(As we focus with you this 4th week of the month on Level 4, Family Culture, join us on a trip down memory lane! Soren wrote this column for the Arlington Catholic Herald when our kids were younger…we’ll let you do the math! (One hint: Owen is now a senior in high school.) In the years since first sharing this article, we’ve learned that some kids take to journaling and some don’t, some journal faithfully and others go in waves, and some prefer to just doodle. But we’ve also learned that it’s a wonderful discipline that’s worth a try as the life record is invaluable. We’re happy to share this story with you as you look to encourage simple, reflective habits with your own children. )    

“Where there is no vision,” so the proverb goes, “the people perish.”

When I hold this up to so many evenings and weekends over my first decade of parenting, I confess to a vision deficit. My five young children certainly didn’t perish, but — more often than I would like to admit — they endured “grumpy Dad,” who brought the day’s anxieties home and stepped out onto the field without a game plan.    

With this record, I am heartened by a small practice that is taking root in my family. 

It began with a question.  

“Have you ever thought of encouraging your son to journal?” my son Owen’s [age 7 when this column was written] teacher asked me one day, remarking on what a natural storyteller he is. I married into the Irish. Owen got the middle name Patrick, and his teacher’s comment didn’t surprise me. I promptly bought him a handsome hard-backed journal, and before bedtime one night, suggested he think back on the day.

Words exploded onto the page. I cracked up or held back a tear, or just gaped with admiration. The emotion of a maturing young boy was thick on every page.   

Evening after evening, the anticipation built. Where I was formerly prone to see only chaos and needs, I now glimpsed a narrative arc. I became increasingly curious to learn what would unfold on tonight’s written page. The mosaic pieces with which I had struggled for years — the chores, homework, dinner, dishes, piano practice and family rosary — seemed to be fitting together.    

My son quickly filled his first journal with wide-ranging essays on the Chicago Bears’ defensive line, the impact of a snowball on his face, and strategies for the daily battles with his brother. We did our best not to miss a day. Leveled by the flu one night, he dictated his entry to me in a grave and somber voice. I transcribed every word. What’s more, his siblings requested journals, and almost overnight, a little movement of scribblers has begun. 

“My soul looks back in wonder,” goes one of my favorite gospel songs, “how I got over?”  How did I “make it over” from the baseline of my distraction to this little domestic renaissance?     

I’m still not sure, but here’s what emerged over the months:

About half an hour out from bedtime, my four older children gather around me in the boys’ room and we light a candle, make the sign of the cross, and together say, “Come Holy Spirit.”

The smell of candle wax fills the room as we settle into creaky old children’s chairs around a table of dwarflike size. Our shoulders touch as we reach over one another for the next crayon, colored pencil, or piece of paper. I help the youngest two sketch, while another reads, and Owen settles down to journal. He likes to talk through potential themes —recess, the bus, the classroom, home, or the National Football League — before committing to one.

Depending on the entry, each night Owen opens the door for me to share in a good laugh, a brief examination of conscience, a lament for hurt feelings, a hymn of gratitude, or the processing of some raw and uncharted emotion. His open heart is an invitation for me to share my own — and his siblings are listening.     

As the journaling took root, I invited Owen to take one of our copies of the Liturgy of the Hours from the shelf. My Irish storyteller leapt at the opportunity to talk some more. Before long, he was leading us in an evening prayer of sorts, proudly plodding through words like humility, generosity, fortitude and perseverance. The boys have had uncles serve in the military, so most nights include the men and women in uniform and veterans in prayer. We pray for their two aunts in religious life, our priests and our bishop. We pray for a classmate, a good night’s sleep, or for tomorrow’s test. 

Some nights we’ll pray for just a minute or two — on others I almost have to plead with Owen to wrap it up. We blow out the candle, and I kiss them goodnight, my back stiff from the small chair.

My hands smell of crayon, eraser and pencil lead. A familiar phrase from a psalm — like a tree planted by streams of water — prayed by Owen rings in my ear as if for the first time. A new work of children’s art graces the wall, and the fading day’s triumphs and defeats have been captured in the journal and in prayer.

Owen’s evening prayer and unblinking look back on the day has become an ennobling invitation for me to recover my own vision.