Month: July 2009

Categories
Fulfillment

Motherhood: a thing worth doing well done

I can’t remember how I came across this poem. Isn’t that sad? But however I came across the poem, I noted it to blog later.

So go ahead and read the full text of the poem ”
To be of use” by Marge Piercy. (It’s under copyright, so I won’t put the whole thing here.)

The poem lends dignity to the kind of labor that often goes unnoticed—like the labor of motherhood does. The thesis of the poem is that this work isn’t degrading because it’s dirty or difficult. Instead, it’s almost ennobling:

But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

rebecca smilingI can’t think of anything more “worth doing” than bringing up the future. That is the work of motherhood—to instill morals and character into the rising generation. And that job well done—when we get to see our family as good, functioning, contributing adults—I think (and hope and pray!) that will have “a shape that satisfies” unlike any other endeavor we can make in this life.

I’m striving to catch a glimpse of that shape that satisfies every day as I’m in the process of doing “a thing worth doing.” Little things—Hayden spontaneously thanking my grandfather for taking him on a walk, Rebecca blowing kisses, the two of them playing together nicely—are little daily evidences that the job is not only worth doing but going well so far.

How do you see the satisfaction every day?

Categories
MetaBlogging

Advice to lurkers

As I’ve mentioned a couple times, I recently had a guest post on literary agent Nathan Bransford’s blog. (Very exciting!) I’m still keeping up with the discussion in the comments, and yesterday Donna asked an interesting blogging question:

I’m what could be called a “Lurker”. I lurk in blog-land, reading the advise and posts, sometimes having a thing or two to say. After reading everyone else’s posts, whatever questions or comments I might pose have been answered. I’m satisfied. So, I wouldn’t know what to do with a blog of my own, or if someone actually made a comment about what was posted on the web site.

lurkeradvice

I gave a short answer in the comments, but here is a long one:

1. Stop lurking. Every question you’ve ever thought of has really been answered? Even then, I know I appreciate the fourth “thank you, I really needed this today!” as much as the first. In fact, that’s one of my favorite comments to get.

I know I used to feel reluctant to comment, and often still do, especially on big blogs where I don’t know the blogger. But comments are the currency of blogging. Bloggers love (non-hateful) comments. Most of us won’t bite your head off for commenting; we’ll be too busy loving you forever.

2. Find something to say. Blogs are always stronger when they have a focus/niche/topic. The topic of this blog is fulfillment in motherhood. The topic of my writing blog is the art and craft (and business!) of writing. The topic of my work blog is Internet marketing news.

Or, you can phrase it more like an argument: you can find fulfillment in motherhood, this is how you should write (the argument is a bit more complex than that, of course), you should use Internet marketing (and do it thusly).

Don’t have a message to the world? You can sometimes garner a following just posting interesting stuff—research for a novel, travel information, etc.

3. Get out there! I’ve attended a few industry conferences in Internet marketing and publishing. While the subject matter is vastly different, I can attest that you get a lot more out of conferences if you take the opportunity to talk to people. Yes, it’s hard—I’m very shy (I don’t like calling the pizza parlor, or even my friend sometimes!). But so are lots of other people out there. You never know what might happen if you’re willing to take that first step.

And here’s your chance! Whether you’ve commented here once or one thousand times, introduce yourself in the comments and let’s chat!

More WFMW

Photo by Sofie

Categories
Kids/Parenting Fulfillment

Throw yourself into your work

Be sure to check out my guest post on literary agent Nathan Bransford’s blog today, The Top Seven Things Every Aspiring Author’s Website Must Have!

stepping_stonesI know it’s been a while, but I haven’t forgotten about our path to fulfillment!

One of the things that helps me to just relax and enjoy motherhood is doing just that. When I get down on the floor and let myself play with them—not worrying about how much I’d rather be writing or whether a new story or comment or email has come along—is not only (at least mildly) entertaining, it makes me feel like a good mother. Woot for a sense of accomplishment.

Now, this is hard for me, because I don’t really find my kids’ games all that stimulating. (They’re under the age of four; I’m not. It’s okay.) But placing that priority on my children and their play helps me to get my priorities in order.

kids-january-2009-005On the other hand, I’ve found activities we enjoy together—reading, for example. And even when the play isn’t something I would have chosen (I grew up with three sisters! I don’t know how to play cars!), I find that the best part is often watching my kids play, imagine and interact.

I can’t do it all the time, and I know that we have to always strive to take time for ourselves, but when I do make the effort to throw myself into my work as a mother, I actually enjoy it more and worry less.

What do you think? Have you found benefits from playing with your kids? What do you like to play?

Categories
MetaBlogging

Get even more out of FeedBurner

Table of contents for Blogging Add-ons

Guess who’s featured in today’s edition of MommyBrainOnline’s The Boost newsletter? It’s me! Welcome to new visitors! Please subscribe to MamaBlogga to get more posts on finding fulfillment and blogging tips!

It’s been a while since we went through the five easy steps to getting started and seven ways to get more from FeedBurner, the RSS service. Well, FeedBurner recently added a feature to help you get even more out of the service!

FeedBurner has offered email subscriptions for a while, for your blog readers who want to get updates in their inbox instead of in a reader. But while you could customize lots of options for your email newsletters, the subject line was always the same. For years, the only way you could make your email subject line change to match your content was to login every day and do it manually.

But that’s changed! Now you can add a custom feature to your subject line to make it match your post titles. Under Publicize > Email Subscriptions > Email Branding, here’s the new “hot tip”:

gooburner-custom-subject-line
Just add ${latestItemTitle} to your subject line, and the title of your latest post will appear in your subject line.

If you have more than one post per day, you can customize your subject line even more if you check the checkbox. A popup menu appears giving you even more options:
gooburner-custom-subject-line-mult

Why is this helpful? It will help your email subscribers see what’s coming in your email. It should also increase the number of email subscribers who actually open your email, since it won’t get lost in a sea of same-subject emails (like Darren Rowse of ProBlogger points out).

Here’s the official Google announcement of the FeedBurner change.

More Works-for-me Wednesday

So get out there and make your email newsletters even better!

Previous in series
Categories
Random Faith

Freedom

This week, Ryan and I attended an awards gala for four Americans who have “fought for freedom with words or ideas.”

Mona Kashani Heern was born in Iran. After the 1979 revolution, she and her sister were expelled from school because of their Bahá’í beliefs. Their father was later jailed for the same reason. After months of waiting in the snow for hours to spend ten minutes with him once a month, they found out he’d been executed. Eventually, her mother smuggled their family into Pakistan, where they lived in jail until they gained refugee status. They later emigrated to Germany, where Mona and her sister had to learn German, English and French in order to graduate high school. Finally, they moved to the US.

Despite the persecution and hardship she’d endured, a prevailing theme in Mrs. Heern’s acceptance speech was the love and kindness that she’d experienced even in the worst, most oppressive circumstances. As a junior high English teacher, she has a passion for sharing her story with her students so that we Americans understand the privileges of freedom that we enjoy (and take for granted).

Sgt. Merlin German, another recipient, served our country in Iraq, participating in over 150 successful missions. When an IED exploded and knocked him from his Humvee turret, he was burned over 97% of his body and given no chance of survival. He defied doctors and not only survived, but relearned to breathe on his own, talk and even walk.

Concerned about burn victims who couldn’t afford the costly treatments, Sgt. German started Merlin’s Miracles. The foundation has helped thousands of burn victims pay for surgeries, compression garments and hospital stays. During a routine surgery last spring, Sgt. German passed away. His legacy lives on through the hundreds of doctors and patients he personally touched and his charitable foundation.

amflag

President Boyd K. Packer was the final honoree. He longed to become a pilot like his older brother. He promised God that he would devote his life to His service if he could live that dream. President Packer spent forty months in the Air Force during World War II.

Less than two decades after the end of the war, the Lord called President Packer’s promise due. Packer was called to be an assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, then to a member of the Quorum. Since then, he has devoted nearly forty years of his life in the full-time employment as an Apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His ministry has included service all over the world. He is now the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the second most senior apostle.

The first award recipient, Neil Holbrook, was one of the original eight Navy “Frogmen,” the predecessor of the SEALs. In his acceptance speech, he told of a friend who was standing next to him on deck when his friend was shot. They both fell to the deck and his friend struggled to say something, but died before he could speak. Holbrook has spent six decades wondering what his friend would have said.

I’m passing the torch to the future generations. Please take care of that Constitution that I can’t enjoy. … I don’t have the liberty to go home.

When we thanked him for his service afterward, Mr. Holbrook said he would do it again tomorrow for people like us.

To honor the sacrifice of so many people this independence day, we have to remember what they were fighting for. We have to remember that the freedoms we enjoy in this country are privileges that not everyone has. We cannot forget those founding freedoms, and sometimes we have to fight with words or with weapons to keep them, at home and abroad.

Please remember this today as you celebrate Independence Day—and tomorrow, and afterward.

Newspaper coverage of the award ceremony with brief bios

Photo by Benjamin Earwicker

Categories
Work Fulfillment

A contributing member of society

gilbert_keith_chesterton2We’re often told raising our children isn’t enough: we should be “productive.” We should have “real jobs.” Strangers ask us to justify raising our children when we’ve obtained higher learning. We should “contribute to society.” I promised you a rant on how nothing contributes more to society than raising children will, but lovely guest blogger G.K. Chesterton (at right) has taken that up for me.

He was way ahead of his time, you know. I mean, the man died seventy years ago, and he had the foresight to write this post for me. Okay, okay, so really this is just a long quotation. Emphasis, images and paragraphs breaks added.

Woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren’t. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a specialist.

Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment (even when freed from modern rules and hours, and exercised more spontaneously by a more protected person) is in itself too exacting and oppressive, I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in order to keep common-sense in the world.

But when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it.

globeHow can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the Universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, because it is gigantic, not because it is minute.

G. K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World, p 118-119

Thanks, G.K.! (Note that this is taken slightly out of context, but seriously, it’s a lot better this way. Don’t bother reading the stuff that comes before or after it; it’s not quite so “enlightened.”)

In other news, I’d like to note that I was one of five winners of literary agent Nathan Bransford’s guest blogging contest, and my guest post will go live on his blog next week 😀 .

Photo credits: question mark—Svilen Mushkatov; globe—Sanja Gjenero