Are we there yet?

Just one month ago (it seems much longer, now that Autumn Chaos has resumed), our family sat on our patio, enjoying an evening during that small window of Saskatchewan summertime between mosquitoes and early frost.

We were discussing the sad but inevitable fact of our eldest leaving home, which she did at the end of August. Our younger girls wanted to know what Christine would be doing at university. We talked about her classes, about the career she hopes to have, and about her vocation. I commented that everyone in our family has a vocation, even Sophia, who is only three. I told the girls that their dad and I pray for all our children to know and follow their vocations. Finally, Dan, who never takes anything for granted, asked (mainly of the 7-10 year-olds): "Do you know what a vocation is?"

Susannah (5) struck a "Eureka" pose, index finger in the air. "I know what that ith!" she declared in her trademark lisp, "It'th when you go on a trip." Dan laughed, "Yah, sometimes it's a trip all right." He was using the word in the '60's sense, meaning a surreal, mind-expanding, sometimes hallucinogenic experience. Though of course in our case, it's not induced by LSD, but the next best thing: kids. We've been parents for a mere nineteen years, and it has been a trip--like all vacations (and vocations) sometimes like a jolly holiday, sometimes not.

As any parent who has taken children on a vacation (whether by plane, train or automobile) can tell you, some trips are a lot of fun, others are hell on wheels. Some vacations have you thinking, right from the start: "I wanna go home." Other vacations are so wonderful, you rhapsodize, "Lord, it is good for us to be here! Let us pitch three tents and stay forever!" However, when you actually do that, any of the following may occur: it will rain (or even hail); your air mattress will spring a leak; a bunch of hard-drinking (and off-key singing) rowdies will camp right next door; the park authority will come along and tell you that you can't have that many tents on one site and you will have to pay for a second one, and if you try to argue and tell him that all these children are actually yours, he will just shake his head and give you a pamphlet about overpopulation and global warming and tell you that you still have to pay for a second site. All (or even some) of which prompts you to say: "I wanna go home."

Of course this is a metaphor for life. Vacation or vocation, in the end, our goal is to want to go home; everything else is just ups and downs, duty and blessing, sorrow and joy. No guarantee in what order or quantity you get them; as long as you persevere on the right path, that's all that matters. (And to think I was able to say as much without once using that dreadful, '70's cliche-word "journey"! shudders.)

This is rather off-topic (it's my column and I'm allowed to do that), but this last summer was a bit of a bonanza for me, materially speaking. In the space of two short months, I acquired a new laptop computer, high-speed internet (yay!), an mp3 player (double yay! For other technologically inept oldies like me, that's a tiny computerized recording device that stores a zillion CD's, allowing you to carry all your music with you wherever you go, which is really nice for long commutes, yard work, jogging, or road trips where the driver is tired of talking to you. Pope Benedict has one, so I know it's not sinful.) AND ... (drum roll, please) a travel trailer which sleeps eight. That means I can still go camping with my family, but I never have to pitch a tent or sleep on the ground again. You know what? None of that stuff made me feel fulfilled. Go figure. I know the only happiness is in going to heaven; the only contentment in life, if such is to be found, is in following my vocation. Wife, mum, teacher, writer.

And now it's September. Summer vacation is over; the duties of vocation are upon me in full earnest. Lord, give me the daily grace to carry out your will.

Mariette Ulrich writes and homeschools in Scott, SK. She and her husband Dan have seven daughters.