Parenting With Spirit

The Year of the Ritual

2010-04-16T10:50:00.025-04:00

With a backpack full of snacks, enough clothes to see us comfortable into the April evening, reusable grocery bags and transit tickets, we boarded the streetcar after my son's choir lesson Thursday and set out to accomplish something that has been on my "to do" list every week for the last twelve months: shop at our local farmer's market. This foray into stalls of local fruits and vegetables took almost as much planning as our yearly trip out West, which is likely why I haven't managed to pull it off on a weekly basis.

The Dufferin Grove market is one of the most well-stocked farmer's markets in the city. I picked up fresh cabbage, rainbow carrots, parsnips, and Jerusalem artichokes only hours out of the ground. Here you can find fish fresh from Georgian Bay, organic bread baked on the premises in an oven handmade from mud and straw, and buy eggs laid earlier that day. I love everything about this farmer's market and farmer's markets in general. They are a shorthand for the good life: buying fresh, local produce outdoors and mingling with your neighbours, no fluorescent lights, and live music in the background. I don't even have to worry about abandoning my shopping cart because of a rowdy kid as both of mine went off to pretend to be vendors selling "chives" (a.k.a. grass clippings) with a motley crew of homeschoolers at a make-shift stall. This is so much more pleasant than the fruit and vegetable section at No Frills, I can't help but wonder why it has it taken me a year to get back here.

What I told myself every week for the past fifty-one weeks was that I didn't have enough time to get over to Dufferin Grove. Who has the time for a fifteen minute walk and extended browsing at a farmer's market? Certainly not the mom I met later that evening at the playground. Her daughter is in my son's class at school and this was her first foray to the market this year as well. "I don't even have time to drop my daughter off at daycare," she said. Her own mother walks over every morning to help out as this woman rushes off to work. And with meal planning, cooking, cleaning, lessons, laundry, communication with family and friends, etc., etc., there's barely time to think. "I remember my mother lying on the couch in the afternoons and reading a book," she said, flabbergasted. "I never have time for that. But what do you cut out?"

I know how she feels, being back at work part time myself. But having spent the past four years at home with my children I know that having unstructured time doesn't necessarily mean we structure our days any differently. My vegetables weren't any more local or organic when I was at home, my house certainly wasn't any cleaner, and I ate just as many meals out because I ran out of time to cook. When it comes to living the good life more time isn't necessarily all that we need.

Aristotle said "We are what we repeatedly do." Which is to say, we are the sum of our practices. If I'm honest with myself, I have to admit that going to the farmer's market wasn't all that difficult or time-consuming, the real reason I don't get there weekly is simply because I'm not in the habit. Because we ate at the market we were back at home, veggies unpacked, children bathed, playroom tidied, teeth flossed, stories read and lights out half an hour earlier than normal; nothing lost and a fridge full of Ontario vegetables gained.

Perhaps we need good habits more than we need a couple of extra hours in a day. Looking at my children I see how essential a sense of routine - of the habitual - is to their sense of well-being. We don't operate on a "to-the-minute" schedule in my family, but we do operate on a familiar rhythm. There is a Chinese proverb that says, "Habits are cobwebs at first, cables at last." This has proven true in our family. In fact my children still operate on habits - routines - developed when they were babies. Both of my children needed to cuddle and nurse for a long time when they first woke up in the morning. While beyond nursing now, they still make a ritual of taking an extended time of comfort and cuddling in the early morning. We call it the "morning stories;" each child picks something to read and this gives us a chance to wake up slowly and in each others arms. I've learned through trial and error those good habits that help my kids function at their best: they need to eat well and regularly, get some fresh air, engage with me and their dad in some one-on-one time, and have lots of opportunity to play. All of this makes up our daily routine. Only now do I realize that I need my own routines and good habits to make life as enjoyable as it should be.

Over the past few months I've come to the realization that so many of the problems I have in growing in the fruit of the Spirit stem from the lack of good habits in my life. We run out of food because I don't have a consistent shopping schedule, and my bathroom sink constantly carries a brown film because I get to cleaning it when I can (which is never), and more often than not I don't feel the joy I should feel as a parent because I haven't made a point of scheduling some weekly time to spend together as a family. Consequently I'm in the bad habit of spending most of my days impatient, frustrated, and cranky as opposed to kind, generous, and joyful.

I recently took out a book from the library called "This Year I Will..." by M.J. Ryan. In it she asks an arresting question: am I living the life that wants to live in me? I answered with a despondent "no." Everything I consider important (making a soulful home, shopping in organic markets, buying bulk to reduce packaging, daily exercise, weekly family nights, regular devotional time, cooking with less meat) I rarely do simply because I'm not in the habit. And so M.J.'s book has inspired me to make this year the year of the HABIT - or perhaps RITUAL is a better word, it's much prettier and literally means "a procedure regularly followed." Thursday night? No, I'm busy. That's when I perform my ritual of the farmer's market...want to come along?

So I've decided this month to focus on the fruit of discipline or self-control in order to make my "Year of the Ritual" a reality. I want all those things I consider priorities to actually take their rightful place amongst the weekly rituals of my life. I don't want to kick myself for missing the market (again) while I'm shopping at No Frills. I want to grow in discipline - in the ability to live out what's really important to me - so that when I ask myself whether I'm living the life that wants to live in me, I'll be able to say yes.

TLC

2010-03-22T13:08:00.018-04:00

If there's one thing I'm learning through parenting with Spirit it's that any experience life throws at you - no matter how mundane - can become a spiritual experience if you choose to look at it that way. Case in point: the chicken pox, which Nicholas came down with two days before March Break was scheduled to begin. It's rare to be struck with this kind of convalescence these days: one whole week off - at least - and quarantined from public places. I canceled plans, rescheduled visits, and prepared for boredom, misery, and mangy-ness.

The afternoon that I discovered the spots we bundled up against the rain and gloom and I pulled the kids in the wagon to the nearest drug store. I bought the biggest bottle of Epsom salts available and enough calamine lotion to last through my grandchildren having the chicken pox. Back at home, cold and weathered, there was nothing to do but take care of each other. I ran Nicholas a hot bath and poured in the salts slowly and from a great height so we could watch them cascade and plink into the water. I grabbed a fresh hand towel for his back so he could lay comfortably against the porcelain, a soft cloth to pat his sores and a measuring cup to ladle the warm water over his battered skin and - presto! - created our own little ritual of healing.

Like water on rock, this illness slowly smoothed out my curt, rough and busy ways. Normally I don't have time for such coddling - running water over blistering sores, carefully preparing pots of rosehip, chamomile or lemon echinacea tea, patiently dotting tiny spots with pink lotion - but there I was, labouring over a bath, warming the tea pot, scouring the linen cabinet for cotton balls, and feeling surprisingly content because I'm useful and comforting and...much more gentle than I usually am.

I don't know exactly what got me to it, but in the week that I was at home with my son and the chicken pox I came to the realization that being gentle in life is akin to being reverent. Perhaps it was the intense intimacy involved in caring for someone who is sick; cleaning wounds, dressing sores, cuddling a shivering, skinny boy, each act in and of itself a sort of prayer...my son, who art my heaven, hallowed be your name! It seems to me that the search for a gentle way to relate to others - interacting without being harsh or rough or inconsiderate - is simply the best means of honouring the sacred in our midst; that is, the incredible and impossibly curious fact that we are alive, and that we have these precious bonds to other living being as parents, or children, or life partners. Illness reacquaints me with the sacredness of being alive - and of all life on this planet.

When Nicholas was sick last week I took care of him like I meant it - with tender, loving care. It embarrasses me to say I'm not like this every single day, because we all deserve a little TLC, if only for the awesome fact that we are here and we are living - and not just when we're ill. Indeed, I've come to see a gentle reverence for life as the only thing that will keep us well.

Just Dance!

2010-03-17T16:20:00.008-04:00

I made a delightful discovery last week, on the lookout as I was for a gentle way through the (sometimes) rough moments of day to day life with young children. The challenge: to get through that awkward time many mothers call the "witching hour" (or "arsenic hour," as my mother called it) without any harsh words on my part. Are you familiar with the witching hour? If you haven't lived through it, let me fill you in. The witching hour happens after school, but before supper when you're trying to cook dinner but the kids are already hungry and tired and in need of more of your energy than you have it in you to give. During the witching hour there is too much to do for one set of hands, but your partner isn't home from work yet. A colossal challenge for any mother, the witching hour is that much more difficult for us Canadians in the long winter months when it is impossible for us to send the kids outside and out of our hair without a fight.

The solution? No, it's not TV, and it's also much healthier for you than downing a glass of wine or bottle of beer to make it through until your partner comes home. What could it be? Why, Lady Gaga, of course!

Mid-arsenic hour the other day, Nicholas and Emma wanted to listen to "rock" music, which is what they call any music that is pop-y and played at loud volume. Normally I detest loud music during the witching hour as it only seems to add to my stress when I'm cooking under the gun and tripping over toys on my way between the fridge and the stove, but just this once I gave in, put on Lady Gaga and pumped up the volume.

As soon as the music came on Nicholas and Emma ran off to put on their costumes, each of them choosing something pink and frilly that gives good twirl when they spin. In the midst of the chaos that is our kitchen in the witching hour, the kids were having so much fun, spinning and swirling and grabbing whisks to use as microphones. Feeling their joy in spite of the pressures it dawned on me that even though it was technically the witching hour, that didn't mean I had to be a witch. Gentleness was right there, I just had to embrace it.

So off I ran into my bedroom and rooted around in my "give away" bag for the slinky black number my 19-year-old-built-like-a-runway-model cousin had passed on to me. It was a dress made for her body and not mine, accentuating my floppy stomach and the way my bosom, well, barely exists, but for dancing in the kitchen, it was just the thing. The kids loved seeing me in costume too - they thought I looked beautiful. "You should wear that to church, mama," Emma said. Now that would be a Sunday you wouldn't want to miss. My mood went from sour to soaring as I danced my way through the chopping and the simmering and the washing and the tidying, rocking out to Lady Gaga in my little black dress.

I was reminded in the moment that when we can find ways to make light of the heavy parts of life - choosing to be a little more gentle with each other, while still attending to the tasks at hand - life is a lot more fun. So, now, when tensions rise and my natural inclination is to whip out a harsh word and launch it at anyone in firing range, I'm going to remember the gentle wisdom of my children and, of course, Lady Gaga and her wise directive to "JUST DANCE!"

La Vie Boheme

2010-03-08T14:44:00.020-05:00

This week and last week I have been feeling overwhelmed and sensitive about the lack of "things" in my house. It started last Monday morning when I woke up and couldn't get past the fact that I still don't have a proper bed and I'm in my 30s. At the moment we make do with a box spring and mattress, a big step up from the mattress we used to have on the floor. Why don't we just go to Ikea and pick up something cheap, you might ask? Good question. Here's the answer: Steve and I made an anti-consumerist vow not to buy any "temporary" furniture; we would wait instead until we could afford good and solid pieces that would last the rest of our lives and avoid adding one more poorly-made bed frame (and dining room set, and living room furniture, and television) to the landfill. But I'm starting to feel like it's time to buy something already because our living conditions are just plain weird.

Last week I couldn't help but look at our house the way visitors must look at it. I felt like journalist Gail Sheehy must have felt on her first visit to the dilapidated Grey Gardens mansion to meet the eccentric Big Edie and her daughter, Little Edie Bouvier Beale - full of shock and awe that real people were actually living in such a run-down crazy place and seemingly okay with it. At least I don't have raccoons inside my house like the Bouvier Beale ladies...at least I don't yet, but believe me they look in our windows like it's only a matter of time.

Who do I think I'm kidding? It's obvious that the "couches" I've created in our front room with a big bunch of fabric and throw pillows are the kids' beds. The old change table in our bedroom is too wide to pass as a book shelf, I should know this. And the old jam jars are just that and belong in the recycle bin; I can't keep passing them off as water glasses. We need so much stuff in order to be considered a normal North American family, starting with a whole house instead of just the main floor and an actual bed frame.

So my "to buy" list feels a tad long at the moment and this is overwhelming because I don't have any time to buy anything anyway, and no car to cart all my stuff home and no means of entertaining the kids on what would be long and tedious errands.

In the midst of all this I needed to think about my focus for the month of March and went out for a long run to process my thoughts. I wasn't expecting to meet my goddaughter at the park where I run the trails, but there she was, out toddling around in the way that only two-year-olds can, enamored with a rock and a dog and a mom that passed by pushing a baby in a carriage. I stopped, talked, pointed out a tree that had been gnawed by a beaver, gave the girl a big squeeze and - wouldn't you know it - felt a million times better about myself and my life when I got back home. Children - my own and others - remind me that feeling good within and without is the result of treating ourselves gently, meeting our daily physical needs for nutritious food, vigorous exercise, lots of water and sunshine along with meeting spiritual needs like connecting with others and nature. I'm always the first to tell my children that buying more "things" isn't going to make them any happier. As I said goodbye to my goddaughter and finished my run I knew that of all the fruits of the Spirit what I really needed to focus on this month was growing in gentleness - towards myself and the planet - and that this would do more to help me feel right in the world than any amount of furniture ever could.

Shopping can wait. I think that treating myself gently - meeting my physical and spiritual needs - is the only priority for which it's worth rearranging a schedule. If browsing for a bed frame means I won't have time for a much-needed run, and if a shopping list makes me feel like I don't have even half an hour to sit and read a few scriptures and pray, then it's the browsing and the shopping that I need to comprise, and not my health. People before things, wise women have always said. Besides, the earth needs some gentle treatment too. I don't need to add more discarded purchases to our planet's garbage dumps, and I would undoubtedly end up tossing what I buy in haste sooner rather than later.

So I ran three times last week and I actually got up to the loft to read scripture every morning and I just got back from a wonderful afternoon at the playground with the kids. I don't have a very clean house this week or even a whole house or even any gosh-darned furniture to put in my house, but I think a spirit of gentleness is more important than all that anyway - it's got to be. As Big Edie said, "My body is a very precious place." So is our planet. And my challenge this month is to judge my life more gently, by how I FEEL on the inside, instead of fretting about what surrounds me on the outside. And I think Mother Earth will thank me for this. But my house will still look weird.

Who's Laughing Now?

2010-02-18T13:46:00.006-05:00

What's it going to take to turn me into Mother Teresa? Do I need to read scripture and pray for 24 hours a day? Do I need a new diet? More exercise? A lobotomy? Last night I slept for twelve (yes, twelve) hours and I'm still the same cranky and impatient mom that I was the day before. You'd think that after getting that much sleep I'd be a walking saint, but it turns out I'm still me and I haven't changed yet!

It's been two years since I first noticed how many opportunities I had for spiritual growth in my daily interactions with my children, two years since I first noticed how they seemed to offer up every opportunity to grow in the fruit of the Spirit, two years since I became conscious of actively choosing to pursue the Spirit in the moment, two years of trying to grow more loving, more joyful, more peaceful, and (at the moment) more patient, but I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't something wrong with my method, because I don't seem to be changing at all. Kindness and gentleness and self-control still don't come naturally to me. What's it going to take for me to change? When will this stop being work?

Looking for opportunities to practice patience this month has made me realize just how impatient I am for this spiritual discipline to yield results. I feel like all this should be getting easier and it's not. Maybe there's no Spirit behind all this fruit. Maybe people can't change. Maybe this stuff doesn't come naturally to me because I have some sort of a block, maybe there's some sort of barrier between me and God.

Or maybe it's only a matter of time. When my kids are impatient it's usually because they lack perspective on the bigger picture. They get so frustrated because they think that how they're feeling or what they're experiencing is the only thing they'll feel and experience into eternity: the bus is NEVER going to come, the drive will NEVER end, the food will NEVER be served, we will NEVER eat, things will NEVER change. I can't help but laugh at their absurd reasoning. Maybe I should laugh at my own?

(im)patience

2010-02-02T15:18:00.004-05:00

What parent doesn't get daily opportunities to exercise the virtue of patience, February's spiritual fruit of the month? In fact, I'm looking at a full evening of fruitful growth opportunities. The challenge: Stay patient and sane over the next five hours while folding six loads of laundry, tidying the house, getting supper ready, getting Nicholas to drumming at 5pm and Beavers at 6pm, picking him up, cleaning the kitchen, and packing for our trip to Quebec City. Care to place a wager on how I'll do? Oh, there's an extremely high-pitched squeal! The first of many tonight, I'm sure. Deep breath. Spirit in, Spirit out...patience.

Just writing the word - patience - makes me realize that there's a lot to it; patience is about more than restraint in the moment. I'm thinking that the practice of patience also involves an appreciation of the moments in which we find ourselves, no matter what the moment brings. Most days I find myself in such a hurry to get on to the next thing that I forget to enjoy what's in front of me right now: the mess and challenges, affections and intimacies of daily life with young children. I've got to ask myself, why the rush? Isn't this just what I've been waiting for?

You feel...because....

2010-01-29T13:35:00.028-05:00

The first time I threw a plate during an argument with Steve I knew I would eventually need help with conflict resolution. The plate was Corelle and supposedly unbreakable but six months later I was still finding the odd porcelain shard as I swept up the floor, each splinter an opportunity to reflect anew upon what good my outburst accomplished. Now - after throwing several punches, a glass angel, a wooden engagement ring box, two pieces of rotten fruit and a container of yogurt - I am finally enrolled in Communication Skills Training! But will ten hours, three sessions, and one course help me to settle my conflicts more peacefully?

The premise of the course I'm taking is that effective and peaceful communication happens when we focus on the person we're trying to communicate with and their feelings. We practice doing this at the first afternoon workshop I attend: You feel...because.... It seems simple enough.

Fittingly, the next day is the beginning of five long days of conflict at home, the presenting issue being the laundry: it's not done, when it is done it doesn't get folded, and who's job is it to do the laundry anyways?!?!

It was only after loudly proclaiming that I would never - NEVER! - touch one dirty sock of Steve's ever again that I remembered that this month I was supposed to be looking for opportunities in the moment to orient myself toward peace, rather than taking the direct route to conflict.

Sitting in the kitchen after dinner one night an opportunity presented itself. Remembering my communication skills training I realized that a way forward might be to focus less on myself and my complaints and more on Steve and his feelings. I had a road map to peace; all I had to do was follow it. Stand up, make a left, walk five paces, take Steve's hands in your own, listen. I could even use that phrase: You feel...because.... "You feel frustrated because your shirts aren't clean when you need them to be." I could say that, I thought. Imagine it! But I couldn't get the words out. You feel..., you feel..., well what about what I feel? I wanted to yell (I may have yelled). Does anyone ever think about that?

A few days later I came across this quote: "Letting bad feelings fester toward another person is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die." If conflict is ultimately destructive to ourselves, what do we need to do to move towards peace?

As luck would have it, prep work for a sermon I preached earlier this month required that I read over the gospel of John and it was there that I found some insight. I was struck by the fact that Jesus in John's gospel gives only one commandment to his followers; you won't find an account of the Sermon on the Mount in John's gospel, nor will you find a list of holy do's and don'ts to follow. Jesus instead offers one simple bit of encouragement near the end of the story: love one another. Just love one another. He goes on to say that no one has greater love than this: to lay down one's life for one's friend.

Perhaps our capacity for peace is related to our willingness to love even when loving others doesn't get us exactly what we want. Perhaps our capacity for peace is related to our ability to love more, to love so much that we'd let a part of ourselves "die" for someone else's benefit. It's been my experience that conflicts resolve peacefully when I just get past my own stubborn insistence upon being right; when I'm willing to put my own interpretations and experiences aside in order to hear the interpretation and experience of another.

Children are so good at doing this, aren't they? Kids don't hold grudges; at least my four and six-year-old don't (I'm not the mom of teenagers, yet!). When my kids and I have a disagreement about something or if I'm crabby and having a bad day they don't give me the cold shoulder. I'm always amazed at how quickly our squabbles are forgotten with the offer of a hug or a kiss. With my kids, the will to reconnect always trumps the will to be right. Perhaps then we can say that our capacity for peace is also related to our capacity to forgive.

I'm trying to remember that, when it comes right down to it, it's not magic words or a magic phrase that help us resolve our conflicts peacefully; it's the attitude and alignment of our hearts. Perhaps the best communication skills training we could ever receive is simply to learn to love more, and to learn to forgive, instead of learning how best to make ourselves heard.

Fighting Words

2010-01-02T11:26:00.009-05:00

I spent the month of December with eyes and ears open, on the lookout for small opportunities to grow a little more peaceful. Could I use diplomacy instead of a high-pitched yell to work out the latest power struggle between Emma and Nicholas? Could I get my Christmas shopping and chores done and not recreate my resentment at having to do so back at home? Could I balance the kids' need for attention and engagement with my need to read my book by the fire (alone)? Let's just say peace deserves another month. And so I'm at it again this January, in pursuit of the Spirit through the pursuit of peace. Of all the fruits of the Spirit, I find peace the most difficult to internalize.

I couldn't have planned for a better location to begin my quest for peace. Personal growth opportunities abound where I've been for the past two weeks - in Edmonton, Alberta - visiting my family for the Christmas holidays. If peace is meeting your own needs without disrespecting the needs of others, where better to practice this than the old family home, surrounded by at least ten other people's pressing needs and expectations of what will make this Christmas memorable? Another discovery: we can't meet our needs if we don't have the tools to do so. No inner tools, no inner peace.

My cousins and I took Nicholas and Emma skating at Edmonton's Victoria Skating Oval the Sunday before Christmas. The Victoria Skating Oval is the size of a football field. There is no better place to skate, fast and furious (without running into anybody) than the Victoria Skating Oval, but neither of my kids can skate well. Last winter they got to the point where they could balance on the ice but when we arrived at the Victoria Oval it had been almost a year since they'd been on skates and we were back to square one. My cousins and I took turns skating with the kids, holding them up under their armpits. After about ten minutes Emma got her balance and could walk to one of us if we held out our arms and really encouraged her. Nicholas got to where he could take tiny steps without any help. This was fun for them for about a minute and then Nicholas wanted to know what he had to do to glide like everyone else at the skating rink.

I'm no skating instructor. I tried to remember my own skating lessons which were at least twenty-six years ago. Getting your feet into a "V" shape seemed to be important. Then I tried to think of the best way to explain the concept of pushing backward to glide forward to a five-year-old. Nicholas could not get his feet into a "V" shape and he didn't get my explanation of gliding. Things grew tense between us. He would get himself up and balanced and try to get his feet into a "V," fail, get angry, start scuffing his skates on the ice and fall.

Frustration eventually got the better of him and Nicholas had a full blown tantrum on the ice. Tears and spit and cold and snow. When he didn't lighten up, couldn't pick it up, couldn't try and try and try again I grew impatient. I could see so clearly that all this crying wasn't going to get him skating, in fact, it impeded his progress. It seemed so simple to me; stop crying, get up, try again. I can only comfort for so long before I lose all sympathy and get mean. The pen may be mightier than the sword but the words that come out of our mouth do more harm. I told him to get up because he was embarrassing me. No one else was crying. "You'll never get better if you don't practice."

Ironically I knew just how Nicholas felt. I know how discouraging it feels to realize just how much work it takes to be good at something and how overwhelming it can be trying to figure out how to get there. "You'll never get better if you don't practice," was what my piano teacher said to me. That's me sobbing in bed later that evening, my dad trying to comfort me by reading Rudyard Kipling's poem "If," me yelling at him to leave me alone, me quitting piano the next day. There's me kicking my sandcastle, in a huge fit because it doesn't look like the Taj Mahal. There's no calming me down. And there I am slamming the studio door on my ballet teacher at age fifteen. She'd asked me to show the class the latest dance she'd been teaching us. Even though I hadn't missed a class I still had no idea how do some of the steps, and couldn't remember what order they came in. I wanted to spit in her face for putting me on the spot (didn't she know that I had no clue what I was doing?). I never came back to class.

"I quit." "You'll never get better if you don't practice." Them's fighting words. The next time we went skating I brought along a couple of old chairs that were light enough to glide on ice but heavy enough to provide security and stability for a kid unsteady on his feet. I laced up Nicholas' and Emma's skates, walked them to the edge of the rink, put a chair in front of each of them and left them alone while I went back to put on my own skates. When I came back the chairs were out in the middle of the rink. Nicholas and Emma had used them initially but now they were out on their own. I couldn't believe it. The rink hadn't been cleared of snow, but there was a shovel sitting by the wooden gate that led onto the ice. Instead of clearing the snow altogether I used the shovel to make curved pathways for the kids to follow, snaky labyrinths, diagonal roadways. They skated the turns, stopped and started, glided down the long narrows. This time there was none of the agony that comes from seeing an end point without knowing how to get there. If anything the whole experience was...peaceful. And that peace didn't come because someone rescued us from us our frustrations. We were at peace because we now had the tools to get to where we wanted to go, and so off we went, skating.

It's A Wonderful Life

2009-12-31T16:11:00.047-05:00

Being the introvert that I am, I'm always glad for the opportunity the New Year brings for a little introspection. I've never been one for big parties, big crowds or big binging on New Year's Eve. A quiet and candlelit dinner, a game or two with the kids, a bottle (or two) of Pinot Noir and I'm happy. But even if I've planned the perfect New Year's Eve I always wake up disappointed and unsatisfied on the first of January if I haven't spent a few solitary moments taking stock of where I'm at and where I've been and where I hope the New Year will take me.

Over the past few years I've compiled a bunch of questions from a bunch of different sources that I now use to help me reflect on where I've been in life and where I'd like to go. I thought I would pass these questions along in the hopes that they will help some of you in your meditations on the New Year. Answer one, a few, or all. The idea is to get some perspective on what's working and what isn't working in your life as well as to get a sense of your highest commitments and values. Perspective and awareness bring the possibility of change.

Reflections for a New Year:

Where are you at right now?

What do you love about your life right now? What makes your life great? What makes it beautiful?

What are you doing right in your relationships, in your work, in your sense of personal mission?

What do you see as your purpose in this season of your life?

What kind of a partner/family member/friend/colleague/volunteer are you?

What would you say are your highest priorities?

Are you doing things now that you could drop? What are the things you are doing that hinder you and your family's quality of life?

What difference would you like to make in people's lives?

What does it look like where you want to be?

How would you define a life with no regrets? How would you spend your time?

When do you feel most at peace? What activities brings you the most joy?

What characteristics do you value in your friends?

What are families for? What activities do you like to do as a family?

What kinds of things do you stand for?

Look at the key words or values that pop up in your answers to the questions above. Ask: What would it look like for me to practice this value in everyday life? What would my family look like if we practiced this value?

Getting to where you want to be...

What do you want to have accomplished one year from now?

Picture yourself twenty years from now. What do you want to be able to say about yourself as a parent? What do you want your children to say about you? About themselves?

How will you bring your highest priorities to life?

List concrete steps you can take now to simplify your life so that you have room for your highest priorities.

Happy New Year!

Heavenly Peace

2009-12-23T13:59:00.025-05:00

Yesterday I got up at 5am and went for a run around two of my favourite neighbourhoods here in Edmonton. Even though it was at least minus 20 degrees celsius and, yes, it was 5 o'clock in the morning, I was in heaven. All sound was muted by the heavy snowfall the night before. Nobody else was out. Snowflakes sparkled under the streetlights. It was the first time I had felt any sense of peace in weeks. Even better, I was back home by 6am with time to shower, dress and enjoy a hot cup of coffee before anyone else was even awake. Now that's what I call a good start to the day.

Wake my husband up at 5am for an early morning run and, well, hell hath no fury like Steve before noon. His time to himself is from 10pm to midnight when the rest of us are asleep. Steve and I live naturally in two different time zones. The only time we ever get to sleep and wake up at the same time is when I visit relatives on the West Coast and he's still in Toronto.

We're both willing to cut back on sleep to gain a few quiet moments to ourselves. This is a sacrifice, but I wonder whether a sense of peace is possible without some sort of compromise on our parts. Six days into the love and inevitable stresses and tension of a big family Christmas I've witnessed enough small conflicts to keep me thinking about a blueprint for peace. And what I've come up with is this: Peace is meeting our own needs while respecting the needs of others.

Both Steve and I need time to ourselves, but our kids need us constantly during their waking hours. Whose needs win out? Taking time for myself in the early morning means I'm as present as possible to my kids during the day. And Steve cuts out of work earlier than most of his childless contemporaries so that we can eat dinner as a family.

We've got to meet our own needs for whatever gives us inner peace, but peace isn't peace if it comes at someone's expense. This has become a bit of a mantra for me this holiday season as I attempt to balance my own need for quiet, solitude and long, uninterrupted visits with family and friends and my children's need for attention and engaging activities.

On Monday night I think I got it right. I wanted to go for a nighttime walk to look at the stars and people's Christmas lights and I wanted Steve and the kids to come with me. I had visions of us coming home with ruby red cheeks all aglow from the frosty walk to cuddle on the couch by the Christmas tree and read Christmas stories and drink hot chocolate.

Nicholas and Emma wanted to watch Scooby Doo.

Compromise, consideration and a real attempt to keep the peace got us out the door. I was willing to let them watch an episode of Scooby Doo on either end of our walk and they humoured me by putting on their snowsuits and heading out in Siberian conditions to look at the lights and the stars. Hot chocolate and Christmas stories by the tree will have to come another night. It wasn't exactly what I had planned, but I got what I needed and so did everyone else. We negotiated without resorting to threats and violence - no small triumph -and fell asleep that night contented and happy, in heavenly peace.

The Year of the...System?

2009-11-30T07:09:00.016-05:00

This whole process of "parenting with Spirit" has got me in a reflective state of mind.

For those of you who don't know what I'm doing, here is the premise: At this stage in my life I don't always have the time or discipline or energy to take on traditional practices of Christian spirituality with any consistency, so I've been trying instead to reap the benefits of such practices in a non-traditional way: making parenting my spiritual discipline. Now, you might be wondering, "Why bother with Christian spirituality at all?" Three reasons: 1) I'm a minister and I want to practice what I preach, 2) Even in an age of secularism I still feel the need to model a life of faith for my children and 3) I really do want to feel closer to God! I want to feel what the mystics of yore felt and I really do want to grow and mature and live a great life free from hang-ups and selfishness! So I've been trying to notice how many opportunities my children give me to grow in something the Bible calls the "fruit of the Spirit" (these are qualities like generosity, patience, self-control; growing in these virtues is the end goal of spiritual practice). In October I focused on growing in joy and this month I've been trying to grow in love.

Very laudable, but more often than not I take a pass on said growth opportunities, and I started to wonder: why?

I didn't need to reflect for long to figure out the answer: I'm too busy! Here's what always happens: I'm in a rush; my kids don't do what I need them to do that instant; I get angry; I realize I have an opportunity to react differently, and then I take that opportunity and shove it because I've got to get to work (gosh darn it!) or I've got to get supper on the table or gymnastics started five minutes ago or the bathroom needs cleaning before the company arrives.

And so I had to ask myself: can I really expect to practice my faith like a nun if I don't live in a cloister? Of course not! What would it take to make my home into a monastery? I think I've finally figured it out. The one thing those nuns and monks have on me is the very thing my home lacks: ORDER!

Yes, I've come to see that one of my biggest stumbling blocks to "parenting with Spirit" is the lack of any clear order to my days. I can't respond to life with any degree of spiritual maturity because I'm always reacting stressfully to crises. Nuns and monks at least have the option of serenity and calm and acts of compassion because they don't have to think about doing anything else in the moment. They set themselves up so that they don't have to do anything else. Meals? They're taken care of. Cleaning? That's done too. Their days unfurl in carefully measured increments and everything happens according to plan because they planned for it to be so.

Throw a nun into my life and I don't think she'd be serene and compassionate without her order propping her up. Not even a nun could laugh a joyful laugh if she had to send her son - as I just did - to school in the same underwear he's worn for the past three days because there is no clean laundry. Ha ha ha! I'd like to see that same nun be loving and empathetic as she comes up with an idea for supper after she's been at work all day, and there's nothing in the fridge and her two children are throwing themselves on the floor, arms and legs thrashing because they're hungry. That would be funny.

Order and consistent spiritual practice go hand in hand. Which is why I'm thinking ahead to the new year and have decreed that this coming new year will be the year of the SYSTEM. According to the Chinese astrology, it's also the year of the Tiger, who's motto is "I win." Well, I'm going to harness all that tiger energy out there to beat the chaos on the homefront - look out! Roar! I have my friend Kessa to thank for planting the idea of a "system". I really believe that if I had some sort of system for meals and groceries and laundry and lunches and cleaning that I could focus more on spiritual practice. What do you think? Do you have a "system" that works for you and that allows you more time on life's intangibles and less time in crisis? Are you thinking ahead to the new year? What will your year be about?

Make Me a Channel of Your Peace

2009-11-16T13:50:00.015-05:00

Is there anything more dreadful for parents than our city's annual Santa Claus parade? I'm still angry at the numskull who mentioned it to my kids. Next year the rule is if you mention it, you have to take them. By yourself.

The Santa Claus parade is like self-flagellation for parents. Had I worn a hairshirt I would have been appropriately dressed. I mean, why walk into this minefield? Why line up in a downtown wind tunnel in a crowd eight-people deep with your child on your aching shoulders for at least three hours only to see every tired marching band in North America, depressing clowns and tacky plastic floats? You're guaranteed to run out of snacks and water and your children will whine mercilessly the whole time. And when it's time to go home you'll be competing for a seat on public transit against (literally) a million other people - all with tired, crabby children in tow. Does this sound like fun?

This was my experience at the Santa Claus parade this year, only worse. I don't know if it was traffic overload or what, but the second street car we needed to catch never showed up. So there I was on a dirty downtown street corner with two exhausted and starving children who just wanted to get home as quickly as possible and I tell them that they've got to walk...twenty-three blocks.

I've noticed that ninety percent of parenting with Spirit involves setting myself up for success. When I am rested, fed and watered; when I've had some exercise, fresh air and sunshine; and when I've had a little restorative time to myself I am more able and willing to reach for the Spirit's fruit when presented with the option. So you'd think that taking my kids to the Santa Claus parade after a long morning at church and then having to walk home would set me up for failure. My kids would present me with an opportunity to grow in love, but I'd be too tired and hungry and stressed and just plain fed up to take it.

Well pop open the champagne; I feel like celebrating! I didn't let my negative feelings get the better of me! Not this time!

About ten steps into the long walk home, the "why"-ning started: why wasn't the stupid bus coming? why didn't we take the subway instead? why didn't you pack enough food? why don't we have a car like everyone else? why do we have to walk everywhere?

It was irritating. I really really wanted to swat the "why"-ner and decree that we would never - NEVER! - go to the Santa Claus parade again. "Why"-ning is so unhelpful, especially when we're all stressed out. But I managed to stop myself. Or maybe it was divine intervention. In any case I stopped and looked at the "why"-ner and hit a moment of inspiration. I dropped to my knees in the middle of the sidewalk and said, "come here and give me a hug." He was in my arms in less than a second. I said I could see that he was tired; I was tired too. I said I knew how hard it was for little legs to have to walk so far; it was hard for my legs too. I told him how much I loved him. Up until that moment my insides said push away! berate! punish! It's for his own good! I opened myself to love instead. Talk about triumph on a Napoleonic scale!

And what's more, it really worked. We had to stop for hugs two more times before the garage door was in sight, but we got through the rest of the walk without any more "why"-ning.

Perhaps in order to grow in love we need to pursue what initially seems counterintuitive; to pull close when we feel like pushing away, to speak gently when we'd rather be harsh. Perhaps we need to pray, as St. Francis did, that we may never seek so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love with all our soul.

All I Need is Love

2009-11-12T10:19:00.007-05:00

Yesterday I was at the library and came across a collection of stories by Shirley Hughes. I think I enjoy her books more than my children do. She manages to capture the realities of family life so well. I like that the houses she draws look like my house. There are clothes spilling out of drawers, toys on every surface, books left lying out, and food stuck to the floor under the table. And the mother she draws looks so frumpy in her big sweater or gritty bathrobe, wearing non-trendy glasses and sporting a haircut she can't maintain. I love it! I can relate! It is comforting to see my reality in art. But where Shirley Hughes tops all illustrators - in my opinion - is in her ability to paint love. Her scenes of family life are messy and frazzled but full of the warmth that fills a home where people are really trying to love each other - day in, day out, admist dinners and dishes and diapers.

This month I'm trying to be conscious of all the little opportunities my kids give me to grow more loving. I'm really trying to nurture this fruit of the Spirit inside of myself.

I've noticed that - for my kids - to be loving is to be present. They seem to want to simply be with me more than they want a clean house, an enriching schedule or new toys. They want to play, they want to cuddle on the couch, they want to run around the playground - and they want to do this with me. I have to admit that I need a relatively clean house in order to function and I think it's important to get out and about and learn new things, and I do need to fit in time for my job, but I'm trying to redefine what I consider to be "essential" tasks in order to free up more time to simply be present and loving with my children.

So the sticky black marks on my kitchen floor are going to have to stay there for a while and I won't get around to framing those photos I have been meaning to frame for twelve months and the summer clothes I brought up to the loft in September won't find their way into the storage cupboard anytime soon. Instead I'll be channeling Shirley Hughes and the Spirit on the playroom floor with the kids, stuff strewn everywhere, but full of love.

Drama Queen

2009-10-26T19:23:00.024-04:00

So I'm really trying to be mindful in the moment of little opportunities I have to be joyful but more often than not I'm too crabby and irritated and would rather pout and complain about the stresses of day to day life as a mom in the Western world instead.

This feels really spiritually immature and makes me wonder when I will ever grow up.

I made such a scene yesterday I don't think I can leave my house without a disguise. You see, Wednesdays are the one day I have to be physically at work at a certain time (besides Sundays, of course) because we have a staff meeting. Now to get to the staff meeting on time it is crucial that I leave with Nicholas when he goes to catch the bus. Once the bus leaves I carry on - on my bike - to work.

You would not believe how organized I was yesterday morning. I was superhuman. Nicholas and I were both dressed, my lunch and laptop were packed along with a batch of freshly-baked muffins especially for the meeting (eat your heart out, Martha), and we walked out the door at 8:30am, exactly four minutes (four minutes!) early for the bus. Four minutes to make the ten-second walk to the bus stop at the end of our alley. Plenty of time, right?

Wrong. I stepped out of the garage to see a lineup of cars idling at the end of the alleyway. And those cars only wait for one thing: the bus!

Should I put profanities in this blog? No. I'll let you imagine what I was yelling while Nicholas ran and I hopped on my bike to try to catch up with the bus driver and make her stop. This sent Nicholas into a complete panic attack. So there he was, on the sidewalk opposite our neighbourhood school, neighbourhood do-good parents and their well-adjusted children everywhere, screaming and crying out to his mom who has gone completely beseerk, belting down the street on her bike, shouting profanities at the bus while it drives away.

I gave up trying to chase the bus when it turned the corner. I stopped my bike right in the middle of the street, waited for Nicholas to catch up to me and started to cry.

Why do I find it so hard to face minor (in the grand scheme of things) snags like this with grace and a positive can-do attitude? So I was going to be a bit late for my meeting. So I needed to find another way to get Nicholas to school. So we don't have a car. So public transit is too slow. So I had to get Nicholas to ride his bike. So what? Why did I have to go into hysterics in front of the neighbours?

Nicholas on the other hand showed exceptional discipline and managed to turn the morning into a blessing in disguise. I think he only freaked because he saw me freaking and swearing all over the place. Once we were both on our bikes on route to the school he grabbed on to joy and wouldn't let go. "It's going to be okay, mom," he repeated like a mantra. He thought riding together was fun - and it was. He was thrilled to have missed the bus. "We get to ride together!" We chatted about this and that. Curses and blessings. Joy and all that good stuff of the Spirit comes naturally to him. He doesn't have to work at it and be all mindful of reaching for it, like I do.

If I am learning anything in this quest for the Spirit's fruit in my life, I'm learning about what gets between me and the state of grace my children inhabit by default. Sometimes it's feeling rushed, sometimes it's feeling overwhelmed with demands, but more often than not the biggest barrier between me and transcendence is this feeling that I am somehow hard done by and I want the world to notice. I want a gold star, a pat on the back, a medal, and some sympathy.

Why can't I just let it go?

A Sticky Situation

2009-10-23T06:57:00.021-04:00

One morning last week I opened the fridge to get the milk and found that the entire bottle of maple syrup had spilled and had covered the bottom shelf in a sticky pool of mess. This discovery was made with ten minutes to get Nicholas fed, teeth brushed, and on to the school bus. Needless to say spilled syrup was the last thing I needed. I yanked at the milk jug (now almost) cemented to the fruit and vegetable drawer and almost started to cry as big, gloppy blobs of syrup dripped from the jug as I carried the milk across the kitchen to the table and filled the cereal bowls. My house is messy enough as it is. I don't need these kind of complications that just make it worse.

"Do you know anything about this?" I asked Nicholas.

Of course he did. A couple of days before (what? The syrup had been slowly pooling for TWO DAYS and I hadn't noticed?!?!) Nicholas had tried to make himself a snack (cereal with syrup on top) and hadn't known how to properly seal the bottle (it has a fancy, old-fashioned lid). And then the syrup had somehow tipped over.

I know it's digusting, but I decided to ignore the syrup (on the floor and in the fridge) for a little while longer. The bus! We had to go. But after lunch we went grocery shopping and before I could put anything away I knew the syrup would need to be cleaned up. I had to deal with the mess. Nicholas was on his way to the playroom.

I could just clean up the syrup myself, I thought, it would take ten - maybe twenty - minutes of hard labour. Not much time, really. But then, I thought, this is an opportunity for Nicholas to learn - to grow! - and to come to an understanding of natural consequences. So I called him back and braced myself for imminent whining and complaining and yelling.

"Nicholas, before you go off to play we're going to clean up the syrup in the fridge together." I stood looking at him like a deer in the headlights - paralyzed - unsure of what to do next. I was ready for the onslaught of something horrible. But instead he just said, "Okay, mom."

We filled up a mixing bowl with dish soap. I showed Nicholas how to wring out his rag and mop up the syrup. We mopped and rinsed, and mopped and rinsed again. And then he stopped wringing out the rag. "I want it to be really watery," he said. Slopping masses of water now lay around the bowl and the interior of the fridge looked like a muddy, brown pond. I could feel myself beginning to grumble. What a mess! It was almost worse than the syrup. I wanted to grab his rag and swat him. Just looking at the water sloshing everywhere made me want to scream! Why on earth couldn't he just do what I wanted him to do?

But then I remembered my plan at the outset of this month. No more tantrums. Time to be a big girl, Kristin. You're trying to grow. You're trying to change. You have a choice: transcend or regress. That still, small voice inside of me was calling out amidst the storm: ""reach for joy, lassie! You're going down without it! It's all you've got! Reach for joy like it's all you've got to hang on to!"

Time for a deep breath. I asked Nicholas to grab a towel to soak up the water, which he did. And I took a good look at him, scrubbing the fridge. The water and the non-wringing of the rag was just him really getting into it: having fun and still getting the job done. He was clearly enjoying himself and there was an aura of pride about him; engaged as he was in such an adult job. I had to admit to myself that it wasn't so bad, working along beside him. I had snagged a front row seat at his show of capability, responsibility, and independence. And that's when I felt it: the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart.

It didn't stay, but that moment was enough to make me feel ten feet taller, spiritually speaking. Anyways, spiritual growth is always a work in progress; just a series of small successes that gradually accumulate beyond our big failures and make us into the people we were created to be in the first place.

Next month I'm going to focus on love, which means my challenge is to try to be conscious of all the opportunities I get moment by moment to choose to be loving or to show love to my family.

But before then, there'll be on more post on JOY.

The Joy of Cooking

2009-10-12T21:14:00.016-04:00

On Sunday we hosted a Thanksgiving dinner with my brother and his partner and invited over a couple of our good friends. Both my husband and my brother love to cook and I like to bake and since we were all inspired by a little book I had bought the kids called "A Pioneer's Thanksgiving in 1840," we decided to make the entire meal from scratch - including cranberry sauce and ice cream to go with the pumpkin and apple pies. And just to make the preparations even more complicated than they already were, my husband and I decided that the kids were going to help us with the cooking...

We look so peaceful in this photo, don't we? The kids look cooperative, but here's a rough approximation of what happened in the moments leading up to this photo being taken:

Nicholas: "Mom, I want to watch my Scooby Doo video."

Me: "Not right now; I want you to help me cook this afternoon. It's important."

Nicholas: "Mom, please, I don't want to cook - it's going to take forever! Please just let me watch Scooby Doo!"

Me: "No. Get in the kitchen."

Nicholas: "But I want to watch Scooby Doo."

Me: "No. Mommy and Daddy need your help in the kitchen."

Nicholas: "Then I hate you and I'm not being your son anymore!"

Me (in yet another Jekyll/Hyde moment): "GET IN THE KITCHEN RIGHT NOW! I DON'T WANT YOU TO EVEN MENTION THAT VIDEO AGAIN. WE'RE GOING TO COOK TOGETHER...AND IT'S GOING TO BE FUN!"

I wasn't sure whether I could find any joy in this Thanksgiving cooking experiment, but Steve and I were convinced that it was much better to involve our kids in the whole process than to have them sitting in front of the TV - even though I would have been able to put the ingredients together much more quickly without their help. And it turned out that standing firm in our convictions - though they inconvenienced us and made our kids extremely grumpy - eventually filled the afternoon with joy and happiness and a deep sense of personal satisfaction.

Nicholas and Emma sliced all the apples for the apple pie, prepared the mixture of spices, milk, and eggs for our pumpkin pie and made the pastry - with only a little help from me. While I peeled the apples and they sliced I talked about their great Grandmother - my Grandma Bernice - and how she taught me how to make pastry. I shared her pastry secrets with the kids and told them about great Grandma Bernice's life growing up on the Stoney Plain farm. It was a joy to cook with my kids. I felt whole; I felt happy. I got that, "This is What it's All About" feeling.

I think I'll make it a tradition for our family to cook together at every holiday. I'd much rather their Thanksgiving memories involve cutting boards, apple peels, cinnamon, and raw turkey, than movies on the TV. Midway through slicing his pile of apples Nicholas looked up and said, "this is fun!" I guess that's why they call it the joy of cooking!

Transformation Happens in the Kitchen

2009-10-09T02:11:00.008-04:00

I assume that if you're reading this blog, you go to church. And why do you go? If you're like me you go for a whole bunch of reasons, my number one reason being that, having gone to church, I just feel better - it's like exercise for the soul.

I also go to church to be transformed; I want to be the best version of me that I possibly can be, hokey as that may sound. At the moment, traits like peacefulness and compassion don't come naturally to me, depending on the circumstances, and I don't like that about myself. I think the ultimate goal of being a part of a community of faith and taking on a set of spiritual practices is a transformation of the heart. I want my heart to blossom and grow in the fruit of the Spirit. I think Jesus achieved this kind of transformation. Virtues like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control just oozed out of him and I'd like that for myself.

Traditional practices of Christian spirituality - practices like reading scripture, praying, attending worship, fasting, calling ourselves to account through confession, and offering radical hospitality - are meant to open our hearts and minds to Spirit so that transformation can take place. But most of these practices require a consistency and time commitment that many parents can't give. So what do you do when you want to practice your faith (because you want to be transformed) but the traditional tools of spirituality just don't mesh with the reality of your life right now? As a parent any spiritual practice I take up needs to be flexible and adaptable to the needs of my family.

In my first post I shared the story of the night I behaved really badly towards my children. The only good to come out of that night was the revelation that absolutely every interaction I have with my children held within it the potential for the kind of transformation I had been looking to receive through traditional spiritual practice. I realized that - with a little perspective and a lot of discipline - I could actively choose to grow the fruits of the Spirit in my heart. The way in which I engaged with my children gave me every opportunity to be more loving or kind or gentle. It turned out that Transformation was right there waiting for me - in my kitchen.

So this is what I've decided to do: every month I'm going to focus on one fruit of the Spirit - one Christian virtue that I'd like to have more of in my heart. As I go about my day I'm going to look for opportunities to invite that spiritual "fruit" into my actions and intentions and responses to whatever gets thrown at me. My hope: to be the best me I can be and to grow more like Christ, who seemed to have these virtues at his fingertips. And ultimately I guess I hope - like any beauty queen, politician, or bleeding heart activist worth their salt - to make my little corner of the world a bit more loving and joyful and peaceful and generous and faithful as a result. Of course, I'm also doing this because I want these virtues to be as close to a part of my children's DNA as possible and any parenting resource will tell you that example is the best teacher.

So here I go...off to sow some seeds and grow some fruit.... This month I'm looking to grow in JOY. I will choose to be joyful; I'll laugh more with my kids; I'll rely on humour to diffuse testy situations; I'll notice how full and happy I feel with the joy of motherhood!

Needless to say how easy it is to have the best intentions when it's 2a.m. and there's no one around to "bother" me. We'll just have to see how "joyful" I am when the kids wake me up in a few hours...

Let Me Pencil You In...

2009-10-05T06:19:00.008-04:00

Have you ever noticed that the greatest spiritual leaders of all time were single? It's probably not a coincidence. Jesus, Buddha, Mother Teresa - they weren't changing diapers or nursing a baby at two in the morning. They didn't have to figure out how to get three kids to three different schools and 27 extra-curricular activities on time. And when they had a moment to spare I bet they never thought (like I do), "great, time to fold some laundry!"

No, it's probably not a coincidence that single people like Jesus soar to such amazing spiritual heights, and that's because single people have the one thing we need in order to grow closer to the Divine. And what, you might ask, is that one elusive thing we need for such spiritual growth? It is, quite simply, unhurried time.

The spiritual practices of any religion are those things we do to open ourselves up to God. Traditional Christian spiritual practice includes things like reading scripture, praying, meditating - practices that require one not to be interrupted.

For those of us with young families finding unhurried, uninterrupted time for spiritual practice is like winning the lottery. I don't know about you, but some days my only uninterrupted time is the time I get to go to the bathroom. And there are some days when I don't even get that.

Is it possible to soar to the same spiritual heights as Jesus when you've got a family that takes up most of your time? I actually have no idea. I do, however, think spiritual growth is possible - even without daily scripture, prayer, and meditation. Maybe we just need to think of parenting as a spiritual practice in and of itself.

The Jekyll/Hyde Incident (well, one of them...)

2009-10-03T17:52:00.016-04:00

The idea for this blog has been on my mind since the horrible night I completely lost it on my children a couple of years ago.

Here's what happened:

We had just moved into a new house and I was trying to unpack and figure out where to put all our stuff. My husband was working late - maybe even a night shift if I remember correctly. The kids were really young - still toddlers. I had tried my best to ignore them all day; bringing order to our new home was the priority. By the time we finished dinner I could tell they were desperate for attention but I was equally desperate to wash up the dishes; it was one less mess to face the next morning. Well, the kids didn't understand it when I asked them to leave me alone. They started to cry and I turned into a monster, right there in the middle of the kitchen. My veins bulged, my neck throbbed, my eyes turned red and I growled at my kids to "just shut up!" I scared them so much they stopped crying (for about a second).

Ironically, it was earlier that year that I'd been talking with some people about producing a resource for parents on how to teach their faith to their children. On paper I was all about making my home into a home for faith, but in reality I felt like such a hypocrite - ignoring my children and screaming at them. I realized that it really didn't matter if I taught my kids how to read the scriptures and how to pray if I wasn't an example of basic human decency to begin with.

Scripture tells us that the "fruit" of the Spirit (read: "proof" of the Spirit) within us is the extent to which we embody love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5: 22-23). If these virtues flow naturally from our hearts then we know we're in touch with the Spirit. Our homes are only homes to faith to the extent that our bodies are homes to faith. We can't house faith in our home if the Spirit is not at home in our body. When I came to this understanding I realized that it was me who needed to learn how to live out my faith at home, and my children would learn from my example. In fact, it is my children who are my spiritual teachers.

After that horrible night (and many others like it) it dawned on me that my children, by their very nature, are ideally suited to help me cultivate the fruit of the Spirit. From the moment they wake me in the morning, to the moment they are finally asleep at night, oftentimes minute by minute, they present me with opportunities for spiritual growth.

I gave into the "flesh", so to speak, that fateful evening, but what if I'd been more conscious about reaching for the Spirit? That evening I was offered an amazing gift, but I turned it down. My children offered me the gift of spiritual growth, but I was too wrapped up in the dishes and how tired I was and how much I hated all the chaos around me to see this. What if I'd taken a deep breath, got down on the floor and played with the kids for twenty minutes, and then pulled over a couple of chairs and filled the sink with the dirty dishes with some extra bubbles and plastic toys? I would have grown in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. I would have felt a whole head taller.

So now I'm trying to be conscious of those moments where I am presented with a choice: transcend or regress. I've realized that the best way to teach my faith at home is for my kids to see me reaching for the Spirit in my own life. So, yeah, parenting with "Spirit"...that's what I'm trying to do.