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everyday parenting as spiritual practice

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meditation, preschool-style

5 Comments

Most nights, my bedtime prayer with our two oldest boys begins like this:

Be still and know that I am God.

I can’t remember if it started when our litany of God-blesses maxed out into a mile-long list of everyone my kids knew: every teacher at their schools, every former babysitter, every relative they’ve never met, all the poor people and sick people and sad people and homeless people and all the children in the world.

Or if it started when we needed something fresh after all the recitations of prayers they know by heart: Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be.

Or if it started one late night when I was so tired that I simply needed to hear the words myself.

Be still and know that I am.

But no matter how we started, “let’s do meditation” has become the nightly plea for their bedtime routine.

Who can resist that request, even at the end of an exhausting day? So meditate we do.

meditationBe still and know.

Meditation for two squirmy kids is as simple as this.

A few deep breaths to quiet our bodies to listen to God.

Then a stair-step repetition of Psalm 46:10’s refrain, dropping a word or two each time to shorten the sentence, then building back up again to the full phrase.

And every night, no matter how antsy I am for bedtime to end and my few precious hours sans-kids to begin, I always find that one phrase will catch me and do exactly what the psalmist says.

Slow me down and remind me that God is God.

Be still. 

Make no mistake about it: my kids wiggle and giggle the whole way through. They are no monks.

But they know the words by heart, forward and back, inside and out. I will never forget the Sunday we sang the same psalm at church, and our oldest son’s eyes shot up, astonished that everyone else knew his prayer, too.

These ancient words have become so close to my boys, already in their mouths and in their hearts. Now all they have to do is learn how to live them.

All I can tell them is that it takes a lifetime.

Be.

So much of my life runs counter to this psalm’s truth. I cringe to admit that a more fitting refrain for too many of my days is Be busy and forget that God is even around.

It’s all up to me, right? The kids and the work and the house and the endless to-do lists. Too often I forget to slow down and seek the One that matters most in the midst of it all.

Be still.

So whenever the boys yell “meditation! meditation!” while jumping on their twin beds like bouncing monkeys, I say yes. I take a few extra deep breaths to slow down before we start. I need this practice as much as they do.

Probably even more.

Be still and know.

After we’d been praying this meditation for a year or so, our oldest son decided one night that he wanted to lead. No longer would he wait for my prompts. He knew the words and he was off.

So the tables turned. He would set the tone (quicker than mine) and huff out exaggerated faux-breaths in between each line (a token pause). But he became our prayer leader, and that was important.

For him to lead and for me to follow.

A few months ago, our middle son interrupted me one night and announced that he wanted to lead meditation. I was surprised, but I let him go – and he led us perfectly. Sweet and solemn and slow.

They keep teaching me what it means to pray.

Be still and know that I am.

Because at the heart of this prayer—this nightly meditation, this psalm that has calmed and consoled Christians for thousands of years—there is one single truth: God is God. We need not be.

We only need to slow and stop and remember ourselves back into right relationship with the One who created us.

No matter our age, attention span, or aptitude, these words and this truth can be savored on our lips. My boys remind me of this every single night.

Be still and know that I am God.

. . .

P.S. The first line from Psalm 46 also works for this style of meditation, so we alternate nights with this prayer. (I’d love to find more!)

God is for us our refuge and our strength.
God is for us our refuge.
God is for us.
God is.
God is for us.
God is for us our refuge.
God is for us our refuge and our strength.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jessica Sanborn says

    7 July 2015 at 10:17 am

    I loved this so much. For a long time I had such a hard time praying out loud. It was hard to know what to do with my kiddos at bedtime. I found that I could sing blessings for them as I tucked them into bed. Words are getting easier, but I’m still not very comfortable with bed time prayers. I read this yesterday. It was so beautiful, and I was excited to practice this with my three kiddos at bedtime. It was a sweet, sweet way to end the day. Thank you.

    Reply
    • motheringspirit says

      7 July 2015 at 9:35 pm

      Jessica, I am so delighted to hear that this prayer helped you at bedtime with your kiddos! Honestly some nights I really struggle to pray mindfully with my kids at bedtime, simply because I’m so tired. So I love how peaceful and calming this Psalm is for all of us. Blessings on your family.

      Reply
  2. Ray says

    16 January 2016 at 10:29 pm

    Thanks for this. I’m preparing a meditation exercise for our class tomorrow and I wasn’t sure what scripture I was going to use. The Psalms you chose are really kid-friendly and hit on the theme about being children of God. I modified it slightly for 1st Grade including some contemplative comments between the lines. Thanks a bunch!

    Reply
    • motheringspirit says

      17 January 2016 at 12:13 pm

      Thanks so much, Ray! Hope this works well with your class.

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. beloved. be loved. | Mothering Spirit says:
    14 January 2019 at 6:01 am

    […] took their wisdom to heart, prayed these lines with children and adults. Always searching for more Scripture that can be stair-stepped with perfect […]

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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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thismessygrace

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

thismessygrace
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.
Want to do some outrageous good with me? If our d Want to do some outrageous good with me?

If our daughters had lived, they would turn 5 years old this week. Our grief is enormous. But our gratitude for their lives is even bigger.

So in honor of Abby and Maggie's big birthday—one whole hand—I want to do something big.

Hunger has gnawed at my heart for the whole pandemic. It's all around us, growing every day. Yet often it flies under the radar of our concern because it's constant, while a thousand outrages and injustices rise up anew each day.

But I know our neighbors are struggling to put food on their tables. I believe we're called to feed the hungry.

And I'm convinced that in the worst of times, we can show up with our best selves.

So I want to do something outrageous. I want to raise $20,000 for Second Harvest Heartland, one of the largest food banks in the U.S., located right here in our beloved Twin Cities.

Their need has skyrocketed by 30% during the pandemic. Food shelves across the country are seeing record levels of need.

Feeding the hungry is a work of mercy. A work we must take up in earnest.

I know many of you are struggling, too. Stretched thin, worn through, tapped out. Most of us don't have a lot to spare these days. So here's where we can help each other.

If each one of you who follows along to read my words gave $1 to @secondharvestheartland we could meet this crazy goal TODAY.

Could we do it? Should we do something spectacular this week?

I'm willing to try. I bet you are, too. If you give small—or big if you've got it, or simply share this post if you can't give right now—we could do it in HOURS.

That's the power of social media for good. The power of loving our neighbors in tangible ways.

Let's do it. I'm with you. Right now I'm giving in honor of two sweet girls that I wish were swinging their feet at our kitchen table, scarfing down dinner alongside their brothers.

Do it in honor of the kids you love. Or the kids you'll help but never meet.

Make it part of your alms-giving this Lent. Or make it today's small sacrifice: the cost of one cup of coffee.

I'm ready to do some wild good in this hardest week. Thank you for loving with me.
Caught myself dizzy from scrolling here and rememb Caught myself dizzy from scrolling here and remembered—we aren’t an island of misfit toys. We’re one big book of psalms.
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