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everyday parenting as spiritual practice

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spiritual practices with newborns: a new series

12 Comments

new J

Here we go again! Settling into Newborn Land…

It’s a strange place to live. Everyone keeps odd hours. Crying is common. Spit-up and strange smells are expected. Nothing is ever clean.

But it’s a sweet place to stay, too. Newborn neck nuzzles and curled froggy legs. Milky breath and fuzzy fine hair. Sleepy smiles and softest skin.

The newborn time turns brains to mush. Hearts, too. It reverses routines and casts aside comfort. It makes you crave quiet and sleep so desperately you can taste it.

But it also reminds you how simple life can be. Sleep, eat, repeat. No lofty demands, no stressful schedules.

Just the babymoon cocoon of those dearest and nearest, wrapped up in the needs of the littlest.

On our third sojourn into Newborn Country, I’ve noticed how quickly the days are spinning by. Mostly thanks to Joseph’s two big brothers who never got the memo on “sleep when the baby sleeps,” choosing instead to play/yell/laugh/eat/whine/run/tantrum while the baby rests.

So the only long, lazy stretches of gazing at my sweet babe are reserved for the wee morning before anyone else stirs.

In those hazy hours before dawn, I think about the practices of caring for a baby. How simple, yet how laborious they can be. How feeding, diapering, and comforting a newborn fill every hour of every day.

If you’ve spent more than five minutes surfing round this blog, you know how my thoughts wind God-ward. So lately, as I nurse and change diapers and rock and swaddle and soothe, I’ve been thinking about how these simple acts can be spiritual practices.

How everyday care for babies teaches us about God and who God created us to be.

Over the next few weeks, as I’m adjusting to life as a mother of three (and a writer with fewer brain cells), I’ll be wandering through Newborn Land, eyes open to the spiritual practices that come with caring for baby.

Feeding, cleaning, rocking, singing, holding, soothing, and resting – to name a few.

Clichés about babies pile up faster than dirty laundry, and advice for new parents abounds. But would you believe Scripture has something to say about these spiritual practices, too?

For those of you in the trenches of Newborn Land (or Toddler Territory, or Preschool-Ville), I hope this new spin on well-worn activities might breathe fresh air into your tired bones.

And for those of you whose days of diapering and nights of rocking babies are now far behind you, I hope you’ll share your wisdom with those of us who still have far to go!

So enjoy this spiritual enlightenment on spit-up and soggy crib sheets…

Here’s the complete series on spiritual practices with newborns!

  • feeding
  • cleaning 
  • comforting 
  • accepting help
  • beholding
  • holding
  • healing

And my 4-part series on how to pray with a new baby in your life:

  • all day long 
  • up all night
  • in fussy moments
  • in peaceful moments

 

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. jennyjennygenesis says

    9 June 2014 at 7:43 am

    Thank you for this, my heart goes out to you during this beautiful and difficult phase! Your writing is inspiring!

    Reply
    • Laura says

      19 June 2014 at 12:26 pm

      Thank you, Jenny! Beautiful and difficult all at once – oh yes!

      Reply
  2. Ginny@RandomActsofMomness says

    9 June 2014 at 11:14 am

    Awww … love that sweet photo! That whole “baby burrito” swaddled look is so precious.

    The newborn period is so odd and surreal . You described it perfectly as life stripped to its basics (minus the basic of sleep, at least for moms!). Looking forward to hearing your musings on the spirituality of it all. Hugs and blessings.

    Reply
    • Laura says

      19 June 2014 at 12:26 pm

      Thank you, Ginny! One thing’s for sure – this newborn time is making it hard to keep up with all kinds of communication, blog comments included unfortunately! But I love what you say about the surrealness (surreality?) of time with newborns. It does feel otherworldly, to be up at strange hours and trying to function in the real world with sleep-deprived-head. But life stripped bare can be a good thing, too. I forget how simple it can be!

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. spiritual practices with newborns: comforting | mothering spirit says:
    19 June 2014 at 11:47 am

    […] if you missed the rest of the series on spiritual practices with newborns, check out feeding and […]

    Reply
  2. where i’ve been this week | mothering spirit says:
    28 June 2014 at 6:04 am

    […] time/writing time has been nonexistent. But I have been slowly working on the next posts in the spiritual practices with newborns series to start back up next week! (Note to self: setting the bar low for postpartum expectations […]

    Reply
  3. how to pray with baby: up all night « mothering spirit says:
    1 August 2014 at 7:00 am

    […] with the practical side of spiritual practices with newborns, here is the 2nd in this series of simple ways to pray while caring for a baby: all day long, up […]

    Reply
  4. how to pray with baby: for fussy moments « mothering spirit says:
    4 August 2014 at 6:01 am

    […] Wondering how to be more mindful with a new baby in your life? Check out two more ways to pray – all day long and up all night – and the complete series on spiritual practices with newborns. […]

    Reply
  5. these are the waning days « mothering spirit says:
    22 August 2014 at 8:15 am

    […] three long months in which I learned to love a new soul, with all the bodily love that babies bring. In which I was wrapped into the enfolding embrace (sometimes smother) of life […]

    Reply
  6. Eat, Pray, Sleep - Collegeville Institute says:
    1 September 2014 at 4:01 pm

    […] series on spiritual practices with newborns includes reflections about feeding, cleaning, comforting, beholding, and holding a baby. It also […]

    Reply
  7. a summer of paradox « mothering spirit says:
    1 September 2014 at 4:25 pm

    […] put together this post on our Collegeville Institute blog about my summer series on spiritual practices with newborns. I’m touched by their words and hope you will enjoy it, […]

    Reply
  8. Peanut Butter & Grace says:
    12 October 2015 at 9:42 pm

    […] can find expanded versions of these ideas and many others at Mothering Spirit’s “Spiritual Practices with Newborns“ […]

    Reply

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About Laura

I’m Laura Kelly Fanucci. Mother, writer, wonderer. This space is where I explore mothering through writing. It’s where I celebrate how God shows up in the chaos of raising children. It’s where I love to build community with readers like you. Read More…

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thismessygrace

Mother, writer, wonderer.
Seeker of God in chaos & life with kids.
Author of Everyday Sacrament & Grieving Together.
Glimpses of grace & gratitude.

thismessygrace
Woke up tired of tears, ready to move, Psalms in m Woke up tired of tears, ready to move, Psalms in mind. Who’s with me?
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving h I am not resigned to the shutting away
of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be,
for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen,
the honest look, the laughter, the love,—
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve.
And I am not resigned.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Dirge Without Music.”

Margaret Susan Fanucci,
2-27-16 - 2-28-16.
Abigail Kathleen Fanucci,
2-27-16 - 2-29-16.

Thank you for walking these days with me. For your love, your kindness, and your generosity.

We will never forget them.
Now you'd be three, I said to myself, seeing a chi Now you'd be three,
I said to myself,
seeing a child born
the same summer as you.

Now you'd be six,
or seven, or ten.
I watched you grow
in foreign bodies.

Leaping into a pool, all laughter,
or frowning over a keyboard,
but mostly just standing,
taller each time.

How splendid your most
mundane action seemed
in these joyful proxies.
I often held back tears.

From "Majority" by Dana Gioia, a poet-father who knows.

2.27.2016.
Always a birthday.
Even when not happy.
I am standing in a fluorescent-lit gym, dingy mesh I am standing in a fluorescent-lit gym, dingy mesh tank top hanging off my scrawny shoulders. I am eleven years old, listening to a grey-haired coach with a whistle round his neck.

"Here is how you pivot," he says, grabbing the ball & crouching down. "Plant your foot, solid like a rock. Don't ever move it."

I am trying to learn, because basketball is cool & I am not. I desperately want to be good at shooting, scoring, stealing, anything. But he is teaching me something I will not forget.

“The power of pivoting is you can turn any way you want. You can move where you need to go. You just have to keep this foot planted."

Today I pivot.

One day between birthdays. 24 slim hours to turn from joy to grief.

Yesterday the bouncing babe turned a whole year old. He has seen all sides of the sun by now. He gets to keep going: an ordinary miracle.

Tomorrow his sisters would have turned 5. A ghost of a birthday, shared by twins, lost to us, held & gone all at once.

All I can do is pivot.

Here is my foot planted firmly in the ground of now. I can turn in any direction I want: from joy to sorrow & back again. This is the only power I have, but it is enough for today.

I will wobble. I will feel the frantic rise in my throat of attack coming at me, blocking my view, trying to steal what I hold. For a few desperate moments I will want to pick up both feet & run far away, run fast as I can from what I never wanted.

But my pivot foot is stronger & steadier. It will stay where I have asked it to stay, from when I learned deeper truth.

Pivoting is still movement, still freedom, still control over a small corner of here. You are the one who decides to stop & plant your foot.

And the pivot is not forever. It is part of a move, not the end point. It is an interim, a passage, a survival strategy.

Part of me is forever awkward & eleven, scrawny & uncertain. But more of me is almost-forty, scarred & stronger. Knowing I can stop when I need to stop & go when I want to go, even in a full court press out of my control.

Today I pivot. I never want to forget the strength here too, the potential to turn between all that comes at me. The power of knowing this is not the end.
One day I’ll tell him the story. How after days One day I’ll tell him the story.

How after days of long labor, sick & scary, heaps of drugs to save both our lives, I stared bleary-eyed at the hospital clock: ten to two, clear as night, & made a decision.

How with no midwives in the room—unknown OBs now, nurses we didn’t know, no familiar face among them—and the clock ticking, I had to do what all those strong women I trusted had taught me to do.

How I decided to midwife my own birth.

How with no strength left, I struggled up through fog & pain, fumbled for my phone, scrolled through the dark until I found the song, & turned it up to rise above the beeping & the monitors & the awful alone sounds of awake at 1:50 am in the hospital.

How I closed my eyes & waited for the beat to come & prayed for the strength. To be my own midwife.

Drop beat. Beat drop. Pause.

The battle of Yorktown. 1781.

I cranked one weary smile. Closed my eyes as the song picked up. Turned my clumsy body to the left side to bring on a contraction.

Gotta meet my son.

Breathed through the pain. Timed it. Heaved to the right side to bring on another wave.

The world turned upside down.

Smiled when the night nurse came to check, surprised. Feigned shock when she raised her eyes that things were changing.

How as soon as she left the room, I glared at the clock, hit repeat, turned to one side, then another, kept contractions coming & coming, coaching my body hour after hour to do what I knew it could do.

History will show that this child was born from pitocin for induction & magnesium sulfate for preeclampsia & a failed epidural or two & eight shots of epinephrine when maternal blood pressure tanked.

But I will know that he was born from sheer grit & the strength of every midwife I’ve loved & the back beat of Hamilton at 1:50 am in a lonely hospital room.

The world turned upside down, then 100 more times in the tumultuous first year of his life.

But I did what I had to do & what I could do & I did it all for love of him. That day & every one that followed.

That is a story worth telling.

His birth. (Mine, too.)

2.25.20
A story and a word of thanks. You are amazing huma A story and a word of thanks. You are amazing humans.
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