Notes from the Trying Life

1. Why babies are loudest during the quiet parts of Mass. 2. For goodness sakes just take the first step.

Two quick notes this week on the theme of “Just Try It.”

First of all, topic that comes up most Sundays: Why is it that babies are always babbling their loudest during the quiet parts of Mass?

Of course there are also the babies and toddlers who are tired or hungry or uncomfortable or exasperated and make their own, separate, share of noise. Those are obvious.

But what is the story with that happy little child, usually about 6-10 months old, who is quiet as a mouse while the whole congregation is singing or praying together, and then as soon as the church is silent, suddenly this child is belting out the joyful noise?

Why does that happen?

It happens because the child has a good family.

Under ordinary (good) circumstances, all day long your baby is engaged in conversation with the older people around it. Most of it takes the form of a one-sided dialog.

Would you like your bottle?

[baby’s face lights up]

Yes, you would?

[baby waves arms up and down]

Okay, let me just see what we have in the fridge! Ah look, a bottle!

[Baby reaches for bottle]

What would you like to drink? Oh, you’d like your milk? How interesting, that’s what you wanted last time as well. Sure you don’t want Mommy’s seltzer? [holds up can, joking]

[Baby lunges for can, squeals.]

— oh you do. Um, sorry no, that’ll be milk for you. [Quick grab bottle, shut fridge, hope baby promptly forgets seltzer exists.]

Obviously depending on your personality, exactly what your chatter back and forth with the baby consists of is going to vary.

The universal, though, is that under ordinary (good) circumstances, it will be a true back-and-forth. The older person will talk, and then pause and allow the baby time to respond, and then the older person will pick back up again, either responding to what the baby actually indicated, or else continuing the conversation based on imagination.

Okay let’s pick out your jammies. How about your bear print? Do you like bears? ROAR I’m a bear going to eat the baby [head dives into baby’s belly, baby laughs wildy] . . .

Thus when you bring your baby to Mass, your baby is already in the habit of taking turns speaking. Your baby is in the habit of listening while other people talk, and then taking a turn during the silence.

Your baby is used to this being the normal, accepted, encouraged way of communication! You are supposed to wait until the other person is done speaking, and then you speak. That’s how it works!

And, alas for shy parents, it works really well at Mass.

Nothing to be done about it, other than remind yourself and/or the poor parents who are mortified by their noisemaker that happy, communicative children are a good thing, and that it’s not a big deal.

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I can attest, on that note, that my baby, age 18, doesn’t squeal in the silence after the great “Amen” anymore. What she did do, longtime readers will recall, is talk me into learning to play hockey.

This is was an absurd idea.

She was sixteen and decided she wanted to learn to play, and asked me if I’d come take skate lessons with her.

I was just coming out of three months of being seriously ill, and the idea that I could take up a new sport was not at all a sure thing. But I mean, I was recovering and doing okay on exercise generally, so I followed my cardinal rule of parenting* and said yes.

We were both nervous about trying the new thing. I didn’t commit to actually playing hockey, but I did commit to taking it as far as it could go.

A year and a half later, this week we got to play our first game together, now that she’s legal to be up in the adult leagues.

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The thing about chronic illness is that you get used to failure.

You get used to the rug being pulled out from under you. You get used to ever-growing lists of things that just won’t work anymore. You get used to wanting to do a thing, and it seems entirely reasonable at the time you commit, but then junk arises and it all only happens halfway, or you have to shut it down early, or you drag yourself through the minimum but that was it.

And let’s be clear: I am impressing nobody with my hockey skills. I haven’t been able to physically put the amount of training and practice into it that I would like. I’ve had to take off repeatedly while recovering from the ups and downs of lesser bouts of illness over the past year. I play enthusiastically, but badly and in very short shifts.

But it isn’t zero, it is both fun and good for me, and I got to do this thing with my kid.

It’s a win.

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Okay so some evangelization things, since this newsletter does technically have a topic. Direct morals of the story:

• Be nice to the parents of the squealy baby. There is a reason the baby is loud during the quiet parts, it is a good reason, and it doesn’t last forever. Be extra reassuring to new parents who don’t know what is and isn’t okay as far as baby noises at Mass.

• If you don’t already have some hobbies outside of churchy-stuff, find something! Get out of the parish echo-zone and meet regular people. You can’t be a good evangelist if you don’t know un-churchy people.

Bigger, more metaphorical moral of the stories: Try things.

Be like that baby who is babbling up a storm attempting conversation for ages and ages before finally a few intelligible words break through.

Notice the gaps in your parish or your community, do some discerning, but be willing to take risks. Be willing to take the first step on an initiative, even if it is not at all certain how far you will get.

I agreed to get on the hockey path with a single goal: I wanted to learn how to stop. (That’s how doubtful my skating skills were — though I was actually pretty good at “go”.)

In the ministry you are contemplating, set that first goal. Maybe you won’t end up with a huge specialty ministry, but you set a goal of: “I will host the first event, and if nothing else, people can meet each other and learn a few things.” Or maybe you do the first step, and then another one follows.

And maybe, step by step you get into this enormous, flourishing, miraculous thing . . . or maybe it gets you to something fun and good-for-you and no you can’t put as much into it as you’d like, but it’s still good. That’s miraculous, too.

Give it a shot.

Photo: My little child, now a grown-up who behaves at Mass actually quite well, chasing down another one of us girls who decided late in life to take up an unlikely but very fun sport. Child is a much better player than I am, FYI.

*Cardinal rule: If your teenager asks you to do something with him or her, as long as it is legal, moral, financially viable, and physically possible, just say yes.