Living Faith in a Life Over-full

Dr Mary Crock

Finding space for reflection and spirituality is not a problem that is peculiar to women lawyers with family responsibilities. There are so many facets to life now days that make it a challenge for anyone to fit a relationship with God into the picture. Advancement in any legal career requires dedication and long hours of work. Complaints about stress and busyness and lack of "quality time" are common among lawyers, whether male or female, with or without family responsibilities. 

Having said this, family does add a special dimension. Although family patterns are changing, women still seem to bear the brunt of the busy-ness at home. Dinners always need to be cooked, clothes need to be washed, stories need to be told and heard. Children seem to be more high-maintenance than used to be the case, always needing to be driven here and there, or to be supervised in this or that activity. Then there are the many distractants that draw us away from reflection and time with God, whether in the form of television, social functions or any of the many pleasurable activities afforded by the privileged lifestyle that we lead. I am a mother who works full time. In an expensive city like Sydney, this does not make me at all exceptional. Most mothers in my town have to work. Having said this, I acknowledge that our family situation is not the norm, at least not within the band of lawyers and academics with whom we mix. 

First of all, my Ron is blind, and for many people the fact of his disability catapults us out of the ordinary. As any of our friends will attest, one of the surest ways to annoy me is to suggest that I am somehow a good or special person because I married a blind man. (There is an earnest young man at our local fruit shop who for years referred to me as "Mary McKillop" instead of McCallum. I can recount many stories of people coming up to the two of us to tell us that we "inspire them". On one occasion when I was pregnant with Kate (our third child), a woman came out of the crowd in church and thrust a bag full of baby clothes into my hands. I did my best to take them gracefully, as the gesture clearly meant a lot to the woman in question, even if her charity was misdirected!). I have never thought of Ron as a blind man. He is the man I am lucky enough to have as my soul mate - my match in every sense - who happens to be blind. The more significant issue for me is that both Ron and I have professional commitments that could only be described as demanding. 

At a managerial level, coping with our various schedules is a challenge, but we usually manage to meet our various commitments. A more valid question - and one that I have been pondering since being asked to join this panel - is how well we manage to keep God in our lives amidst the chaos of our timetables. I am going to try and respond to this question by looking first at what I am conscious of doing, and then turning to what may be more incipient strategies that I have adopted - strategies that may have been inculturated into me by virtue of my religious upbringing and the place I see for myself in the world. 

My first reaction to the "how" question is that I approach my religion and my spirituality in the same way as I approach everything in my life. I am a person who likes structure and who thrives on a degree of order in what I do. You will not see this in looking at my office or home where clutter is often the primary indication of my presence or passage. By order, I mean dedicated time, rhythm, even ritual. For me, maintaining a relationship with God necessitates spending time in worship, in community. Ron and I do not always attend the same church, as our preferences differ. However, we make a point of ensuring that the whole family attends a service each weekend and we try to take it in turns so that as often as possible we all go to the same service as a family. 

Within the home, God's presence is also acknowledged in little rituals. Grace before meals is one example. Prayers at bedtime is another. The latter is perhaps my favourite of our family observances, as it allows Ron and I to spend special time with each of our three children as they turn in for the night. There is something wonderfully comforting and enriching in holding and praying with a child as they prepare for their rest. The bedtime prayers are like a warm blanket that draws around them and makes them secure. The importance of the ritual is brought home to me by our youngest child, Kate, who will always reproach me if I profess myself too busy or stressed to come in and say her prayers. With our sabbatical trip to Quebec City in Canada last year, the bedtime ritual also gave me the occasion to teach the children to pray in French. Whatever the language, the gentle rhythms of Our Lord's Prayer and of the Hail Mary provide wonderful bridges between the cares of the day and the One who cares for us most. For the children, I see learning the basic prayers as a way of providing the tools for learning to pray. 

Ritual observances aside, or the enforcement of space for spirit time, I find God at work in my life in a myriad of ways. He has found me an extraordinary helpmate, which makes striving to build hearth and home a joy rather than a chore. We have also been extraordinarily fortunate in our professional lives. Both Ron and I have chosen specialties that reflect our belief systems and that provide easy scope for moral striving. I often tell people that I fell into academia, almost by accident, when I started writing about immigration and refugee policy. The development of this country's de-humanising policy of mandatory detention for those who enter the country without a visa excited passions in me that will not be extinguished until I see meaningful change. Without wishing to sound too dramatic or self important, I think that my beliefs play a very important role in my public education function and general work advocating better treatment of refugees and asylum seekers in this country. 

My convictions have given me courage to do things that I would not have dreamed possible 10 years ago. They help to explain why I put so much energy into what I do. When I reflect on the spiritual dimension of my working life and of my home life, I would like to think that my faith permeates everything that I do. What I do see is that I am not a person who likes to compartmentalise life. My work comes home with me, and my family comes to work. I am conscious of being a mother and wife 24 hours a day. At the same time I cannot close off what I do at work when I get home. I do not know whether this is a particularly female take on the public-private aspect of work and home time. However, I think my children feel quite intimately involved in my professional strivings. They have seen the inside of Villawood detention centre in Sydney; they have accompanied me to court. They came to the airport when the Cambodian asylum seekers I worked with in the early 1990s were sent back to Phnom Penh. I remember Kate crying because she wanted to go with the little girls she had befriended in the group. The children were with me again when we came to greet the Cambodian family that we sponsored back into Australia one year later. I was interested and amused to overhear Kate one day, interviewing her two brothers on what their parents did all day. Said Kate to Daniel (number 2 son): "What does Dad do for a living?" Daniel replied. "He is a law Professor". Gerard said, "Yes, but what is his specialty?". Daniel responded, "He is a law Professor". When pushed, he added, "He doesn't need a specialty. Law professors know everything". Kate then asked Daniel about me. His response was: "That's easy. She's an immigration and refugee lawyer". 

While I was away in Seattle last week speaking at conference on the Tampa, I was distressed by the fact that I would miss a big refugee benefit concert that was being mounted at the Sydney Town Hall. The aim was to demonstrate that not all Australians regard refugees and asylum seekers as a threat. Daniel gave up his Sunday afternoon to sing at the event with the Sydney Children's Choir, as did the rest of the family who had to get him there and back. I can't tell you how proud I felt when Ron called me in Seattle to say that Daniel had been chosen to walk out and greet a young Iraqi boy who had just been released from Woomera detention centre. The two walked hand in hand down the length of the Town Hall aisle. 

As I scramble inelegantly to meet the various commitments placed on me at home, at work and outside, I do wonder whether I dedicate enough quality time to God in my life. If I suspect that the honest answer is "no", I am conscious also of the sense of season in my life. Ron and I are at the busiest phases in our professional lives. The children are also passing through a critical phase in their development as they pass from childhood into adolescence and through to adulthood. These are not phases that favour a contemplative existence. Having said this, I think that women in situations like mine are often tougher on themselves than is healthy. I am minded as I say this, of the advice of the dear friend and priest who married Ron and I 16 years ago today. Father Frank Brennan called me on my mobile 10 days ago to report in on a refugee talk he had given that day. I had 6 hours of lectures, two radio interviews and a paper to write before heading off to Seattle. When I commented that I was barely hanging in there, Frank replied "be still and go quietly and all manner of things will be well." He was saying what I know is a mantra in his life: let God centre your life and be its centre and you can cope with anything.