a lot, but it delivers even more.

It’s within this framework really that I have approached some of the trials of 2020. Like many people, I see the darkness and the oppression seeping in all around, and I find myself craving joy, craving peace. I want to shine a light in this darkened world and bring hope where hope is so desperately needed.

My husband and I started a Consecration to Saint Joseph at the beginning of the year, but we lost our way close to the end of it when Covid and shutdowns and e-learning happened. I asked my husband yesterday to pick that up with me again, and we started anew, at day one, yesterday.

But I was still craving more. We have four daughters, and while we could consecrate ourselves and our family to someone greater than ourselves, I wanted my daughters to be able to do the same. I wanted to do it in a way that would be meaningful to them.

Our pastor always says that there is no such thing as a coincidence – he calls them “God-incidences,” and so I have to think that it was providential that in the mail today I received my copy of Marian Consecration for Families with Young Children.

This was what I have been waiting for, and I feel receiving it today was an answer of a prayer from God.

So much has seemed fleeting this year that I have been craving the tangible. I stopped doing my Scriptural Rosary because the verses were online, and then I found a picture book copy of the same thing and resumed. I stopped writing so much because, again, I felt locked behind a screen in a world in which every word is mediated through pixels and programs. It didn’t feel authentic. I stopped reading about good and meaningful worldly topics because all I really wanted was a connection to what was and is and always will be truly greater than I am.

And now I have this book. Something tangible to share with my daughters. Pictures we can all ogle over. Representations of the Holy Family depicted in races and ethnicities from all over the world – something everyone can find a home in. Lessons to help teach my children all about Marian dogma while asking them to search within themselves for answers about what they want to say to her as they search for the words to make those stirrings of their little hearts into prayers.

And of course, as CS Lewis reminds us, “No book is really worth reading at the age of ten that is not equally – and far more often – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.” Meaning… I’m sure my husband and I will glean more from the consecration than even our children will.

I don’t think the ball will drop on 2020 and I will have found the substance that I am truly seeking just as I don’t think the oppression I have been feeling this year will be raised. But I do think all of these trials that we face, the trials that force us to look to someplace higher will forge something new in our hearts. They are the seeds that will grow and flower and create roots in our hearts and in our souls.

They will become our resolve. And our perseverance. And our compassion. And our empathy. And our faith.

We have to believe better days are ahead, and we have to believe that the trials of these days are leading us there.

____________

By the way, you may have noticed that I have not blogged in quite awhile. I have still been writing, it’s just I do most of my writing on Instagram these days. It’s easier to format, and people automatically see it – that way I don’t have to spend all my time trying to get my words in front of people’s eyeballs.

I would love it if you would join us over there. If you don’t have Instagram, my IG posts go straight through the Facebook. It’s just harder to see them on Facebook because of their algorithms.

The post Digging Deep first appeared on Amanda M Knapp.

Well, not so much. From what I understand, homeschooling is this interactive, delightful initiative where we can saturate our children’s minds with all that is good and beautiful and true.

E-learning is all of us (teachers, administrators, parents, students) doing our ultimate best in a very difficult situation to do right by our kids. To keep them learning, keep them growing, keep them connected and engaged. All while staying far apart for the safety of those nearest and dearest to us.

I cannot thank the teachers and staff and my daughters’ school enough for the truly beautiful work they are trying to accomplish in the most difficult of situations. Now through video and live videoconferencing, I can see just how much they pour into our children everyday.

They love them. And for that, I love them. Dearly.

But e-learning still isn’t the same. I’ve been thinking over the past few weeks about how I can take the best of the e-learning world and the best of the homeschooling world to make this situation the best I can for my children.

My ideas aren’t foolproof, and I can’t promise they aren’t foolhardy, but they are what I have.

I’ve realized that for certain subject (cough, cough, math and science and anything that would fit into the STEM acronym,) our teachers are my children’s saving grace. I cannot do better than them. I will not try.

But I do know language. And I know literature. And I know religion. I also know holistic learning and critical thinking and delving deep.

And those are the areas we are going to shine in.

My children have been writing, per their teacher’s directions, from the beginning, so we are going to keep up with that. I’m a big fan of journal writing. My oldest is also working on a book with a friend and my middle two love writing stories.

Literature is handled differently for the different grades, but it’s also an area that we can always add on to. We have been reading Strawberry Girl as a family for the past week or so. This book teaches them about Southern Florida life in the 1800s as it engulfs them in a truly beautiful and literary story. There’s so much richness there.

After this, we decide to move on to a different story in Lois Lensky’s American Regional Series, Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison. I’m a proponent of literature for literature’s sake, but I also love that they are learning about different people and times in these books. After all, one of the things that literature does best is teach us in a way that doesn’t feel like we are learning. It also helps us grow in empathy as we delve into the emotions of people who live in worlds that are greatly different from ours.

The other area that my children’s school does very well but that I think we can supplement during this time is religion. All of my children are studying different topics right now, so I found that instead of trying to center any activities around their topics, we will use the built in liturgical calendar. We are primarily focused on the lives of the saints. I like this approach because even the youngest of children enjoy great saint stories, and my older girls can learn as much about them as the web and print provides if they should want to.

A book that proves very valuable for this is The North American Martyrs Kids Activity Book. We were lucky to receive a review copy of this book a few months back, and it is growing ever more useful. My daughters love coloring, and in this they have a treasure trove of beautiful pictures and activities, and I don’t have to scour the web trying to find them.

The book has many activities. Favorites of ours include the word searches and make your own bookmarks. It also gives great background on the saints. This book is loved by both my first grader as well as her older sisters.

I know there is a lot flying around the internet these days about how to best spend your quarantine time. I hope this isn’t taken in the same vein. I’m not working. I have time to spend adding things to my children’s days. I also struggle with structure, and my mental health requires me to add some added structure into our days. So please, if you are not doing these things, please trust that that is okay. And while I may be adding “enrichment” to my children’s schooling, my house is a mess, my bed is unmade, we are eating way too much delivery, and I’m wearing old ratty sweats. We are all doing the best we can.

Below are links for the resources we have used. All links are affiliate links, so this blog will receive a slight commission on any purchase you make through these links. We appreciate your support.

The post How We are Schooling first appeared on Amanda M Knapp.

We did it, my friends. We finished reading the entire Little House on the Prairie series. We’ve read some of the books more than once with multiple kids, but as a group, my oldest three and I, have made it through the entire series from the first words of the Big Woods to the final words of The First Four Years.

We actually should have finished the series two days ago, but my oldest wouldn’t let me. She was sad at the thought of it being over, so she wanted to make it last a little longer.

I obliged.

This really is a bittersweet moment for me. Clearly we aren’t done with the Ingalls family. We are only halfway through the television series, and when I realized how close we were to finishing the book series, I bought one of two books of letters written by Wilder. I have plenty of vicarious pioneer living ahead of me.

The sadness of having finished something that we worked on, off and on, for multiple years (we read many books in between) is sweet though as I realize that these memories are now imprinted into the fabric of our family.

After all, much of what creates sustained bonds over decades are the stories about ourselves that we share. And us reading this series is as much a part of our family lore as family dinners and vacations have been.

We like reading. We are book people. When we want to spend quality time together, it almost invariably involves a book. Even when we are in the car, we are often listening to an audiobook.

It’s just what we do as a family.

But even for the least literary families among us, those family bonds are solidified by something. It could be sports or travel or music or running. Our family lives, the stuff that weaves the fabric that supports the big endeavors, are invariably built by innumerable small acts performed repeatedly without end.

The first time I read a Little House book to a child of mine was in my bed in my old house with my eldest. So today as I finished our joint read with my oldest three, we all huddled in my bed and read the last 15 pages. I almost cried as I turned the final page. Then we dove into a discussion about the best and worst of the series.

I know I’ll be here again. After all, my three year old has only read through the picture book adaptations with me thus far. I hope when it’s her time to start through the series that her big sisters will join me and live these moments with her, cementing her in the fabric of this shared family experience.

Our first go round of the Laura Ingalls Wilder story is finished, but the story it has written into our lives will live on until hopefully one day my daughters will each get cozy on a recliner with a daughter of their own and start anew these beloved stories.

(Interested in purchasing the affiliate link? Feel free to purchase through my Amazon affiliate link and help support this blog.)

The post The Stories We Tell first appeared on Amanda M Knapp.

Do you know what you want to be when you grow up?

You probably have already answered that question, haven’t you? You’ve gone to college, gotten a degree or two, and are probably well entrenched in your vocation.

But is it that simple?

I teach Chinese kids English online. One of the questions I ask while getting to know them is what they want to be when they grow up. I get the typical answers, their dreams not much different in that sense from the kiddos I talk to in America.

It’s not their answers that surprise me. Instead, these days, it’s my response to the very question I’m asking that surprises me. I don’t feel comfortable asking it, at least in those words, because I don’t feel comfortable with the implications. Namely, the implication that what we are is what we do for a living.

What do you want to be? What are you? What do you do?

Do we really want to answer that question with a job title? After all, is one an accountant, or is one a human being with myriad loves and joys, hopes, dreams, and struggles? Who makes money crunching numbers.

I think this question is bothering me at this juncture because I’m trying to decide if I’ll re-enter the workforce in a couple of years and if I do, what that will look like. At the same time, I’m trying to take my writing more seriously and see if I can take it anywhere. The where I want to take it is what I’m not so sure of.

I guess, in the end, we all have questions about how to define who we are and what we do and where we are going. We are all tasked with finding the paths that lead to a meaningful and purposeful life. How we answer those questions, in fact how we even perceive the questions asked, will in large part determine the life we will have led.

So what are your questions? What is it you want to answer with your life? Which priorities are worth staking it all on? What can you say yes to and what can you say no to and feel at peace with when you lay your head down one final time?

In the words of Mary Oliver, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

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The post Your One Wild and Precious Life first appeared on Amanda M Knapp.

I used to be a teacher.  I taught college English.  I adored it.  I loved working with students one on one and talking about their writing and encouraging them.  I loved to see their confidence grow as they became more and more comfortable expressing themselves in their writing.

Every now and then though, I would have a difficult time.  During these times, would catch a reflection of myself in a window or I would imagine how I looked or came across to my students.  Then I would stop.  I would no longer even know what I was even saying if I could say anything at all.  A panic would rush over me, and it would take a bit for me to bury those thoughts again and move forward.

And I think perhaps that is why I like writing so much.  As much as my students had a difficult time showing themselves on paper, I had an equally difficulty showing myself in the real world.  Writing was my arena.  It was where I could exist as myself, purely myself, without having to worry about my body distorting myself.  It was where I could truly be myself.  It was my response to the idea of “a face made for radio.”

Those little glimpses of myself as an embodied spirit didn’t only haunt me in my teaching.  They have haunted me for as long as I can remember.  The deepest longing of my younger being was that I could finally get rid of my body.  I never wanted my life to go away – I wanted to continue to live and to thrive right where I was.  I just desperately wished that I, that we, could all do it without the hinderance of the temporal.

Looking back, I could see that my struggles were just as much spiritual as they were physical.  In fact, they were probably more ontological than sensual in every way.  I just simply didn’t understand what the purpose of a body was, and I most definitely didn’t value the one I had.  I didn’t understand that it was a part of me just as much, even more so, than the feelings I thought so deeply and the thoughts I held so earnestly.

The sad thing is that I don’t think I’m really alone in this.  At this moment, I think our culture is at a bit of a crisis point when it comes to understanding what it truly means to live in a body.  This crisis is important and it’s worth giving ourselves over to fix it because as much as this crisis can affect all of us, it affects most those who come after us.  Those who have to learn what it means to be a physical being from the people and the world around them.  

I decided a few years ago that I needed to fix these misperceptions of mine.  I saw that I had four daughters to help develop into whole and holy women, and I knew I couldn’t do it as I was.  I couldn’t teach what I didn’t know.  And so I searched.  I started trying to understand the spiritual answers to all of those questions and doubts and fears that had plagued me for most of my life.  I sought answers in the teachings of the Catholic Church.

To be honest, sometimes the answers sounded odd.  Sometimes they almost sounded backwards.  They didn’t make sense in the framework I had been operating from.  

And then it hit me.

The reason the answers seemed backwards was because they were being proposed in a culture that has it all wrong and that has had it wrong from well before I was even born.

Our media and our thought leaders and our political movements all tell us that our bodies are a means to an end.  They tell us that they are to be a source of pleasure.  Something to be bartered in exchange for pleasure or companionship or a high or an escape or a thrill.  They tell us that they are a means to productivity.  That their health is meant to be sacrificed on the altar of success and money and promotion.  And they tell us that they are billboards meant to advertise our worth – but not, and never, our dignity.  

In today’s world, our body’s appearance is our barter, but its dignity is ignored.

You don’t have to dig deep into the archives of the internet or listen long to what is portrayed on the news to hear about how Catholic social teaching is hateful.  How it discriminates.  How it marginalizes those whose lifestyle choices it deems to be against God’s will.  How it’s repressive and harmful and dangerous.  And perhaps it does seem like that to those who believe it is arbitrary.  Who believe the purpose of the social teaching is to maintain a status quo and to punish those who are different, to keep those who are in in and those who are out out.

But you also don’t have to dig deep into Catholic social teaching to discover just how erroneous that is.  To realize that the teachings don’t stem from hatred but from a deep belief in the dignity of each and every human body.  That they stem from a belief that our bodies tell us both about ourselves, our world, and our God and that they are worth so very much more than we could possibly understand.  They are worth more than the food or the drug we use to numb them, and they are worth ever so much more than the pleasure we attempt to derive from them.

We can learn that God gave us gifts, sensual gifts, that can bring us all sorts of temporal joy but that to exploit those gifts at the expense of our bodies hurts not only God, not only our society, but our very selves.  Even if we don’t believe it does.  Even if it the self-abuse makes us feel empowered.  Even if it’s what we really, really want.

I hear people condemning the Church and her teachings.  I hear people wondering how I could raise my daughters in a Catholic Church that does not respect women, and I no longer know how to respond.  I know they are wrong.  I know our Church’s teachings are beautiful and that they can only enhance my daughters’ understanding of their bodies and their lives and their inheritance.  But I also know that those words will most likely just fall on deaf ears to those who don’t wish to understand.

It is in those times that I’m reminded that what we do will always speak more loudly than what we say, and that in these circumstances, what we do refers most strongly to how we treat our own bodies — how we treat them with dignity and respect and understand that what we do to and with our bodies affects every other aspect of our lives.

As human beings, we are embodied spirits.  To ignore either aspect of that is to deny an absolutely crucial aspect of all we were created to be.

If you would like to learn more about talking to your kids about principles contained in Theology of the Body, check out this site by Colleen at Elevator to Heaven.  She has some great resources there.

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