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. Be still and know. Meditation … [Read more...] about meditation, preschool-style
Christianity
joy, meet relief
Can you hear it in their voices? Once you cut through the baffled wonder and divide the nagging disbelief and set aside the stuttering astonishment, there it is: relief. He is risen. He is risen? He is risen! It's not a matter of simple punctuation. There are a thousand reactions to surprising news, and the Gospels cover nearly every one. Mary thinks she's talking to the gardener. John and Peter race each other to the tomb. Thomas can't believe his eyes. But by the end of each of their stories, there is always a category shift. The turn to joy. Happiness is often distinguished from joy. One is fleeting; the other is lasting. One is surface; the other is depth. But here's a difference I hadn't noticed until this Easter. Until I nursed the baby in the wee grey hours of Sunday morning, the baby who had slept all night, finally, blessedly, miraculously slept all night after months of terrible waking. Until my only thought as my whole self relaxed to let him feed was relief. And … [Read more...] about joy, meet relief
the gift of ordinary time
I have a sneaking suspicion this is what matters most. Not the anticipation of Advent, the celebration of Christmas, the long journey of Lent, or the exuberance of Easter. But the everyday of Ordinary Time. Lately our kids have been grumbling about the Christmas decorations being packed away. The house looks so plain, I hate it. And they're right. There is something melancholy about tucking away the trappings of such a happy season. At first glance we see only absence. The gaping space where the tree stood. The empty mantel where the creche was displayed. The bare door frame where grinning faces of friends and family beamed down at us from Christmas cards. But there is welcome relief in slipping back into the ordinary, too. Rediscovering the beauty of what was already around us, hidden behind the holiday lights and ornaments. The walls and windows of our own world. The places and peace that we had already worked to cultivate. I have noticed over the past few … [Read more...] about the gift of ordinary time
the day after the first christmas
Here she is, only a day into motherhood. Her hands trying to figure out how to feed her crying newborn, human as he is. Maybe she has help from midwives who took pity on a poor girl far from home, no kinswoman of her own to care for her. Or maybe she feels so alone that her heart aches for her mother or cousin, sisters or friends, anyone who could guide her learning to nurse this baby, bring soft clothes to diaper him, serve her warm food for strength, help tend her healing body. Here he is, only a day into fatherhood. His head still reeling from the panicked fear of not finding her a place in time, his face flushed from the shame of not being able to provide. He never dreamed any of this: witnessing labor only women do, caring for a wife he had never touched, staring while strangers showed up to a filthy stable to say they saw some sign of hope. And having to hold her in that darkest hour, the moment when the world split open between life and death and everything hung in the barren … [Read more...] about the day after the first christmas
