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Clear The List 2022

By Laura Kelly Fanucci | August 16, 2022

Thank you to all who have shared their back-to-school lists with us as part of our 1st crowdfunding effort! For weeks now we’ve been telling you about Mothering Spirit, the new ecumenical, collaborative community we’re launching this Labor Day to share stories, prayers, and resources from diverse voices to help you pray through parenting. But…

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Catechesis of the Good Shepherd: our home atrium

By Laura Kelly Fanucci | August 30, 2021

Want to learn how to introduce Catechesis of the Good Shepherd to your kids at home? My background Over the past year I’ve shared about our family’s home atrium on Instagram (part 1 and part 2) and in my Holy Labor newsletter (here). After I completed Level I training in the Catechesis of the Good…

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a month that changed the world

By Laura Kelly Fanucci | March 28, 2020

One month ago, I was in the hospital. The same hospital where my baby girls were born four years earlier. The same hospital where they each died in my arms, days later. One month ago, I was holding our newborn son. The same baby I pleaded to God to keep safe as I spent day…

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ten years

By Laura Kelly Fanucci | February 17, 2020

Exactly ten years ago this month, I started a blog. I told exactly no one. Not even my husband. My first baby was six months old. I was working part-time, overwhelmed and tired. I craved connection and community. I wanted breadth of thought and depth of prayer. I couldn’t find anything like what I wanted…

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the day before Christmas

By Laura Kelly Fanucci | December 24, 2019

Wherever they are, they have traveled far. Not at home, known and comfortable. Not on the road, exhausted from the journey. Arrived but unsettled. No room in the expected places, no welcome in the usual way. Whatever they expect, they can only imagine. Preparation leads to prayer’s edge: picturing what might be, trusting what could…

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the whole story

By Laura Kelly Fanucci | December 21, 2019

The told story is not the whole story. We tend to grasp onto moments as the whole. In a culture obsessed with tiny tweets and shiny surfaces, it’s easier to outrage or comfort ourselves with sound bytes that echo the thoughts between our ears, daily dulling our curiosity. We take the smallest sliver for the…

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waiting in womb-time

By Laura Kelly Fanucci | December 14, 2019

Pregnant women inhabit time in a whole new way. I’m 20 weeks, we declare. As if we were the child within us. As if we were the time itself. Our relationship to these womb-weeks is totalizing. Time means everything: how much time the baby needs, how much time we have left. But womb time is…

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another, again, anew

By Laura Kelly Fanucci | November 15, 2019

When we were dating, then engaged, then married, I used to catch a glimpse of him and think—God, please send us daughters. Because I had never met a man like him, so strong and gentle all at once, so humble and quietly confident, so genuinely kind and caring. I watched how he treated his mother,…

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the pitter-patter

By Laura Kelly Fanucci | July 19, 2019

Their feet crush me. Tiny toes curling, ancient reflex. Baby socks lost in the dryer like doll clothing. Toddler tiptoes to reach the sink. Preschool slip-ons for circle time. Sport shoes for season after season—cleats, sneakers, boots.  I know their feet intimately. Kiss them at diaper changes, sweet antidote to stink. Bathe them in bubbles…

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in an instant

By Laura Kelly Fanucci | July 16, 2019

Sitting at my desk, working on words of loss, I watch a thousand cottonwood seeds drift by the window. White wisps rising on the breeze, lifted from my sight. Summer’s snow globe, shaken and set to spin. I remember noticing them, as if for the first time, the summer after our twins died. One afternoon…

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a prayer for mother’s day

By Laura Kelly Fanucci | May 6, 2019

Each year on Mother’s Day, my heart goes out to those who struggle with this holiday. Inspired by this column on “How to Widen Our Hearts On Mother’s Day,” I’ve gathered prayers from readers into a litany to be prayed at church or at home – to remember all the mothers. Feel free to adapt…

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beloved. be loved.

By Laura Kelly Fanucci | January 14, 2019

A beloved theology professor of mine in college used to start each class with a simple prayer, repeating, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). One line spoken slowly, one word dropped each time until there was only “be.” Years later, a favorite writing teacher did the same during a week-long workshop.…

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