Sunday

It's early Sunday morning. Too early to be awake, but JR has crawled into our bed in the middle of the night and now he and Dad are both sleeping diagonally, and there is no room for me. So I'm awake watching them sleep. JR is almost upside down, with his one foot hanging off the bed. His foot is beautiful. Perfect, really. I think about this foot, and how this is how God intended life to be. Children are born into this world and they are beautiful, physically, mentally, emotionally. Then we live. We grow. We change shape. Our feet get hardened, we get injured, we scar. I think about the charge we've been given by God - to raise this child. To protect his beauty, his goodness, his innocence. I wonder if we're doing okay. If we're parenting him in a way that does honor to the beautiful child that he is.

Later, during the children's liturgy at church, we talk about the brothers James and John, and Jesus telling them that if they truly want to be great, they need to become servants. Again I find myself thinking about the job I'm doing parenting this child.

Then, back at church (twice in one day! what kind of Catholic am I?), we gather for a family celebration of All Saints Day and the kids make paper chains with the names of all the people they know who are "holy," who are good. JR begins by listing all of his friends from preschool. And I think, yes, of course, they are all good. They are all beautiful children. They are all gifts. And I say a prayer that we will all remember to treat them as such.