When I grow up I want to be...

When I wrote about my recent book acquisitions and asked for advice on book organization, I received this response from my mother:

Put them on the shelf over and over again, and when they are off the shelves rejoice in the fact that someone has been reading them. You can put the childrens books on the lowest shelves and the adult books up high--since anything the kids can reach will end up on the floor. If you worry too much about organizing them it will be too hard to put them away.

As always, my mother's advice was both practical and insightful. It seems to me that my mother has always met the challenges of life with clarity and confidence--the clarity to see things (and especially people) as they really are, and the confidence to walk a day at a time, trusting that prayers are answered and that God's providence will always be sufficient for our needs. In each person she meets (whether the president of a country or a street urchin) she sees a brother or sister, a fellow child of God. She values neither her own soul nor that of any other person as greater or less than this.
I wonder sometimes why I am so eager to read expert opinions on the rearing and educating of children when all I really need to do is follow my own mother's example!