A Victorian Escape

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Pax est melior quam bellum — Peace is better than war

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I lost myself in the Victorian era last week, reading Beth Brower's delightful series The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion (books 1-8) before bed and watching "Young Sherlock" on Prime whenever I could steal the time. The Latin quote above comes from one of Emma's journals, a simple declaration that echoes with particular force against the backdrop of today's headlines.

Were Victorian times simpler? Not for women. They couldn't own property until 1870, and even then couldn't keep property from before marriage until 1882. Brower's Emma—first encountered in 1883—chafes under society's mandate that she engage a chaperone. When she turns twenty-one and comes into her inheritance, she discovers a distant male relative has drained most of her scant funds. Of course he had access—he was male.

In "Young Sherlock," the protagonist's mother has been drugged and declared insane after losing a child, allowing the father to claim the deed and estate to salvage his failing businesses. Mrs. Holmes—locked in an asylum for twelve years—emerges wholly sane and blazing with righteous rage, freed by sons who learned dubious lessons about treating women from their manipulative father.

The Victorian era was no golden age. Women remained dependent on husbands for stability, reputation, and survival. Brower's beautiful books introduce strong females who buck that tide and stand on their own feet, while depicting the enormous struggle such independence required compared to male counterparts. Yet if one was fortunate enough to possess funds and education, there existed a longing for scholarship—for reading and writing and conversing with friends over intellectual pursuits. We allow ourselves to be robbed of such goals and habits now, distracted by endless scrolling and manufactured urgency.

Though "Young Sherlock" contains fighting over government weapons, violence and espionage, the destruction feels manageable compared to what we witness in today's wars. The Latin quote surfaces each time I read the headlines and recoil from the devastation we inflict on innocents from hundreds of miles away. We don't fight hand to hand anymore, but from joystick and screen to target on the ground—sanitized violence that I suppose makes it easier to unleash.

Pax est melior quam bellum. Peace is better than war. I don't wish to return to the Victorian era with its corsets and constraints, its cruelty to women and rigid hierarchies. But for one week, it offered a refuge—a place to hide while the world outside grows increasingly unrecognizable, increasingly brutal. Sometimes we need these escapes, these reminders that humans have always struggled toward something better, even when better feels impossibly far away.

A Christmas Wish

It has been a difficult six weeks in our house. The November election was closely followed by my broken finger and Rob's five-week virus. Our various cars were in the shop four times, construction times doubled on our refinished stairs, and work challenges flared intermittently. Friends of ours had crazy vet bills, surgeries, more car trouble, etc. to the extent that all I want for Christmas is rest. In a world of trouble these are but minor irritations, een champagne problems, but they wear on me, sapping a measure of my vitality and optimism.

I'm oddly nostalgic for Christmas during the pandemic year, which was full of neighborhood lights, Christmas cards out my ears, long walks, drives (to see more lights), and family Zooms. Christmas 2024 feels like our whole country has hit the fast forward button again, with shocking headlines (daily), neighbors struggling to get lights on despite our warm weather, low Christmas card inventory, and adult kids coming home to an empty fridge. I don't wish for the return of the pandemic, but just an iota of the time and space it bought us.

I have a head cold and William was sick all night with either food poisoning or a stomach bug, but after work today we can have at least two days to ourselves, sleeping in, attending to cherished family rituals, baking and reading next to the tree.  We wish everyone a few days of rest and peace, time to count the blessings that intermix with our list of challenges, and some long walks with space to breathe. Thank you to all those who work on the holiday - I hope you also get time and space to rest and may good health and moments of joy lead the way into 2025 for us all. 

Confronting Violence

“We can learn to feel the anger that belongs with the experience of injustice and evil and find other ways to express it.” - Jane Vennard, Embracing the World: Praying for Justice and Peace

I avoid looking at the DVD, “The Hurt Locker,” which came from Netflix a few days ago. I placed it first on the TV stand, then off to the side where I could not see it, then back on the other side of the stand, the side farthest away from where I usually sit. I agreed that we should place it in our queue because I heard great things about the film and admire the director, the first woman to win an Oscar for directing. It addresses a situation that I should understand, that I should be made to confront. After all, there are men and women fighting in Iraq just so I can have the privilege of deciding whether or not I want to watch. But I find it painful to watch violence on TV, or read about it in the paper, and I have to be in a strong, brave mood in order to put such a DVD in the player and press the “play” button.

This aversion I have to violence includes the Nerf guns that my children love. I don’t think that playing with Nerf guns makes a child “bad” or violent, but I just don’t like to hear one say “You’re dead” to the other. I can’t stomach that possibility. I let the guns out on special occasions, then carefully collect all the shiny orange Nerf bullets under the cover of bedtime darkness and hide the weapons and the ammo until the next occasion.

What troubles me the most is the violence inside me, the anger that bubbles up when I am exhausted and my child screams in my face or hurts a sibling and then laughs maniacally. These occasions aren’t frequent, but they're not an aberration. My true self has a violent side. Fortunately for me I’ve been raised with every material and emotional advantage. The absence of hunger, fear, and extreme stress gives me the resources to turn aside the violence or mutate it into screaming “Aghhh!” at the top of my lungs, or slamming my bedroom door shut as I give myself a timeout, or throwing something out of the open door. But I hate that it’s there. I feel a “heightened security alert” against myself whenever my temper flares up, and feel like a code orange has been leveled against me by the supreme authorities.

Recently I have been reading spiritual books, which used to turn me off but now appeal to me. In my current book, Embracing the World: Praying for Justice and Peace, Jane Vennard quotes a poem by one of her students, named Marie. It says:

“I know that when I deny and repress my shadow
I project onto others
And become violent against them.”

I feel this to be true. If I can own my violent side and forgive myself for its existence, then I will be far more merciful and understanding of others. I will also be more able to challenge my emotion into harmless, or potentially even useful reactions, instead of actions which cause anger, alarm or frustration. I don’t think I will ever like violence, nor should I. It will always be difficult for me to watch movies like “The Hurt Locker.” Yet acknowledging a problem and opening it to the light will always be better than hiding it, or hiding from it. If we could have such a conversation as a country, understanding how certain words and actions can lead to violence, perhaps we could better understand our collective goals for peace and how to make them a reality.

My personal tsunami

Have you ever experienced a phase of your child's development when you dreaded waking them up? You know that your "good morning" will be the 8.0 magnitude tremor that sets of a series of tsunamis, breaking the calm of your silent pre-dawn moments. I'm in such a period with my three-year-old son; I tiptoe into his room to soak up the image of his peaceful sleeping figure before I regretfully disturb both of our tranquility with my wake-up call.

Today we experienced five temper tantrums between my "alarm" at 6:45 and preschool drop-off at 8:05. One was over oatmeal, one over the center of a toilet paper roll that my daughter was using for a microphone - and that he desperately wanted. I cannot remember the source of the other three tsunamis that swept over us this morning, but my body still holds the tension and frustration. My chest feels tight when I try to take in the deep breath that *should* calm me down.

In my Just Faith class we studied heroes of non-violence, reading Gandhi, King, and watching movies about the Polish labor movement and the Chilean people's election to remove a dictator. I felt regret that I could not be a part of such a movement, could not follow a great leader. Here again I felt the sting of my "just mom" label. Yet . . . my motherhood profession offers great opportunity to practice peace, calming influence, and defusing tensions. This morning I once again realized that my reactions are the only thing that I can control in a given situation. I certainly cannot control my three-year-old! How difficult it is to speak calming words on the fifth temper tantrum, to control my thoughts and the angry words that threaten to break past my lips. My frustration and my failure to stay peaceful in the storm taste bitter on my tongue, as if I've swallowed some of the salt water in our tsunami.

We don't spank in our household, and use timeouts and loss of privileges effectively with my older children, but my youngest is not quite old enough to understand or to negotiate for what he wants. We only have a short time left in this phase, but I pray that it will be enough time for me to calm the storm - in him and in myself. Perhaps we can channel our passions into a river: water that carries strength, that can carve rock and nurture growth, but that can absorb disturbances with only a faint ripple.