[Fortitude as an essential virtue which allows the ‘house’ of our soul to be kept in order for the presence of God; “s]uch fortitude is not the virtue of the dashing soldier. It means rather the virtue of the keeper of the fortress; the inconspicuous heroism that sits tight. And in the life of the spirit there is a great deal of sitting tight; of refusing to be frightened out of or decoyed away from it; of refusing to despair, waiting until the weather improves, till business gets brisker, day breaks, the shadows lift. We must endure a mysterious pressure, which operates more often and more purely in darkness than in light…– Evelyn Underhill, The House of the Soul (quoted in Evelyn Underhill, Essential Writings, Emilie Griffin
September 4, 2024
As my daily prayers are interrupted by noise from below, my grip on my coffee cup tightens suddenly as I unconsciously transfer the anger and anxiety that shoots through my body into my hands. The sound of my child’s wild screaming ricochets off the stairwell, through the second story hall and into the small and otherwise quiet room where I’ve sat down to pray in what should be morning stillness. But as often happens, the kids seem to have a sixth sense for the parents’ attempt at early time alone and wake too soon. Before long the morning quiet is turned into a battlefield of sibling rivalry.
This child’s voice in particular triggers some primal response in me, maybe discomfort at our similarities, the way the disproportionate emotional reaction reminds me of myself. Like my dad and I, each passionate advocates for our opinions, fierce debaters, not easily willing to concede a point—would push each others’ buttons, driving my less combative mother crazy. I always took his willingness to go toe to toe with me as a sign of his love for me—he took me seriously, he was willing to absorb the blows to hear me out, his love for me was solid enough to handle my disregulated passion. My dad was a place where I didn’t have to be OK to be accepted. Even as a child I felt that as a precious gift, all the more so as I encountered places where I perceived, rightly or not, that acceptance was more conditional, that my ability to behave, be calm, be happy was the price of entry.
But while I experienced my dad’s tolerance of my sometimes losing it as a sign of love, it isn’t primarily love I feel when I hear this child’s disregulated brain collapse into unfettered 7 AM yelling. I’m more like my mom here, I want quiet and calm, and this gash in the seam of an orderly world drives me nuts. Everything in me wants to make my child stop.
I’m praying, so the first response is relatively calm. Please God. But as the yelling continues, the disquiet in my body rises and shoots up suddenly, erupting into a well of anger. A fantasy of slapping into submission surfaces, which I’m responsible, and I hope, loving, enough to roundly reject, but the anger remains. Why can’t this kid be reasonable? How can I sit here and pray with a child raving, reasonless, downstairs?
My husband is there, but he hasn’t found the off button. Maybe I should…as another yell shoots up the stairs and down the hall I find my body jerking out of the chair, ready to march downstairs and shake the child out of this tantrum. But something catches my body before it can fully rise.
Stay put.
I hear the words in my soul as if they were ordered of me out loud. This is my time to pray. It is not my time to intervene. My husband is already there, and the prayer still has work to do in me. I shortchange it at my peril, and theirs. Even if I were to go to them in this moment, the simmering anger in me would likely turn my response into one matching the yelling, get us nowhere. But even if I were to handle it perfectly, the more important point is—this isn’t the job for me right now. I already have a job at this moment, and that is be with God. There will be a moment for me to be with my child, and when that moment comes I can give myself fully to it, hopefully with more tenderness and compassion than I feel now. But right now, the invitation is to entrust this child to be OK without me. To my husband’s care, but more importantly, to God’s.
This feels like a metaphor for all of parenting. The courage, stamina, patience, grit—the fortitude—to at times, hold back from the pressing call to step in and intervene. Let them run the course and learn for themselves, grow the strength that comes from navigating a rough path. Of course there are moments to step in, but the impulse to engage, to run ahead, to make the path smooth, to hustle to solve their problems—solve them!—is so strong for many of us that it takes more conscious willful effort to hold back. It takes the fortitude of the keeper of the fortress, the strength of staying put.
