BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO MOURN
Raising children is an exercise in the Transfiguration. We want to give our kids mountaintop experiences because the valleys of the world can feel so difficult. As the mom of middle schoolers, I can tell you the valley can feel extra low. I have an 8th grader who is already terrified of college acceptance rates and a 5th grader who feels completely left out when she is not toting the latest water bottle while also asking endless questions about global warming.
Our kids certainly feel the depth of anxious scarcity in a way generations before them simply have not. And as parents, the cultural edicts placed on us to provide “core memories” only make us more eager to give our kids all of the special experiences that we can reasonably (or not) afford.
But when we read the Gospel, we discover that the mountaintop experience of the Transfiguration is really about presence: Jesus with us. Jesus with us in the peaks, and Jesus with us in the lowliest places of our lives. Jesus with your children no matter what. But not just with your kids, Jesus with you too.
Our kids need us. They need laughter and card games and late-night movie snuggles. They need boxed macaroni and cheese and a gracious sense of humor when they screw up. Because these first valleys they face will certainly not be the last. And, through the tenderness of Christ, we will be there with them in the valleys and on the mountaintop, offering them our presence.
