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Mothering Spirit

everyday parenting as spiritual practice

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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.

Behold boredom’s gifts, creativity sneaking out

Behold boredom’s gifts, creativity sneaking out sideways. See how souls reflect their Source.

Watch an idea take root in sparkling eyes, a glimpse of genesis.

Catch recycling at its finest: trees to paper to boxes becoming letters becoming words, break it down and start over.

Behold a basement cluttered with imagination. Linger with creative spaces longer than clean floors.

Trip over the world turned upside down. Sink your feet into new corners and connections.

Witness learning and fighting and resolving. Glimpse full-fledged humans—not en route but already there.

Learn from the ones you taught. Follow the ones you thought you would lead.

Savor laughter flung in the face of doubt. Watch the rules broken and remade before your eyes.

Seize the day. Seize two. See what you might make.

Tear it down, mix it up, press delete, begin again. Let the past be the place from which you leave.

Notice play and possibility. Tread lightly, for a fresh world is underfoot.

Shape new words for a new age. Behold hope learning how to spell its name.

The baby laughed today, a true chuckling explosion

The baby laughed today, a true chuckling explosion deep from his tucked chin down to his tiny plump toes, and my God, I tell you I needed that first laugh like long-hike water.

The world is rotting from the inside out, and didn’t we all suspect it but oh Lord, the savage weight we inflict on each other and the secret burdens on countless shoulders, and truth be told I am struggling to meet any day with hope.

But then laughter, mountain-stream pure and rushing over the stones, and can I help if the hopeful baby is the only solid good worth spilling words about these dark days?

Laughter is unnecessary and inexplicable, and also greedy gulps and heaping helpings keep us alive. In the beginning was the Word, and as a child I used to wonder if that Word was so terribly funny that God’s own Self couldn’t contain it and the Word burst into the universe—an explosion of light and love and laughter— and everything was created in that first hilarious instant.

What I do know is that each day at least one overlooked astonishing holy delight keeps me tethered to this spinning globe, and today it was a baby’s first laugh, and I may never witness another first chuckle here on this planet but today was everything and enough, thank God for joyous that.

The stars are brighter than ever. I can’t stop

The stars are brighter than ever.

I can’t stop looking at them now. Can’t stop sneaking out at night once the kids are asleep and the house is quiet and I can finally hear myself think. Can’t stop curling my toes over the edge of the worn step, concrete still warm under my soles though the sun slipped away hours ago. Can’t stop craning my neck till my back aches, trying to take it all in, the black expanse of endless sky.

The stars became brighter once it got darker.

I thought the eerie orange on the horizon was unchangeable: a given of polluted modern life, artificial lights blazing while nighttime smothered.

Then pandemic flipped the switch. Quarantine sent us home. Protests closed the highways.

Overhead the stars burned brighter.

Across the world creation came rushing back in: smog lifting, water clearing, animals returning, birds singing.

I am learning to love the darkness, too. The emptiness of the void. The stretch of clearer vision.

Each night the stars sear their way into my sight. Another day done, endless and exhausting as the last, so much horror we heap on each other and none of it holy—but then there are stars, sacred small lights for all of us and they have always guided humans home.

I missed so much beauty when I couldn’t see the darkness. The parable of stars waiting patiently, light years away.

Look up, I keep hearing God whisper. Keep looking up, deeper into the darkness. More light is here than you realized, and hope cannot stay hidden, and the widest truth is found far beyond yourself.

He cannot speak a word. His pudgy feet have never

He cannot speak a word. His pudgy feet have never taken a step. His skin has never been burned by sun or bruised by another's hand. His head still wobbles on his neck, though he grows stronger each day.

Everything about him is new and young and tender.

In the weeks we spent in the hospital surrounding his birth, the virus barely blipped on the nightly news radar. No one said "pandemic." George Floyd was still alive, 10 blocks away.

Sometimes I stare into his clear eyes and wonder: what world did we bring you into? Then I remember: a world that already existed, and I did not understand so much of it. A world that is changing since the day you were born, and I am wrestling how I'm called to live within it.

If you feel too-new, if you worry you're too wobbly or weak, if you feel tender and not tough-enough, if you are floundering for words, be gentle with yourself. Be strong with yourself.

Whatever is newborn demands exhausting time and energy. But this doesn't mean you're doing things wrong. The truth is you're caring for what needs the most care.

I have only held him in my arms for three short months. l am only learning how to mother this child in this world.

What came before prepared me for now, but it is only the beginning. The hardest work takes the longest time.

Scrolling back on my phone, I found words I meant

Scrolling back on my phone, I found words I meant to share weeks ago—but then George Floyd was killed. The city I love rose up in flames. Streets around the world filled with righteous anger. I forgot about any fistfuls of words I'd left behind in Before. But rereading them in the dark, I saw a spark, unexpected and unplanned. What I'd tried to say about the pandemic might still be true—about the protests, too.
⠀
Which half is still growing?

Every day on my walk, I pass this tree. It fell a week or two ago, victim of high winds from a short storm.

I couldn’t decide where to look when I’d pass by. The fallen limb or the living half. The tragedy or the miracle.

By my fourth or fifth walk past the tree—wondering who would take care of it, why it hadn’t been cleaned up yet—the metaphor became laughably clear.

Life looks the same right now.

Everything was on a trajectory: keep going, can't stop, don't look back. The natural pull to continue, for better or for worse.

Enter pandemic.

Everything got lobbed off from normalcy.

For three months now, I’ve been staring at fallen limbs, fixated on what got destroyed.

But grief taught me that you don’t get Before back. There’s no parallel universe in which your life continues smooth and straight, innocent of whatever turmoil or trauma befell it here.

The part of life that’s still growing is the pandemic part. (Hard truth to admit.) The line shooting straight through the suffering, still reaching to the sky.

Not the fallen limbs of everything lost. All that cannot be saved.

I’ve been staring hard at what the storm destroyed (and is still ravaging), not just in my small life but in the wide world. A million splintered hopes splayed across the ground.

But every time I stop and stare at this broken tree, I realize with regret that no one can prop up the fallen half and let it live again.

No matter how familiar or beautiful it was. (Even if it was rotten inside.) The once-was half is gone. We’re left craning our necks at the empty space, the hole in the landscape.

The only part that’s growing is where we are right now.

All we can do is nurture any good that remains and root out any rottenness we did not see Before.

Hardened Hearts Close Minds. Folks, we are in a s

Hardened Hearts Close Minds.

Folks, we are in a spiritual battle. Racism is not just evil: it is a spiritual evil. Evil causes us to harden our hearts. We have to soften them and be willing to listen.

Just like we fast and pray for the end of abortion, we must fast and pray for an end to racism. Racism is not bound to any race. We have seen what bigoted and oppressive systems look like all over the world and we have seen that the spiritual evil had to be denounced through personal prayers and public reconciliation (ie Germany, Rwanda, South Africa). America’s original sin, systemic racism based in white supremacy, needs spiritual prayers! People need to do the personal work of checking privilege, learning the full history of this country- one that is not whitewashed- and becoming spiritual and community advocates for change. People need to take this intention to adoration and their government representatives. More needs to be done to formally talk about and repair for the damages of racism.

I have been blessed to meet many good people of all races in the past few years as I returned into a deeper catholic faith. But I also experienced a lot of hurt from some of these same people. As a black female catholic, I have decided to not only love and forgive, but to speak truth with charity. That’s the only way we can find healing.

I will be posting a video about my personal experiences with racism and racial ignorance in the pro-life world and hope it can shed light on a VERY common experience amongst many Black American Catholics. Feel free to ask any questions in general, or pertaining to my video.
I almost deleted the video, because it was too raw. But what good is a discussion, if it can’t be honest? I hope you watch the video. 🤗 Feel free to comment /DM @camericanchick .

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