Currently, my local book club is reading a book called
Gift From the Sea, written in the 50's by author, Anne Morrow Lindburgh. Many of her thoughts about life and being a woman are surprisingly relevant. Here is a quote that resonated with me:
With a new awareness, both painful and humorous, I begin to understand why the saints were rarely married women. I am convinced it has nothing to do, as I once supposed, with chastity or children. It has to do primarily with distractions. The bearing, rearing, feeding and educating of children; the running of a house with its thousand details; human relationships with their myriad pull -- woman's normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life, or saintly life. The problem is not merely one of Woman and Career, Woman and the Home, Woman and Independence. It is more basically: how to remain whole in the midst of the distractions of life; how to remain balanced, no matter what centrifugal forces tend to pull one off center; how to remain strong, no matter what shocks come in at the periphery and tend to crack the hub of the wheel.
Her writing reminds me that life has been complicated and messy for women far longer than twenty years ago, when I became one myself.
I'm wondering if and how this quote connects with your experience. If it connects, what do you personally do to "remain whole in the midst of the distractions of life?" Do you practice any kind of solitude? If so, what kind?
Labels: Gender Issues, Quotes
