father’s day from far away

He’s 10,000 miles away tonight. When I finally get him on the phone, I’m a blubbering mess. After a week apart and two more to go, I didn’t yet want to wave the white flag of defeat, but it was such a tough day – too little sleep, too many messes, two little boys with cranky tempers and only one of me, all day long.

Eloquence fails when nerves run this raw: I suck at flying solo.

But the truth was, we’d had so many good days this week: such delight at summer adventuring with my boys, discovering new parks and playgrounds, meeting up with lots of friends to fill our time as a trio. Which is why the spiral downward – from a difficult morning to a disastrous afternoon to a don’t-ever-need-to-revisit-this evening – sank even deeper after enjoying such heights.

C’est la vie, of course, these rolling ups and downs, how life with littles whiplashes from one extreme to the next in a matter of minutes. I shouldn’t have been surprised.

And yet what did surprise me was how quickly his voice calmed my anxiety. How the sound of his sympathy made my whole body relax.

In two minutes he’d talked me off the ledge and back onto the solid ground where a bad day does not make a bad mother. In another two minutes he had me laughing so hard I almost dropped the phone and we started swapping stupid stories about our days, as if he were driving home from work and not working four oceans away.

A sub-par Father’s Day? Probably in most people’s estimations. We never managed to get him a gift or a card or even post a proud photo on Facebook to boast that he (along with everyone else’s dad, according to my scrolling feed) is The Best Ever.

But the simple truth is that the man lives the calling. He is father to my boys beyond my younger days’ wildest hopes of what a partner could be. Whenever I see the way other people notice it, too, that’s when I sit back and soak up the sheer grace of what choosing to love him has brought to my life and to the lives of our children.

He’ll often quote me the line from Fr. Hesburgh that the best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. And tonight in the smallest way, with a simple (ok, admittedly international, assuredly expensive) phone call, he did precisely that all over again.

Love spreads. His gives me more for them, for a better tomorrow.

Always.

If you’ve stuck around through the sap, you can treat yourself to theological musings on the subject: I’m blogging here in honor of the holiday – asking whether fatherhood is a relation, an obligation, or a vocation?

(Bet you can’t guess what I think.)

practicing the imperfect

It’s all just practice.

None of this is performance, this work of parenting. Despite my dark moments of self-defeating thoughts to the contrary, no one is watching me with a clipboard, making sure I don’t screw up or that my kids turn out according to someone’s standard of perfect.

It’s all just practice.

And practice takes time. Years. Sweat. Tears. Those crucible moments when you’re so tired and frustrated you want to scream and give up.

But you don’t. You keep practicing. And things slowly change over time.

The instrument becomes easier to play – and becomes part of you.

The sport changes your body in powerful ways – and becomes part of you.

The play allows you to understand your own life as you act – and becomes part of you.

Every day I wake up and start practicing parenting again: caring and forgiving and teaching and serving. Over time it becomes part of me.

Practice changes us, if we stick with it.

This morning I’m guest posting over at Practicing Families. On practicing a life of faith with kids, and all the messiness and faltering and second-guessing it entails:

The old adage wags its finger at me that “practice makes perfect.” Just like the line from Matthew’s Gospel—“Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”—that makes me cringe at the ideals that fall far short of my life’s messy reality. But I know there’s deeper truth to the good of practice. It makes our muscles strong. It trains our thinking. It strengthens our resolve.

For this family, practice will always be imperfect. We will show up to church five minutes late. We will not always pay attention. We will sometimes skip out after communion when the kids are just too cranky. But next Sunday we will try all over again.

We’re practicing.

Click over to Practicing Families to read the rest…

The Christian life is about practice, not performance – and thank God for that, because we’d all come up short. But the practice that matters is receiving grace in ordinary moments and sharing love in return.

What are you practicing today? What part of parenting is finally starting to feel easier, and what part is more challenging than ever?

“mama, what if we did NOT do resting?”

Resting: take two. The second half of the series on How We Spend Our Time. Following each author’s insights, I’ll offer another perspective on the same theme. MaryAnn writes about resting for Sabbath. Here’s my take:

“Mama, what would happen if we did NOT do resting?”

It’s his version of the endless “why” of being three - the constant questioning, wondering, imagining, repeating, seeking to make sense of the strange world around him.

I’m trudging him upstairs for rest time, the new name for nap, the matured moniker for the oh-so-big preschooler who long ago gave up his luxurious three hours of sweet daytime sleep. My mother-in-law wisely advised me that kids should rest till kindergarten, and I take her words to heart. I can tell that he still needs to lie down and slow down each afternoon. So while his brother naps next door, he has to rest for one hour.

And this is too much to bear.

“Mama,” he whines again at the top of the staircase, “what would happen if we did NOT do resting?”

“You wouldn’t have good energy for playing,” I respond for the umpteenth time.

He’s unconvinced.

“You would probably get really cranky by dinner time.”

Still not budging.

“You might have to go bed early.”

His brow furrows.

“Mama, what would happen if we did NOT go to bed early?”

“Sweet boy, it is Time For Rest,” I declare. I usher him to bed and snuggle him in with a stack of books, closing the door quietly behind me.

But once the house is still and I sit down again at my desk, ready to flip open the laptop and get to work, I wonder about his question.

What does happen when we do not do resting?

My litany of refrains to his plodding question rings clear and true for me, too. I don’t have good energy. I get cranky. I need to go to bed early.

And yet how often I don’t rest – how often I choose the clean kitchen or the updated blog or the finished chapter or the friend’s phone call or the Hulu with the husband or any other good-in-the-moment instead of simple, standard SLEEP.

I need it. I know I need it. I remember how much better everything flows around here when I prioritize it. Yet just like prayer or exercise or eating well, I still don’t choose what I know is best.

Saint Paul summed it up centuries ago – I do not do the good I want, but what I do not want is what I do - and still it flits past my frenzied brain when the hour comes to crawl into bed. There’s always one more thing to do or read or write or organize, and next thing I know 9:00 flies into 10:00 which slides into 11:00 creeping towards midnight before I can blink my bleary eyes.

And even though the second wind felt so good when I was sailing through it – when the writing turned to flow or the movie was so funny we couldn’t turn it off or the kitchen finally sparkled clean after a week of grubby grime – I drag the next day if I don’t rest. Drag my feet and drag my energy and drag everyone else with me down a tired tunnel towards total collapse.

Every Friday night I declare this must be the weekend we catch up on sleep and start turning in early so we can be more productive come Monday. We agree, resolve anew, revisit how better everyone does when we rest.

And then Paul’s catch-22 catches up with us, and we’re doing it again – the writing or the reading or the Hulu-ing or the putzing - past midnight, past our prime, way past what we know is good for us. Wearing out the flesh in which we live; wringing out the spirit that tires within us.

What happens if we do not do resting?

If I only took a sliver of my own admonitions to heart - if I only followed my own advice and laid down my own head to nap or sleep or rest - how much better would it be? Would I stop trying to outrun my own biology and realize that I need seven straight hours like everyone else? Would I stop trying to defeat my own mortality and remember that living well means letting things go undone?

Sabbath. Sleep. Slowing down. Savoring the rhythms we were meant to live by. There’s so much truth in ancient traditions and the simple fact of being a human on a circadian cycle. When I run myself ragged, even in the name of good things, I’m defying nature and wisdom alike.

I know exactly what happens when I do not do resting. I do myself no favors.

Do you get the sleep you need? What habits do you have to rest well? What do you wish you could change?

how we spend our time: resting

Today I’m delighted to welcome Rev. MaryAnn McKibben Dana to the How We Spend Our Time series!

MaryAnn is pastor of Idylwood Presbyterian Church in Falls Church, VA, and the author of Sabbath in the Suburbs: A Family’s Experiment with Holy Time.

If you’ve ever wondered how to reclaim space for rest and relaxation into the chaos of your calendar, MaryAnn’s book is the perfect place to start. She tells the story of how her family of five decided to spend a year practicing Sabbath every week, and her writing is so honest and hopeful (and even hilarious) that it made me think this radical experiment might actually be possible.

MaryAnn’s book got me thinking about the place of Sabbath in our lives – not just whether we choose to go to church on Sunday, but how we set the rhythm of our family life to focus on what’s most important. I keep feeling this nudge towards a simpler, slower way of life, so I love the idea that the choices we make to spend our time well include time for resting.

Enjoy MaryAnn’s insights on parenting and practicing time for rest!

. . .

1) What is one truth about time you have learned since becoming a parent?

That there is not enough time.

I’ve often heard (and preached) a theology of abundance, of radical “enough-ness”: the idea that God provides sufficient resources for what we truly need. I know that works for some people, but it doesn’t work for me, especially when it comes to time. It sets an impossible bar for me to reach. If there is enough time, and I didn’t get important things done (a daily occurrence), then I must have done it “wrong.” I find it much more faithful to say that there is not enough time, but there is enough grace. I call this “holy scarcity.”

But! you may argue back. God does provide! And maybe that thing you left undone, didn’t need doing. Perhaps…but often not. What parent hasn’t had the experience of letting someone down, of dropping a huge ball? It happens. But grace abounds.

I am drawn to the image of parkour, the combined sport/art form that involves running and tumbling through an urban area. (Google it if you’re not familiar!) Practitioners of parkour will encounter obstacles (a wall, a stairwell), and the trick is to move creatively and fluidly through these obstacles. There is great beauty in that process. I strive to be a practitioner of spiritual parkour.

2) What is one practice of using time well that you have developed as a mother-writer?

 

Well, my book is about Sabbath so I suppose I should say that! There’s something very freeing about knowing that each week, you will have a time to rest, play, relax and recharge. It gives the busyness of our days a much more grounded perspective.

But here’s something else that’s really tactical: I am a huge believer in the Pomodoro Technique. The idea is very simple: spend a short, fixed amount of time on whatever task needs doing, take a short break of a specific length, and repeat as long as necessary. I like to work for 12 minutes and take a 3-minute break, then restart the process. I wrote the whole book this way! It gave me a way to tend to the distractions and monkey mind (Facebook, ahem) but not let them take over my life.

This is a good technique for anyone, but I find it especially helpful when I only have a short amount of time and a lot of stuff to get through. I get paralyzed by the choice of what to focus on—Pomodoro helps me get started somewhere, anywhere.

3)  What new insight about faith did you gain from writing this book?

That children can be wonderful teachers for us.

As adults, we help them learn the language of faith, but they are not empty containers for us to fill. They already come to us with a sense of the spirit, of eternity, of the Holy. In our case, our children understood both the need for Sabbath and the joy of it.

Children are great Sabbath-keepers. Now that the year-long Sabbath experiment is over, we are still committed to the practice, although we’re not as regular as we were. But our kids will let us know if it’s been too long since we’ve had a Sabbath. They call it a lot of different names in addition to Sabbath: a pajama day, a stay-at-home day, etc. Sabbath is a day to remember that we are not God, that the world goes on without us. That’s a vulnerable but ultimately freeing realization. Children inherently get this since that’s their default state of being!

4) What is your favorite way to spend time with your family?

We have a state park about 20 minutes from our home called Mason Neck. In fact, if you watch the PBS segment about the book, you can catch a glimpse of it! We love going there every few months to walk around the woods and visit the small beach. There aren’t a lot of bells and whistles there–a playground, an occasional program about eagles or other wildlife–but mostly we walk the trail along Belmont Bay, listen for bullfrogs, and draw designs in the sand using shells and old pieces of driftwood.

Having a regular place where we go often means it’s become a great “growth chart” for our kids’ development. Children who used to get tiiiiiiiiired halfway through the trail can make it all the way easily. We can go farther on our bikes as they get older. They are starting to prefer to the woods to the playground. But no matter how old they get, they all still love to play in the sand.

. . .

Your chance to read! MaryAnn and Chalice Press have generously offered a copy of Sabbath in the Suburbs to one lucky reader of Mothering Spirit. Leave a comment below before midnight CST on Saturday, June 8th, to enter the giveaway.

And be sure to connect with MaryAnn at her blog, The Blue Room!

where we Sabbath

We went to church on Saturday evening instead of our usual Sunday morning. The promise of good gardening weather and the weekend’s plans all pushed us towards the deviation from the norm.

But the boys were even squirrelier than usual, wrestling out of our arms, racing towards the altar steps, squawking during the consecration. One innocently inquired after communion whether there would still be church donuts since it was Saturday, and I seethed through clenched teeth that No One Was Behaving Well Enough For A Donut So It Didn’t Matter Anyway.

#parentingfail

So Sunday morning found me instead at the park with the boys, whom I soaked up like perfect angels in the bright sun, cringing at my own Mass-time behavior of the night before. We laughed on the slides and ran down to the river and chased each other on the playground paths.

Which is when I noticed: we weren’t alone.

The park was full of families enjoying the clear June day – biking, fishing, walking, jogging. I’ve never seen our favorite haunt so crowded. But it made perfect sense: Sunday can feel like a Sabbath moment whether you go to church or not. A time to pause and play together before the busyness of another week begins.

I have a new piece at Practicing Families on the struggles of Sunday services with little ones, so I’ve been pondering questions of church and family lately:

Each Sunday I eventually discover that I’m grateful we’re there, again. Even when we’ve flunked the Time Trials, botched the Nursery Negotiations, caved on the Bribery Battles, and stand ready to lose the Donut Debate, I still find that God finds us there.

Some small moment arises – a line from the priest’s homily, a stranger’s smile at the sign of peace, a favorite song that makes my boys clap their hands – and I fall in love with church all over again.

It’s good to be here, even when it’s hard to be here.

Click here to read more about our Sunday Morning Fight Club…

Weekends like this one, I start to wonder if the park was the place for us to find God and celebrate together as a family.

But I also know that when my kids grabbed each other’s hands to say grace at dinner tonight, I remembered how they had grinned at each other for the Sign of Peace at Mass on Saturday – how they kept shaking each other’s hands and wouldn’t let go, how their happiness was contagious and made even the most curmudgeonly adults around them (ahem) stop and smile.

Church has a grip on me like that, too. I want to be there, even when it’s hard to be there.

How do you choose to spend your Sundays as a family? What brings you the most joy together?

to gather a child on your lap

What I hold on my lap defines me.

Part of the day it is a child, whichever one of my boys needs a snuggle or a story or a shoe pulled on his foot.

And part of the day it is a computer, the aptly named laptop which nestles on my knees as I work or write or (let’s be honest) waste time.

Today I’m posting at Catholic Mom about what it means to gather a child on your lap, to make space for someone smaller than you who needs your love and attention:

Holding a child on your lap means bearing the burden, the interruption and even the annoyance of all they will ask of you.

It is bending low, stopping and stooping, being weighted down by what matters most. It is opening yourself up to the love that will be demanded from you.

Parents, grandparents, godparents, teachers, caregivers, relatives and friends—we share the sacred weight of holding these least among us. When we let a child sit with us, we clear space for what matters most. We honor the gift of their presence.

We accept and embrace that they belong to us.

Click here to read the rest…

Some days I’m torn between what I hold on my lap, whether it’s two boys fighting for my attention or the back-and-forth of work-and-kids that parents know all too well.

But some days I’m simply grateful that my life is so full, that God has plopped the proverbial good measure – pressed down, shaken together, running over – into my lap.

What fills your lap these days? What do you learn from what you hold?

waiting: take two

The second half of this new series – following each author’s insight on How We Spend Our Time, I’ll offer another perspective on the same theme. Peg Conway writes about waiting. Here’s my take.

She sits across me in the suburban coffee shop, hands cupped around a warm cardboard cup just like mine. Soccer moms with their teams in tow troop through the store, swarms of kids buzzing in and out the door in the morning sunlight.

Her eyes are bright as she talks, but I see the sadness behind her smile, steal a glimpse back into the dark mirror of my own once-waiting.

They’re seeing a new doctor, starting a new treatment, charting cycles and crossing fingers. She’s got a good feeling about this month. Sure, it’s been two long years of trying and she’s creeping closer to forty, but the doctor said her numbers were looking up. And there’s no reason not to be hopeful, right?

Waiting. To have a baby in her arms.

. . .

We’re getting ready for bed in the midnight dark, zipping window blinds down with a snap when I notice that the porch lights are still on across the street. The sleepy home of our quiet neighbors now stands on high alert, beacons shining bright and bold in the black of night.

“What do you think that’s for?” I wonder out loud to my husband. “They never leave the lights on.”

“It’s prom night,” he shrugs as we turn to sleep. “They’re probably waiting up.”

Waiting. To have their baby home safe.

. . .

Parenthood starts with waiting. Nine months at least, sometimes years longer before the due date countdown starts to tick.

But no one told me that pregnancy would be only the beginning of the waiting.

Waiting outside bedroom doors for the baby to stop crying, exhausted after every expert’s advice fails to secure sweet sleep.

Waiting next to the phone for the doctor to call with the test results, heart thumping to hear the news that life will soon ease back to everyday-ok.

Waiting in airport lounges to catch the last flight home, arms aching to get back to the kids and cuddle them close.

Waiting for the baby to wean, the toddler to walk, the preschooler to potty train, the spouse to get home, the fever to break, the teeth to cut through, the school year to start, the summer to arrive.

Some waiting is the natural nervousness of a novice. I look back on the few short years since I became a mother and marvel at how often I made mountains out of mole hills, worrying about milestones they missed or markers that seemed delayed.

Some waiting is the weary work of weathered wisdom. I look around me at parents in all stages of this lifelong calling, waiting for their kids to find a job, to move out, to fall in love with the right person, to follow their own path.

When impatience starts to get the better of me, when I find myself straining forward to see what’s next, when I tire of trying to live in the present, I wrestle with waiting.

But wrestling never wins; it is only when I stop to catch my breath that I realize there is only This. In preparation for That, perhaps. But waiting is about the present, not the future.

It’s the only way I can live right now.

. . .

I lie there in the quiet dark, long after he’s fallen asleep next to me, and I wonder what it will feel like to wait for my boys to come home.

I waited so long for them to arrive, and some days I’m so impatient waiting for them to grow up, and I realize that all this work is a waiting game.

To parent is to wait: to watch, to witness, to wonder what comes next, to want more for your child than what they have today. But to wait is also to be forced to slow down, to relinquish the illusion of control, to put your desires on hold while life makes other plans.

What could be harder than waiting? I wonder in the warmth of my comfortable bed, two blessings of boys tucked in their rooms down the hall, no one I love speeding out on the slippery roads too late tonight.

This life is a relentless pull, asking us to stop when we want to go, making us release when we want to grab tight. We have to wait in the midst of all this back and forth. We never know what’s coming; we waste our time worrying about what never happens.

But when we wait – that is an act of faith.

how we spend our time: waiting

Today I’m excited to welcome Peg Conway back to Mothering Spirit! Peg is the author of Embodying the Sacred: A Spiritual Preparation for Birth, a thoughtful guide for women who want to explore the spiritual journey of pregnancy.

Drawing from her wisdom as a mother, doula and childbirth educator, Peg’s book is full of prayers, reflections and creative activities for each trimester. She walks with mothers-to-be through pregnancy’s spiritual questions and concerns: Am I strong enough to handle labor? How will my life change once my baby is born? Who is God to me through this experience of becoming a mother?

Pregnancy is a heightened time of waiting, full of impatient expectation. But parents are always waiting for something. Waiting for babies to start sleeping in the night. Waiting for kids to start school. Waiting for teenagers to come home at curfew. Waiting for grown children to return for a visit.

Peg embraces the waiting of pregnancy as a spiritual practice. In a spring season bursting with new babies and pregnancy announcements, I’m reminded of how many people around me are preparing for parenthood through the practice of waiting. I hope you’ll enjoy Peg’s wisdom on how we spend our time as parents as much as I’ve enjoyed her writing on waiting and growing through life’s transitions.

. . .

1) What is one truth about time you have learned since becoming a parent?

As a mother of nearly grown children (two in college and one in high school), I’m especially aware that time is a gift. I’m thankful that I was home during their growing up years, though I perceive now that the motivation was as much from my needs as theirs. My own mother had died of breast cancer when I was 7 years old, and I began motherhood with a lot of unresolved grief that said, “Better be with them today — the chance might be snatched tomorrow.” By God’s grace, mothering brought deep healing and led me to a more balanced, less compulsive attachment, coupled with a healthy awareness that life is short, so important things shouldn’t be postponed.

The letting-go transitions of my present stage of parenting are teaching me further that time is a gift to be received rather than grasped. For a long while, moms with toddlers at the grocery store or a new mom nursing a baby at church made me teary with nostalgia. A lot of prayer and journaling shifted my view, to regard those earlier days as gifts I was blessed to receive; though in the past, they are still part of me. Likewise, today I savor the gift of friendship with my young adult children.

2) What is one practice of using time well that you have developed as a mother-writer?

Quite honestly, I’m not sure I have achieved this!  It took a long, long time for me to complete my book. I struggled mightily to balance priorities because I have a lot of interests and tend to underestimate how much time a particular commitment will require. My kids led busy lives too, so I was chauffeuring a lot. One practice that did help was to break down the book into smaller writing segments. This approach allowed me to be productive even during short blocks of time.

Now I really try to spend time writing at the beginning of each day, shortly after my husband and son leave for school and before checking email or Facebook or starting other tasks. My mind is most clear then, and no matter what happens the rest of the day, at least I’ve given priority to my writing. I focus on spending the time – the process – not a set number of words or pages.

3) What new insight about faith did you gain from writing this book?

Embodying the Sacred originated with a question about faith prompted by visiting a hospice for the first time:  Why is there so much theological reflection on death and dying but not normal childbirth?  The desire to articulate the holiness of birth’s physicality just grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. All I really wanted to do was write a magazine article and be done, but over time it became clear that a book was called for and that I would just have to keep at it.  Reflecting now on the whole meandering process, from first wondering to finished book, I see how the faith journey is really for the long haul.

4) What is your favorite way to spend time with your family?

The five of us have varied personalities and interests, so even when our kids were young, some of our best times all together were simply around the dinner table.  I think this evolved from very early days, when our older two were in high chairs and we began requiring that they remain at the table at least a little while past when they finished, while my husband and I continued to eat. Over the years, talking around the table became enjoyable for all. Now that we are all together much less often, dinner at home or a favorite restaurant becomes a ritual of reconnection.

. . .

Your chance to read! Peg has generously offered to give a copy of Embodying the Sacred to one lucky reader of Mothering Spirit!

Leave a comment below before midnight CST on Saturday, May 25th, to be eligible to win.

Be sure to visit Peg’s website for more of her writing or to pick up your own copy of her book – a perfect gift for any expectant mama in your life.

celebrating: take two

The second half of this new series. Following each author’s insight on How We Spend Our Time, I’ll offer another perspective on the same theme. Meg Cox got us thinking about celebrating. Here’s my take.

We pulled into the driveway – our new driveway! – grinning ear to ear, grimy hands on the steering wheel, the same hands that had held the pens to sign the deed on our new house an hour before.

And here we were: home.

It was a gorgeous spring day, end of April, full of sun and budding green. We spread out a blanket on our front lawn – our new lawn! – and made a picnic for dinner. No furniture was moved inside yet, so the soft grass was our table and chairs. And the meal was simple – sandwiches for a quick dinner. But it tasted delicious: a family milestone, a sacred moment of starting a new home.

So when it came time to celebrate one year in our new house, we knew exactly what we had to do. Swing by Jimmy John’s, spread the blanket on the grass, recreate our first meal. As we chewed our sandwiches while the sun set, I smiled at my husband. “We should do this every year,” I said. “To celebrate the anniversary of being here. Being home.”

This is how family traditions start: small and silly. Fast-food on the front lawn – nothing fancy. But if we do it every April, if we repeat the ritual and retell the story of the first day this house became our home, then it becomes a real celebration.

It says something about who we are and what we love. It tells a chapter in our family story.

So many celebrations are daunting prospects for parents: find the perfect presents for Christmas; create the elaborate birthday of their dreams. But I’m noticing that my favorite celebrations with my kids are the small, simple ones. The ones that spring up organically and help us mark the seasons in a special way, unique to our family.

What small celebrations do you celebrate in your family? What unique traditions did you love growing up?

. . .

We’re off to celebrate a big moment in our extended family, so I won’t be posting here for the next week while we’re celebrating together. But I’ll be back soon with the next installment in this series – a wonderful author you won’t want to miss!

And I want to wish you a wonderful Mother’s Day, whether you are celebrated for the work you do as a mom or whether you celebrate the women who have mothered you along the way.

May we all be blessed and be blessings to each other, held in the love of God’s Mothering Spirit…

how we spend our time: celebrating

Today I’m thrilled to welcome Meg Cox, author of The Book of New Family Traditions: How To Create Great Rituals for Holidays and Every Day. Her book is an irresistible treasure trove of ideas for celebrating big and small moments with kids of all ages.

Meg has gathered ideas from families of diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds, so no matter what your cultural or spiritual tradition, there are heaps of creative, easy, inspiring ways to celebrate and ritualize the moments that matter.

I had long eyed Meg’s book in Chinaberry’s catalog, and when I saw that the book was now revised and updated for its ten-year anniversary, I had to grab it. As soon as I finished devouring the book – dog-earing so many ideas I want to try with my kids - I knew she would be a perfect addition for this series on How We Spend Our Time.

Whether we’re planning a birthday party or wondering how to brighten up a long winter with a new family tradition, this is an important way we spend our time as parents: celebrating. Enjoy Meg’s insights on how families of all kinds celebrate life’s small and monumental moments with creativity and love:

1)     What is one truth about time you have learned since becoming a parent?

Ritual time is intense time, and it doesn’t have to take a long time to mean a lot. You may spend only a half hour together at dinner, but eating together often, keeping the conversation flowing and having at least one good laugh together creates a very strong bond. I used to pack an enormous amount into 20 minutes at bedtime, including one or two stories, a prayer, and a special good night to everyone in the extended family.

2)     What is one practice of using time well that you have developed as a mother-writer?

I’ve tried very hard to work intensely while my son is at school, so I won’t be closed off, in the middle of interviews or deadline writing, when he comes home. I also try to model keeping all tech devices away from meals and family time: when we are together, we truly are, together.

3)     What new insight about faith did you gain from writing this book?

For this and my other books about family traditions, I’ve interviewed families from many different faith backgrounds, and I think it’s extremely powerful to have one’s religious faith threaded through all sorts of daily and weekly rituals.

I interviewed a family once that tithed even when they played Monopoly: when you pass Go, you set $20 aside for charity. Now that paper money doesn’t feed a homeless person, but it sure sends a message about making sharing a constant habit.

4)     What is your favorite way to spend time with your family?

There are many ways I love to spend time with my family, including summer vacations that usually include some time at the Jersey shore. We are all book-lovers, and enjoy a vacation where we can do a lot of reading.

But as my son got older, into his teens, I really learned to love spending time with him in the car, just the two of us, because it’s easier for teenagers to talk without looking a parent in the eye! This also works if you are fixing dinner together, or dyeing Easter eggs or frosting Christmas cookies, because there is a shared focus and not a parent-clamping-down-on-kid atmosphere.

. . .

Your chance to win! Meg has generously offered a signed copy of her book for one reader of Mothering Spirit. Leave a comment below about a special tradition your family celebrates.

Entries must be received by midnight CST on Friday, May 3rd.

Be sure to visit Meg’s website as well as her Facebook page for more resources and new traditions!