Saturday, April 21, 2007

Finding INCREDIBLE Epiphanies Anywhere

Some days Being of Good cheer with Multiple Core phase children can be quite a challenge. I will admit then when things get a bit too challenging I turn to the TV. I believe it to be a part of my Conveyor Belt Hang over, but when the going gets tough the tough turn on a movie.
I asked the kids what movie they wanted to watch and that turned into fight #213 for the day, so to help my kids learn about freedom of choice, I chose the movie. I chose Disney Pixars "The Incredible's". It was fantastic. Here I am feeling like a bit of a failure because the TV came on before the allotted time but, I loved it, the epiphanies just kept coming and coming, I should have gone to get a notebook.
It is about a superhero family that has had to be relocated into main stream society because superhero powers have been outlawed. So here we have this father who is devastated because he can't use his powers to help people. His mission is being suppressed. He is living his everyday life in drudgery. One day is like the next and he is miserable.
A trial comes there where when an old foe tries to kill him and he is captured. The whole family then is has to come together to save their father. When they are finally allowed to use their superpowers they learn things about themselves they didn't know before. They were able to know what they could do in the time of hardship.
How many of us as mothers feel we are in the midst of the trial? You know the one "How do I get myself a superb liber education while changing diapers, mopping floors, doing dishes, cooking meals, changing diapers, doing laundry, educating my masses? Screaming out loud when do I get my turn? I think that some mothers feel this drudgery of day in and day out and why am I doing this? But then something happens, we gain an epiphany, or a light goes off in one of our children, and it reminds us of our powers, of our mission. That we have a mission that perhaps at this time it is raising the next generation of leaders.
It also helped me realize that epiphanies can happen anywhere. We need to be open to them. Just because we are cleaning goo off the floor instead of sitting in a classroom full of like minded people, just because we are reading 2 word sentences to our kids instead of some great literary classic, just because we are watching Disney instead writing the next great novel, we can still think and we can still receive epiphanies. We know the importance of education for our children, we know the importance of training leaders for the next generation.
It just cemented again in my brain the importance of mission. When that family was finally able to fulfil their missions and use their powers then, were they able to be happy. So yes we will go thru hard times, we will go thru what a friend of mine calls the trenches, and what a great metaphor sometimes my house does look like a War Zone, but it will be worth it in the end.
Simplicity not complexity sometimes I think our conveyor belt hang over tells us it isn't complex enough therefore it is wrong. If I can find a Huge epiphany watching Disney then they must be everywhere, look in the simplicity for them. A bumblebee can be an epiphany. (That's an entirely different Blog) .
Writing this has been a huge learning tool for me. I am going for complexity because I am worried it isn't long enough. So I will end now.
Peg

4 comments:

karina said...

I love your insights to the Incredibles. That is one of my favorite movies and I will look at it a little differently now that you have enlightened me. You are awesome Peggy.
Kari

arlene said...

Great post Peggy. I am so glad you chose to share it here. I loved the message in "The Incredible's" too. Especially how they were all miserable when they tried to fit in, and be the same as everyone else. Conveyor belt thinking says that it's not OK to be different, even if different is better. On the conveyor belt the only thing that is acceptable is conformity.
Thanks for reminding me that it's better than OK to not fit in!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for participating in the Thomas Jefferson Education Carnival!

Lara said...

Great article! My kids and I were talking about mission tonight while we read about Albert Schweitzer. The kids wanted to know why he had so many trial if he was doing what God wanted him to do. I told them that God makes our mission possible but he doesn't make it easy!

I need to remember that when being a Mother seems too hard!