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everyday parenting as spiritual practice

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spiritual practices with newborns: comforting

14 Comments

As a mother comforts her child,

so I will comfort you…

Isaiah 66:13

The poor babe is sick. Gift of a cold from his big brothers, generously passed along a week after they finished hacking and sniffling and crying for us all night long.

Neither of them were ever sick so small, and it breaks my mama heart to see his tiny newborn face turn beet-red as he struggles to breathe when he coughs. And when baby is only a month old, there are no cold meds to clear his congestion, no Tylenol to help him sleep. We can only watch and wait for the cold to run its course.

But all I want to do is comfort him. Every cell in my body screams out, hard-wired to cuddle and cradle him. To try and help what I cannot heal.

. . .

When we pick up a crying baby, we revert to the rhythms which comforted us as children, too. The most ancient rhythms – snuggle and rock, cuddle and coo. The body leads and the lullaby follows: knees soften, hips sway, arms cradle, hands rub, lips hum, eyes close.

There isn’t much to comforting a baby. There is only everything. The filling of the moment with the emptying of the self.

Has it been 10 minutes or 2 hours since we started rocking in this chair, or pacing the path of the upstairs hallway?

And who are we becoming in the process?

. . .

The thing about having a baby and older kids is that you realize how the same soothing rhythms stay with us. One kid wipes out on his bike, and he comes flying around the corner, wailing for a hug. Another’s nose runs like a leaky faucet, and he cries out in a most pathetic plea – I just want you to hold me!

I cradle them with the same sway that rocks their baby brother whenever he wakes. The same rub of the heaving back. The same murmurs whispered low. The same lingering kiss on the sweaty forehead. All the instincts that quiet the newborn give comfort to the big kids, too.

Perhaps deep down we are all always this small soft child. Crying out to be seen, soothed, loved.

Shouldn’t soothing be the simplest subject? Something about it is so instinctual that even our 4 year-old starting shushing in his baby brother’s ear the first time he held him.

But all week I’ve been struggling to write this. Not only to steal away enough time to fill the page, time away from rocking and holding and cuddling and nursing.

But also because it seems like a saccharine subject at first glance. The spirituality of soothing? It’s convenient to conjure up a God who comforts. Isn’t that the stuff of the opiate of the masses – creating the God we crave?

Yet I believe comforting is not simply some handy attribute of the divine. It’s an imperative at the heart of faith. The catch with Christianity is that we are called – even compelled by our very nature, created in God’s image – to comfort in turn. And there’s the rub indeed.

Because it’s hard work to comfort. It aches the back and tires the arms and rasps the throat and wearies the head. Comfort is not just about the calm, but the storm.

Sometimes when I’ve held an inconsolable newborn, on one of those crying jags that pound in your eardrums and pulse in your blood, I’ve wondered how God could possibly stay with us – all of us – through our own shrieks and screams and sobs. The only answer I can find is that this practice of love is about deep faithfulness – not some token pat on the back, not mere temporary relief.

Behold, I am with you always. As a mother comforts her child.

. . .

And it’s so sweet to soothe these small ones, too. So undeniably full of love and loveliness – to have the sleeping head finally loll onto your shoulder, to hear the smooth steady breath that once was ragged, to watch the peaceful eyes stay closed when you gently lay the baby back down.

Both sides of soothing – the challenge and the comfort – whisper something about who God is and who we are invited to be in turn. Consolers. Lovers. Peace-makers.

The ones who stop and stoop and scoop up to soothe. The ones who murmur quiet words over the wails and whimpers. The ones who keep watch over the sick, the weak, the wounded.

Come to me, all you who are weary. Christ like a father who crouches down and opens arms wide to embrace the sobbing child, the smallest who comes seeking only one thing, the desperate need in the painful moment.

So I will comfort you. God like a mother clasping her child to her chest, wrapped in the most intimate embrace, beating heart to heart.

This is love with skin on.

. . .

For a new twist: next time you’re comforting your children, remember who has comforted you through past hurts. Have you been blessed to know someone who comforts as God comforts?

Where do you need comfort in your life? What comfort are you called to give?

(And if you missed the rest of the series on spiritual practices with newborns, check out feeding and cleaning…)

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Abbey @ Surviving Our Blessings says

    19 June 2014 at 12:19 pm

    Laura- this is beautiful. You are on a roll with this whole series. I’m saving them all to reread when my own little guy arrives in a few weeks.

    (Also- I’m loving the added connection of seeing your small ones’ names in your posts. I’m so glad you made that choice.)

    Reply
    • Laura says

      19 June 2014 at 1:14 pm

      Thank you, Abbey – so glad you’ve enjoyed reading them! I can’t wait to hear when your little one makes his big debut.
      And thanks for the affirmation re the kids’ names. It does feel good to make them more “real” in this space that means a lot to me!

      Reply
  2. Rita says

    19 June 2014 at 1:18 pm

    Laura, I love this. Beautiful, beautiful. Our children are adopted, and they met us as toddlers, so we comforted them as children who didn’t even know us, holding them as they cried, even though we could offer only ourselves, our warmth, our love, our safety, and the same sounds and movements anyone offers while comforting. It made me realize that sometimes as a mother you offer comfort and hold a child even when he’s not sure he wants to be held by you. And so you give and give. Hope your baby is feeling better soon!

    Reply
    • Laura says

      19 June 2014 at 1:26 pm

      Rita, this is such a beautiful perspective you remind me of – that no matter when we start parenting our children, the ways we comfort them are the same. And even when they don’t want to be held, we let them know the love is still there. Thank you for this!

      Reply
  3. LauraMarieForLife says

    19 June 2014 at 4:04 pm

    This is so beautiful! It’s so true that no matter how old we get, we all need comfort sometimes. Filing this away for the future!

    Reply
    • Laura says

      19 June 2014 at 10:16 pm

      Well said, Laura Marie! And thank you for stopping by!

      Reply
  4. Katherine Turpin says

    19 June 2014 at 6:58 pm

    Laura,
    I’m loving these tender, wise posts about practices of mothering. So beautiful.

    Reply
    • Laura says

      19 June 2014 at 10:16 pm

      Thanks so much, Katherine – I’m touched to know that you’ve enjoyed them.

      Reply
  5. Natural Mama Nell says

    20 June 2014 at 2:45 pm

    Beautiful.

    Reply
  6. Kaydee Kirk says

    21 June 2014 at 2:38 pm

    Hi, great post as usual! We have a 3 week old so all your writing is so especially relevant for us right now.

    Somehow I cannot access the comments for this post. Could you let me know when it is up and accessible?

    Thanks! Kaydee

    Reply

Trackbacks

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

    […] ← spiritual practices with newborns: comforting […]

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  2. spiritual practices with newborns: a new series « mothering spirit says:
    1 August 2014 at 5:53 am

    […] comforting  […]

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

    […] Comforting […]

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  4. like a mother and child | mothering spirit says:
    26 January 2015 at 7:02 pm

    […] Here are a few more musings on lullabies: finding a song for each child and singing to babies as a spiritual practice. […]

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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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Nearly 20 years ago (!) these crazy kids graduated Nearly 20 years ago (!) these crazy kids graduated from Notre Dame. Now we’re thick in the midst of life-with-kids, celebrating middle school & preschool & everything in between. 
 
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“How did you do this?” I want to ask her. “H “How did you do this?” I want to ask her. “How did you let your heart break a thousand times?”

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I wish I could ask my grandmothers, each of them gone for decades now, each of them matriarchs who raised big broods of their own. I never got to know them as an adult, but I have heaps of questions: How did you do it? How did you not lose yourself or your way? Or did you, and that was precisely the point?

I want a whole book of answers to impossible questions, and none exists. So I send my thoughts to the mothers of faith whose short stories, mere snippets on pages, have sparked small lights to guide me along. To Sarah and Ruth, Hagar and Rachel, Mary and Elizabeth. Every unnamed anguish the holy ones carried, every treasure of love they held in their heart.

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So I resolve again, a hundred times again, to let this vulnerability become the strength that keeps me fighting for all children to have what I want for my own: life, love, health, safety, support, opportunity, community, hope. This is how parenting asks us to change. To let the particulars of our lives stretch us to love more widely.

I once thought “to mother” meant to have and to hold.

Now I know it also means to let go.
Many of you asked me to save these suggestions I s Many of you asked me to save these suggestions I shared after the school shooting in Uvalde.

Remember: we can’t do everything, but we can each do something.

Just because we can’t eradicate evil overnight doesn’t mean we can’t take small strong steps toward change.

Any work for justice and peace is long and hard. But we can build this work into our daily lives in concrete ways.

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When women meet, the world changes. Today is the When women meet, the world changes.

Today is the Feast of the Visitation. A day when we remember the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth.

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Two mothers called to change the world.

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How could the world change if we made Mary’s song our own?

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he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.”
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Imagine if we stayed in this holy space—not for a moment’s meeting, but for months together—to gestate the dreams God was waiting to birth through us.

Imagine if we let ourselves be filled with the Holy Spirit to shout out with loud cries.
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The mothers will show us the way. They already have.

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Stay angry. Flip tables.

I am writing this for us, for tonight, for next week. And I never want to write it again.
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