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A Military Wife's Rule... Great Flexibility Needed
Dear Holly,
Thank you for sharing your very inspirational story. Although I do not homeschool, I find it very usefull. A very big hurdle I face in home management is that I am a military wife. Needless to say, our schedule changes constantly. I thought I would share this with you, just in case someone asks you advice . I have learned that part of my home management is changing the schedule. I have searched for answers for 11 years, and finally realized that instead of trying to make our lifestyle fit our schedule, I had to make our schedule fit our lifestyle. I am still in the infancy stage of this process. I am anxious to find other women who have similar situations.
Labels: About a Rule of Life
posted by Holly at 2:01 PM
3 Comments:
I was struck by a number of things in your email.
First, a rule of life must be flexible, and designed to meet the needs of the family - hence why MROL was a series of questions you need to ask yourself, for your particular situation.
And also, why in MROL, I had stressed the need to stay in 'assessment mode' - so often I hear that someone 'tries' a rule, and it 'doesn't work' - and that is because they try to fit their life into a box, instead of work it out, over time, continuing to assess their vocation's needs until it DOES work. As I had mentioned in MROL , while I had an initial schedule, I worked out the kinks for months. We can't be all or nothing about our vocations.
Secondly, your question also brought up the definition of a rule. A rule is both a type of schedule (or series of defined tasks) as well as a spirit to be lived - and the schedule must be subordinate to the spirit and dependant upon it.
It is our attitudes toward the 5 Ps which are the very heart of the rule - and I must say , that for the woman totally attentive to her vocation - totally focused on her responsibilities - a schedule may not be the highlight of her rule... She may be so tuned into her family that her life flows from one form of service to another - and she lives the heart of the rule - total self-gift, total service to God because He asks it in the circumstances of her life.
I have often compared the schedule element of a rule to phonics - when we begin to read, the phonics lessons are totally noticeable... but as we learn to read more and more, we still decode words, but focus more on the meaning. As we become proficient readers, we don't even think about phonics - we just do it automatically - and we are focused on the meaning of the story.
So too - as a schedule trains our hearts to be attentive to God, personal needs and the relationships in our families - to ensure we are learning to focus on and accomplish these things - we become more and more attentive to the meaning of our vocation - the love relationships in our families - and focus less on schedule.
Nonetheless, our work gets done. We find that certain things like, morning, midday and evening prayer, meals & laundry, evenimg tidy and the weekly clean - all these are getting done - but we don't focus on them consciously like we used to - we become too busy walking in joy and praising God for all the blessings he has given us as we work...
My situation sounds pretty similar. My husband's schedule changes from week to week. I am glad to hear there is someone else dealing with this. I have found as well that if I try to fit everything into a set schedule it doesn't work and I get very grumpy. I have found quite a bit of peace during the week if I sit down at the beginning of the week and tweak the schedule according to his schedule. I am in the beginning stages as well, but I find I am more at peace with my life and able to spend more time in prayer, with my kids and husband now that I am not thinking constantly that I should be doing something, somewhere in the house.
I'm part of a military family too, and the schedule does need to be reassessed more often than not! My family needs the flexibility to take advantage of a surprise day off from work...but we also need the comfort of routine for long stretches without our soldier around. My husband and I like to pray the morning offering together, but we can't cling so tightly to that routine that if we miss it for whatever reason, our entire day is out of whack. I think the Rule is meant to be a way to truly consider your priorities and to be sure that, most of the time, you attend to them instead of being swamped by urgent, but less important, things.
In other words, MROL can be flexible for those who need flexibility and more rigid for those who need more structure!
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