on witnessing

motherhood, marriage, and martyrdom

Photo by Roberto Nickson on Unsplash

wit·ness, pronounced /ˈwitnəs/

noun

1. a person who sees an event, typically a crime or accident, take place:
"police are appealing for witnesses to the accident

2. evidence; proof:
"the memorial service was witness to the wide circle of his interest

verb

1. see (an event, typically a crime or accident) take place:
"a bartender who witnessed the murder"

2. have knowledge of (an event or change) from personal observation or experience:
"what we are witnessing is the birth of a new political entity"

3. (of a person) openly profess one's religious faith:
"our duty is to witness to God"

The urge strikes me, one or five or a dozen times a day, to relate in real time a funny experience I’m having with my children. Perhaps I pull out my phone and snap a video of them, which I send to my husband or my family or my best friend. Perhaps I transcribe a silly conversation and put it in a group text or post it on social media. Perhaps I call a friend to leave them a voicemail regaling them with the story in question.

Of course, this habit didn’t begin with my daughters, as evidenced by the existence of my digital “quote note” in college, that most sentimental of commonplace books, wherein I detailed every dumb or hilarious or witty or poignant or memorable thing that was said in my presence… for posterity’s sake.

Lately, I’ve been wondering what is behind this drive to be seen in the beautifully mundane moments of our lives. To be witnessed, as it were.¹

That word: “witness”. I’ve been seeing it everywhere lately, trying to pull together the separate threads—like the thirteen (!!) definitions included on Google—to understand what it is to be witnessed, to be a witness, to witness and witness to the salvific action of Christ in our lives.

James and I have been, as I’ve mentioned, going through the wringer lately, and on days that just seem off, when we can’t get on the same wavelength, when something is clearly being left unspoken, there’s a question that often cuts to the heart of the matter:

What did you do for me today that I didn’t notice and that you want me to see and appreciate?

On the flip side is the statement, “I need you to thank me for [this specific thing].” It feels heavy-handed at first, this level of directness. To answer this question is to admit your humanity, your craving for relationship and for recognition. To ask it is to invite humility, to acknowledge your limitedness and lack of attentiveness.

And yet, to participate in this conversation is to come away changed. Not in large ways, perhaps. But in a season where I often feels like everything rests on my shoulders—and James often feels the same way—to speak plainly and openly about the ways you’ve served and been served by your family is to cultivate gratitude, to celebrate interdependence.

To be witnessed, and to bear witness.

As always,

Leah Libresco Sargeant

has something insightful on this topic: this essay entered my inbox as I was reflecting on the topic of witnessing one another’s self-gift, a special grace from the Lord. She’s discussing the paradox of watching her husband fast while she, pregnant, is unable to do so:

On Ash Wednesday, he is the one who weakens his body for the sake of our family, fasting both from food, and from the consolations of a shared, corporate penance. Every other day, I depend more on him as I go through the privations of pregnancy, but on a fasting day, he offers his body for our family differently, as the spiritual head. It’s me who has (comparatively) more energy, and I look for ways to apply it in his place.

We don’t quite get to meet in either feast or fast. Marriage has meant less time spent in synchrony, and more time following each other through a dance. If we try to mirror each other too exactly, we aren’t able to move together, shifting weight and sharing burdens as our family grows.

Even (perhaps especially?) when our life does not look exactly the same as our spouse’s—and rarely, if ever, is that the case—we can come together and draw our attention to the ways in which our service to one another is complementary, to the often-unseen ways in which we are giving of ourselves in love for one another. We can be the witnesses to one another’s martyrdom.²

Not, of course, martyrdom with a capital M—few of us will be called to bear that cross and crown—but the little martyrdom to which we are all called by virtue of our vocations.³ I once heard someone use the phrase “being stoned to death by popcorn” to describe the experience of hearing nuns’ confessions… whether or not that’s true, I obviously can’t say. But I can certainly believe that my martyrdom, at least in this season, is one of being stoned to death by goldfish and dryer lint.

This theme of witnessing one another’s martyrdom, of wanting to be seen in the little “prayers, works, joys, and sufferings” of each day, can apply in another way as well. We are also asked to witness the ways in which the Lord is moving in our lives, although so often, the clarity only comes with hindsight. In this season of uncertainty, our constant reassurance to one another has been, “The Lord will provide.” And provide He has, often in ways that are so outlandish as to be unbelievable.

And yet… How often do we go about our days without pausing to acknowledge the significant moments? And how often do we avoid tasks precisely because we know they will take a toll, because they will be unseen or unappreciated, because we know we will just need to do them again tomorrow?⁴

I think, frequently, of a passage from Claire Dwyer’s This Present Paradise, a book on St. Elizabeth of the Trinity:

One Sunday, I had hoped to get away to spend some time—not even an hour, just a little time—in the adoration chapel at a nearby parish. But it wasn’t meant to be. Little fires had to be put out, the many needs of six children simply had to be attended to, and soon the day was gone. Finally, that night, I knelt. Not in prayer. I knelt on the kitchen floor, head bent, cleaning up spilled Cheerios. And then, suddenly, this:

You couldn’t come to me, so I have come to you.

The words penetrated my heart. He was there. He was there, with me, among my mess in the dark kitchen. He saw. He knew.

Sometimes this martyrdom is the giving-up of our plans, our hopes, our desires for the day. A giving-up of our desire to be seen and appreciated. Yet even when our small acts of love are not witnessed by another human soul, either directly or by proxy via technology, they are witnessed by the Lord. By our Guardian Angels. By the saints in Heaven, who are interceding for us. “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”⁵

Permit me, if you will, to take a detour and interject with a song. Penny and Sparrow’s Duet has long topped lists of my favorite songs. It’s one that really deserves to be played at a comfortably loud volume, lying on one’s bed with one’s eyes closed.

Because I've seen you
And I know you
And I'm not going anywhere

The day that would become the day James asked me out—he knew it was coming, but I did not—we met up after Sunday Mass to grab lunch before going over to see a friend play in the university orchestra. As we were making our way across the street that separated “on-campus” from “off-campus”, I was chattering away about this song. “It’s just so beautiful and lovely, and like, it puts words to so much of what I want in a relationship.”

Little did I know, friends. Little did I know.

I hadn’t dated much before that day, and I haven’t dated anyone else since. And while I was, I’ll admit, somewhat blindsided when James asked me out—a story for another day—in retrospect, it was both an auspicious start and a hilarious coincidence that this conversation preceded the other by mere minutes.

And the Lord has followed through on this small grace, this auspicious start. I can say, with absolutely certainty, that James sees and knows me more fully than anyone else, and I am often shocked to realize that he is not going anywhere. This rock-solid certainty that he will not leave me because of my faults and flaws and sins and idiosyncrasies has anchored me, even in these days when all else feels shifting and uncertain.

And this is what marriage ultimately is, if we allow it to be: a sign of the love between Christ and the Church. Mutual self-giving in love with no holds barred.

What a wonder: our witnessing of one another’s love—for us, for our children, for our wider community—gives us a unique glimpse into what Heaven will be like.

1. I’ve already shared

Emily Hancock

’s piece, in which she reflected on the task of sorting through outgrown children’s clothes:

The layers of questions and doubts and second-guessing that accompany this task are heavy with the weight of life and time. Time marches on, children grow bigger in limb and mind, that cute vintage Holly Hobbie crew neck with the gingham bows gets too small for your toddler and makes you feel weepy, that expensive woven baby wrap you never learned how to wrap stares you in your face unused, those silly Halloween jammies with Snoopy on them don’t have any use anymore, your own fertility and the potential of your womb demands witnessing. It’s a lot.

“Your own fertility and the potential of your womb demands witnessing.” We want this act of sorting and storing and shedding to be rote, to be devoid of emotional significance, but we know that this isn’t so. It can become a symbolic wrestling, an invitation to discernment, a quiet confrontation with the nature of our bodies as women.

2. Giving you a tiny glimpse into how long this draft has been sitting by telling you that this was a recent piece when I started writing… c’est la vie.

3. I have long wanted to write a second “Feminish Guide” on the topics of asymmetry and interdependence in marriage, but every time I sit down to write, I find myself caught up in boring definitions and minutiae-as-examples… so perhaps, instead, we will simply explore these topics indirectly, dancing around them as we come to understand them more fully. Consider this “Installation 1”.

4. Because, of course, this word “witness” is also found—in its Greek form—in our word martyr. That is, a martyr is someone who bears witness, who proclaims the truth of the Gospel with their lives.

5. Stories of bodily martyrdom are difficult for me to read, and never so much as in these last few years. Quo Vadis changed me, yes, and it also haunted me for months. I am still being purified in my own witness of Christ because I cannot always see past the human loss, the hearts of those left behind. This sensitivity can be a gift, and yet like all earthly gifts, it must be subordinated to the ultimate good.