Poetry and-- Pandemonium & Paradise

An absolutely wonderful farewell post from Cindy at Dominion Family --I will sure miss her online presence, as her blog is the first one I ever read and still one of my favorites! God bless you and keep you, Cindy!

She writes:

In the end, it was not the evil things on the Internet, not even the arguments and negativity, but rather the good things that bogged me down. So many, many good things. Pictures of decorated houses, libraries, recipes, book suggestions (this alone has been enough to almost drown me), crafts, knitting, aprons, sewing, frugality, weather, poetry, audio files, friends, homeschooling suggestions, music and the ideas, the wonderful, wonderful ideas.....

I would love to write another story about that beautiful evil Pandora. In my story, she would release a box full of a million good things leaving restraint in the box.

So the last message of this blog is what it has always been. Less is better. Little things done daily are better than grand plans. Give your children lots of tiny moments. When they approach the computer turn your chair around and look them in the eye and if you find more in their eyes than on the screen get up and take them on a nature walk or read a book to them. Pandemonium will still be there when you return.

That is a really good message, and one that I am pondering as Lent begins this coming Wednesday.

Pope Pius XI says in Divini Illius Magistri:

"(they)perhaps would have found the necessary, had they not gone in search of the superfluous."

He is talking about education but perhaps some of it applies to how I use my own time too. I have been thinking about that a lot recently.

Anyway, for this Lent I'm trying to cut back on internet time, and that means blogging too. I'm not resolving to cut down to zero but I am cutting back. I am thinking about Cindy's words about giving my children lots of tiny moments. I want to do more of that during this time off preparation for Easter.

The other thing I am giving up is afternoon naps. Oh, the awfulness of that! 3 pm and 3 am have to be the most dreadful hours of the day. I suppose that it is a breath of Good Friday every day. I thought maybe I could use that blank horrible time in the afternoon, when all I want to do is doze a bit, to ...well, to think about all the people who would like to get enough sleep but can't right now, or who have too much time on their hands and not enough resources to fill it; and so on. You probably know who you are. I know that a couple of you in the former category read my blog sometimes, probably to help overcome that insomnia -- : - )

Whereto with speedy words th' Arch-fiend reply'd.
Fall'n Cherube, to be weak is miserable
Doing or Suffering: but of this be sure,
To do ought good never will be our task,
But ever to do ill our sole delight,
As being the contrary to his high will
Whom we resist. If then his Providence
out of our evil seek to bring forth good,
Our labour must be to pervert that end,
And out of good still to find means of evil.
Paradise Lost