Holiness, One Empty Roll at a Time

I planned on writing a powerful, deeply theological piece for Father’s Day—something like Guardini mixed with some Scott Hahn. However, that does not seem to be what the Lord is putting on my heart, so instead I’m going to write about toilet paper. Well, toilet paper rolls, to be specific.

I have 6 kids, ages 4–14. By God’s grace our house has 2 full baths and a half-bath in the basement. Other than milk, there is no other resource my family consumes more than toilet paper. If I had to wager a guess, I would say 40–50% of our daily TP use could be eliminated, or at least minimized. You see, my younger kids reserve their creativity, as well as their bodily fluids, for the toilet paper. They tear off sheets to dry their hands, to wad up and play with the dog, to attempt to color on. Truly, my one-dimensional view of bathroom tissue has been (by force) expanded.

Like any self-respecting dad, I get upset when the lights are left on overnight and the thermostat is set so high that I need to open my windows in the middle of a Michigan winter just to be able to sleep. I get frustrated by the fact that my children seem to be under the impression that boiler operators make millions of dollars a year, so taking two sips of milk and dumping the rest of the glass down the drain has no real financial consequences. I do not find it humorous when a brand-new box of Q-tips is scattered across the bathroom floor, and my lack of risibility is further compounded knowing that I was not the first person to find said Q-tips in their state of disarray.

Yet all of these things and more I can tolerate. But like the Grinch and the carving of the Rare Roast Beast, there is one thing I cannot stand in the least. Empty toilet paper rolls.

I’m sure we’ve all experienced suddenly noticing something about our house or family members that has probably been occurring for a long while, but in noticing it we seem to encourage that thing to multiply. Maybe your kid doesn’t quite tighten jar lids (if you’re someone who shakes jars and cartons just because, I sympathize). Maybe you’ve suddenly noticed your wife makes no effort to keep the spoon from not contacting the sides of her coffee cup. Small things, maybe even things you once smirked at and thought, “That’s cute.” Yet with every spill of pickle juice, every clink of the spoon, your smirk begins to reverse until you become convinced that these tiny idiosyncrasies are, in fact, deliberate acts of domestic terrorism directed at you.

This is how I started to feel about empty toilet paper rolls. I would come home from work, go to the bathroom and find an empty roll. I would change and take the laundry to the basement and, passing the half-bath, notice an empty roll. Later I might be giving one of the kids a bath in the second full bath and, behold, another cardboard cylinder.

To be honest, this went on for quite some time. You see, in a house of 8 you must pick your battles, and with little kids who, like the Lord, are “no respecter of persons,” trying to get them to replace toilet paper rolls would be a fool’s errand. Reminding my teenagers might work for a day or two, but their squishy, though wondrous, brains just cannot be bothered with such pointless drudgery. This was a battle I simply knew I would lose—was losing, in fact. But it still made me angry.

One day I came very, very close to blowing up. I had a bad day at work, there were several commitments after work that meant a long day of running around without a chance to shower or even get out of my boots. I don’t think I’d slept particularly well the night before. So when I was confronted with yet another barren cardboard tube, I was just about at boiling point.

By God’s grace, I turned to Him, looking only to quiet my mind and abate my anger. It wasn’t fair to my family to let something like this be what set me off. It wasn’t their fault I had a rough day and didn’t sleep well. My wife had been working just as hard, if not harder, at her own job so I couldn’t let my anger make her feel like her day was less important or less demanding than my own. Rather than being my emotional support, the Lord asked me a simple question—What if this were your Cross? I tell you without a hint of exaggeration that my blood ran cold as a holy shame swept over me.

I am more convicted each day that we desperately need development and wisdom in regards to the Theology of the Laity, and that married life offers a unique but certain path to holiness in this life. Parents deal with so many things each and every day that our professionally religious brothers and sisters simply don’t, and those are the exact things that can either be millstones around our necks or the crucible in which we are tempered. In every empty tube of toothpaste, cereal box, toilet paper roll. In every forgotten school pick-up or unpaid bill. In the late-night, multi-kid vomit-fests and all the laundry that comes after, God is giving us opportunities to serve others, to set aside our pride and ego, to die to ourselves and ask His help in doing so.

I carry many crosses. Some are seasonal and some are probably going to be with me until, by God’s good grace and will, I enter Purgatory. I may never be fully liberated from this daily work of renewing the toilet paper, but because I turned to God in my humanity and weakness and sought Him in the moment, He gave me a far greater gift than simply calming my anger or keeping me from exploding on my family; He showed me a very clear, concrete stepping-stone on my path toward Him. Ever since, I genuinely smile as I find yet another bathroom sans TP. I think of The Little Way of St. Thérèse, of Brother Lawrence surrounded by crockery, and I whisper, “Totus Tuus, Maria. Totus Tuus,” a practice I’ve developed when faced with things that I very much do not want to do but that very obviously come from the Lord for my benefit. For as St. Luke tells us, “He who is faithful in very little is faithful also in much.” So embrace the little things; there’s plenty of them.

Postscript

I have to add an addendum of sorts to this post. My wife and I pray together nightly, and we take great comfort in sharing our struggles as parents and partners with each other. I have never spoken to her about my time in the Great TP Wars, so if/when she reads this, it will be the first she’s heard of it.

I was able to write this post several days ahead of schedule because my wife called me at work telling me I needed to come home because she had two, potentially three, clients going into labor at roughly the same time and our two youngest kids woke up covered in puke. It being a Thursday, my normal routine would have been to get out of work at 3 p.m. and go straight to our parish for 30–60 minutes of Adoration, a devotion I was particularly looking forward to not only that day, but for most of the week. Yet sometimes, there are more prudent things than Adoration, like washing bedding and caring for sick kids. That’s my vocation, that’s my path to holiness. I wanted to tend to the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament; instead, I tended to Him in the sickness and suffering of my kids.