More Mitten Strings

"Home is no longer just a place to eat and sleep, but a school for our souls and spirits."
Quoting Mother Teresa: "We must not think that our love has to be extraordinary. But we do need to love without getting tired. How does a lamp burn? Through the continuous input of small drops of oil. These drops are the small things of daily life: faithfulness, small words of kindness, a thought for others, our way of being quiet, of looking, of speaking, and of acting. They are the true drops of love that keep our lives and our relationships burning like a lively flame."
Kenison describes a typical over-scheduled weekend, then goes on to ask: "Is this what we mean today by family life? Is it really the way any of us want to live? I think not. Why, then, do we try to do so much? Why, as one friend put it ruefully, are we 'dervishing through life'? . . . I am convinced that one reason we try to do so much is because we are afraid."
I must admit that I'm feeling dervished. This book has just brought out in stark relief something I am not sure I want to face: I am not satisfied living in such a perpetual rush. At first I felt valuable and useful. Now I feel flattened by the weight of demands. I want carefree mornings reading and learning with my children, baking bread, doing gentle nurturing things. I want long walks. I want picnics at the nature center. I want evenings stretching before me peacefully. At least some of the time! I do not want every moment crammed. I am tired of saying to my children, "Hurry up! We have to X and Y and Z before 2." I am exhausted from living in such a mass of stuff that I cannot possibly take care of, consequently it is all always a mess. I am angry that Saturdays to spend as a family seem completely nonexistent--someone is always somewhere. What is the most frustrating is that the "things" we are doing are mostly good---work, Church service, attending the temple, Boy Scouts, visiting and home teaching, what I euphemistically call "opportunities for personal growth" but what really feel to me like lead weights . . . One thing that has always been a "given" in my family is evening time reading good books. We used to get through a huge stack of good books in a year! Now a good week is a week we had two nights to spend fifteen minutes reading! If I weren't already so tired, I'd have a temper tantrum.
There. That's my second official Blog Rant.