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Last week I was reading a biography about the poet Rainer Maria Rilke when a loud quacking sound erupted from behind my chair. Unceremoniously yanked out of poetic contemplation, I dropped the book in my lap. Toddler giggles flowed uncontrollably as I looked around in confusion. Behind the chair, my daughter was crouched down, hands covering her mouth and thinking she’d made the funniest joke in the world. It was no duck — it was my sweet and precious daughter, interrupting Daddy’s reading time.
Each day I try to carve out an hour of time for a book. That hour, shall we say, takes place in discrete, smaller blocks of time. I scan a page. A toddler hangs on my leg. I pause in the middle of a page to play a round of hide and seek. I read another paragraph. My daughter brings me a bouncy ball. I toss the bouncy ball around with her until we lose it under one of the radiators. I read another page. She drags me outside on a nature walk during where we examine leaves and berries. Back inside, I read another page before realizing I have to get to a work meeting. Total pages read: Four.
With six children, I often find myself at the eye of a hurricane. The boys tumble through the room, laughing and punching each other, the girls skip through wearing butterfly wings, singing songs and dancing. In the heart of the maelstrom, I am a rock. I am a paternal force exuding steadiness and the unbreakable desire and commitment to sit in my chair and read. Just. One. Single. Page.
Families are noisy and chaotic. Our house is full of yelling, shouting, laughing, and giggling. There’s whining and snuggling, pretend gun battles and ballerina performances. In the middle of it all, I’m truly at peace.
The chaos of family is, if anything, invigorating. Living peacefully, in my mind, has nothing to do with superficial calm or quiet. Peace isn’t the lack of something. It isn’t merely the absence of conflict, noise, or activity. Peace is a tangible quality. We achieve it. We build a peaceful life together, as a family.
I want my children to be friends, not siblings who fight and argue and eventually grow apart. Sometimes this means they need to be free to work out their problems and learn to negotiate with and forgive each other. I cannot quash the argument and impose an artificial peace on the situation. There’s no shortcut to genuine relationship-building.
I hope for my children to live cheerful, joyous lives. My wish is that they will develop virtues of humility and gentleness, that they will actively seek to live at peace with each other and with everyone they meet.
Living peacefully doesn’t just happen. It isn’t as easy as demanding that yelling and arguments cease, or pretending that everything is all right if it isn’t. We’re like any other family. We have fights. Those disagreements must be addressed and healed, not swept under a rug. The ability to overcome conflict and emerge with a stronger friendship, this takes effort. True peace is hard-won. It’s a virtue to be practiced and cultivated.
Peace is the result of positive engagement with each other. I’m not always the best at it, and admit that sometimes when I’m desperate for a quiet hour to read or tired after a long day at work and don’t want to deal with inter-personal conflict, I’m not exactly the bringer-of-peace in our household. I’ve managed to figure out, however, after lots of failures, that striving for genuine peace is worth the effort. In fact, when I’m tired and impatient is when I need it most. It may be a sacrifice to set ourselves to the task of peace-making, but I’ve found that our family has benefited tremendously. The overall result is a peaceful household.
Superficially speaking, my peace and quiet is regularly interrupted. And yes, our family can become embroiled in personal conflict. But as we learn to live with each other, we learn to love each other. I can honestly say that my life is grounded in peace in a way it never was when I was on my own. Back then, I had opportunity and time to do whatever I wanted. I never had to share space and was never interrupted from what I wanted to do. But that peace was too easy. It lacked love. It lacked someone to share it with.
So sometimes a duck quacks at me while I’m trying to read German Romantic poetry, but as Rilke might say, people who love each other stand guard over each other. So I will stand guard over my children, and they can interrupt me anytime with their giggles and laughter, their fights and reconciliations, their need for a father’s time and attention. Over it all settles a peace that transcends all understanding, guarding our hearts and minds.
And today we celebrate...