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?

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: paying attention

Today I’m delighted to welcome Ginny Kubitz Moyer to kick off this series with her new book Random MOMents of Grace. I love Ginny’s writing for the glimpses of God she notices in daily life. She is a perfect author to start us thinking about one important way we choose to spend our time as parents: paying attention.

Ginny’s book is all about paying attention to the grace-filled moments that spring up unexpectedly among parenting’s challenges. I love her elegant and wise writing, the everyday subjects she tackles in search of motherhood’s spiritual side, and her chapters that are short enough to read in one sitting when my kids are quiet for five whole minutes. Here are more words of wisdom from Ginny on how she spends her time:

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

They say that when you are the mother of small kids, the days crawl by, but the months pass like a shot. I couldn’t agree more. Sometimes it is so isolating to be at home all day with your kids, especially because there are periods of your life as a parent when it is simply too much of a production to get into the car and go anywhere. Those days can feel endless (except for naptime, of course, which moves at twice the speed of light.)

But now that my boys are six and four, I look at baby pictures of them, and I have to catch my breath because I realize how quickly the time has passed. We forget that when we see our kids every day. And the fact is that every phase of parenting has its challenges and its blessings. I’m not changing diapers anymore (thank you God!) but oh, I do miss that adorable baby-hair that Luke had, which stuck straight up as if he’d been playing with electricity.

So, as I write in the book, I’ve learned that I shouldn’t will the time to pass too quickly. When things are frustrating now, it helps to look at my kids and realize what I have now that I will miss in a year, or five, or ten. That’s a reminder to savor it.

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

I love this quotation from the writer James Thurber: “I never quite know when I’m not writing. Sometimes my wife comes up to me at a party and says, ‘Dammit, Thurber, stop writing.’ She usually catches me in the middle of a paragraph.” I’m not quite that extreme, but I can relate.

Writers usually want large blocks of quiet time in which to sit down and write, and the reality is that when you’re a mom, you almost never have that. So a lot of what I do, writing-wise, involves letting things simmer in my mind or mentally trying out various adjectives or squirreling away bits of information to use later. This means I can write in the car on my commute to and from work, or while making dinner. If you think about writing as being more than just putting pen to paper or sitting in front of a laptop, you realize there is actually a lot of writing time during the day. Then the only challenge is to remember it all for later ….

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

All writers are people of faith, I think, because it takes faith to face an empty page. You need to have faith that you will be able to put your feelings or your experiences into words that other people will enjoy. I think it also takes faith to slog on through the writer’s block, those times when you feel like everything you are writing is about as exciting as a tax return, and why would anyone ever want to read it?

It was so thrilling to get the contract for this book, but at the same time, it’s a different experience to write when there is a firm deadline. Luckily, I’d been writing the book in bits and pieces for about two years prior to finding a publisher, so nearly all of it was already done. But there was still some work to do on it, and I found myself going on faith that the ideas would come.

I distinctly remember starting one chapter and writing a ways into it and thinking, “Oof. This chapter is not going anywhere. I should just abandon ship right now.” And then, about a week later, I revisited it, and guess what? I found that it was better than I’d thought, and I had some ideas about where to take it. It’s now one of my very favorite chapters in the book.  Sometimes, you just need a little distance … and faith.

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

Oh, so hard to choose!  I love the quiet weekend mornings when we’re all just hanging out in our pj’s.  I love going on trips where we are out of our normal element and we get to discover a new place or a new experience together.  It is so fun to play soccer outside, all four of us, on the front lawn (I am the least athletic woman I’ve ever met, and now I’m playing soccer?!?  Motherhood is so broadening.)

Most of all, I love hugging my boys.  There’s nothing sweeter.

Thank you, Ginny! Please visit Random Acts of Momness for the rest of Ginny’s Blog Tour over the next two weeks. And be sure to check out Random MOMents of Grace from Loyola Press, who has generously offered FIVE copies of Ginny’s book to readers of Mothering Spirit! (Full disclosure: they gave me a copy, too – but I was waiting to buy one anyway, so their generosity in no way influenced my opinion.)

To enter the giveaway for your own copy, leave a comment below. And if you’re inspired, share one way you try to practice “paying attention” in your daily life!

to retrain my instincts

I will never be a first responder.

My knees go weak at the mention of blood, let alone the sight. I have been known to get woozy over a bad paper cut.

So whenever I see photos of police officers running into smoky scenes, racing in when the rest of us are rushing out, I marvel.

At their courage, of course. At their selflessness. But above all at the proof of their training that rewires their instincts to trump our natural fears.

They do what I would be too terrified to do.

Here we go again, I cry to Boston. Another average Monday blown apart by bombs, another everyday event forever redefined by evil’s horror and violence.

I watch the footage and the photos and the Facebook feeds, and deep inside my stomach knots to one gnarled instinct: run. Grab your kids and go off the grid and head into the hills far, far away from this horrid world where children are blown apart at finish lines.

Would it be so hard to leave comfort and convenience behind if I could simply assure we’d be safe?

But I look at those men and women operating under instincts that are not my own, their knee-jerk reactions that run toward rather than away, their hands that reach out to help rather than cover their heads. And I remember that I, too, have to retrain my instincts towards selfishness and self-protection.

Because this way of Christ runs right toward pain and suffering and fear. It runs toward the blood and the brokenness. It runs toward the fear and the evil and the worst of what we humans can inflict upon each other in hate.

This was never a call to flee the world and run away, but a call to rush in where peace and prayer are needed most.

To remember that at every ground zero of human evil, God is somehow there, too - among the cries and the suffering and the death itself.

And I cannot run from that.

gospel, interrupted

How I heard Palm Sunday:

When the hour came, Jesus took his place at table with the apostles.

Mama, I need Polar Bear. Read Polar Bear. Read. Please.

I tell you, Peter. Before the cock crows this day, you will deny three times that you know me.

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, what do you hear? I hear a lion roaring in my ear.

Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still not my will but yours be done.

Big Trucks and Diggers! I need Big Trucks and Diggers!

They all asked, “Are you then the Son of God?” He replied to them, “You say that I am.”

The wheel loader scoops and lifts and loads – oops, no, don’t pull the pages too hard or the dump truck part will break.

But they continued their shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

Can you use your quiet voice in church? Shhh…no. Quiet. We use quiet voices while we’re listening.

Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.

Mama, do they have donuts today? Should we go check to see if there are donuts?

Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.

Shhh. Use your QUIET VOICE IN CHURCH. If you cannot use your quiet voice, you are going to have to leave aga – ok, that’s it. You’re leaving. Here, take him.

And when he had said this, he breathed his last.

Mama, home. Let’s go home. I’m hungry. I’m tired. Home.

. . .

A mother’s distraction? Maybe.

But aren’t all our hearings of the Gospel interrupted?

We pick up the book after making the coffee and before loading the dishwasher. We squeeze in church between breakfast and a birthday party. We listen to a sermon while plotting our to-do list and planning our errands.

We are always humans trying to hear the divine, listening with half an ear amidst all the chatter and clutter. We are never gods ourselves, with undisturbed attention, uninterrupted time, undistracted minds. We are creatures of distraction, people of interruption.

But might this be precisely the point?

Incarnation was interruption: God breaking into our world, becoming human. Resurrection was a wrench-in-the-works of reality, too: death becoming life, transformed and brand-new.

The Gospel was always meant to interrupt us. To interrupt injustice with truth. To interrupt guilt with forgiveness. To interrupt violence with peace. To interrupt ambition with humility. To interrupt selfishness with love.

No wonder it still interrupts today. Even this holiest of weeks is still full of work deadlines and school drop-offs and vacuuming and vet visits.

And the little ones can’t sit silent for the sacred mystery of holy days. They still fidget and squirm, whine and yawn. (So do adults sometimes, if we’re honest.)

Proof of all the human he came to save.

. . .

In case you missed it, I’m now a contributor at CatholicMom.com. Click here to check out my first post on how to live Lent as a busy mom. 

May you have a peaceful, prayerful Holy Week! (Amidst the chaos and craziness of daily life, of course.)

how i nurture my mothering spirit – laura

The overdue last in the series. But hey, when it’s your own blog, you can make and miss your own deadlines. Hope you’ve enjoyed the series as much as I have. Thank you again to all the wonderful writers who shared their stories with us!

Another cold Minnesota night as the lavender shadows of sundown stretching across the glowing white of snow fade fast to sinking black. This time of year I hate to leave the house after dark; winter turns me into a hermit if I’m not careful.

But every Monday evening finds my car winding through the dark along the river road, slipping from small town to small town across rolling fields.

The weekly pilgrimage to yoga.

Yoga is not prayer for me. But my practice makes space for prayer, clears the chaos from my mind, shoves the clutter aside so God can sneak in again.

When I roll out my well-worn mat and begin to breathe deeply, I start to feel the stress of the day slip away. Cranky toddlers who wouldn’t nap. Chores left undone in our messy house. Clutter piled up so high on my desk I feel my blood pressure soar when I open the office door.

I set it all aside, and I sit and stretch. 

The peace of the present moment rises once again to my consciousness. I remember the wisdom of all those saints and sages who discovered that God is never more present to us than right now, that every moment offers the possibility of connecting with the Spirit if we only slow our own scattered minds to turn and remember.

Guided by a gentle teacher, I move and hold and push while others around me do the same. We breathe together, lunge, reach and rest. I love the mix of solitude and community that yoga offers: the reminder that my single life is part of something bigger and beyond.

Yoga stretches my limbs and my limits. How much tension can I hold? What would happen if I let go and sunk into the pose a little deeper, released the fears and hesitations holding me back?

I learn about myself – my physical body, my mental flow, my spiritual needs – every time I push back into downward dog. My view of the world is turned upside down, staring underneath my legs at a room of yogis hanging from the floor-as-ceiling. Especially in these early mothering days, so focused on home and our chosen few, I crave this change of perspective, this flip-side reminder, this fresher view.

Perhaps because yoga draws together body, mind and spirit, it sprang immediately to mind when I started this series. I’m grateful to yoga – and to the wonderful studio community I’ve found – for nurturing me as a parent and as a person.

I have little time for working out in ways I used to pre-kids: early morning sessions at the Y before work or daily cardio classes at the gym. Frankly I’d rather write in my wee free time than work out. But I can’t quit yoga. Yoga is sanity, space, silence and stretch. It is the centering practice of my parenting days.

The metaphors come almost too easy. Balance. Strength. Flexibility.

If only I could stay on the mat, I could stay Zen.

Of course that’s not the calling; we all have to come down from the mountaintop and back into the plains. Every Monday night I drive back across the same winding roads, back home to the people to whom I’ve promised my life.

But I’m better for them, and for me, when yoga nights stay sacred. I’m at peace with the contours of my life, with the God that shapes my being.

how to nurture your mothering spirit – check out the series!

What a lovely way this has been to kick off 2013, with weekly reflections from wise women on how they nurture their mothering spirits in busy seasons of parenting.

The last installment in the series will be coming this Wednesday – from yours truly – so in the meantime, check out any posts you may have missed.

Here’s a look back through the past few months…

Nell shared a story of discovering sewing as a way to connect with God in the midst of parenting little ones.

Maureen invited us to join her in a hot cup of chai and a quiet moment of simple pleasures.

Melissa wove her story of learning to embrace centering prayer as a connection with the Divine within.

Lydia considered hands-on crafts like knitting, sewing and baking as ways to enjoy the quiet process of creating alone.

Kate offered a number of simple and creative ideas for nurturing her spirit as a pregnant mama.

Peg evoked the practice of greeting the morning darkness as spiritual self-care while parenting teenagers.

Mihee reflected on life as one big inconvenience and how we encounter God in the unexpected moments.

Leanne wrote about her love of writing and the catharsis of processing motherhood’s challenges through her words.

Roxane evoked the healing powers of pot roast and how we need to nourish ourselves in order to care for others.

Ginny described her writing desk and the need for a private space at home to call her own.

I’m deeply grateful to each of these kindred spirits for sharing their wisdom and words with us here! Please be sure to visit their blogs in turn, where you’ll find even more nourishment for your spirit and soul…

Tune in Wednesday for the culmination of the series. And if you’ve caught up on all these wise and wonderful reflections, take a minute to explore the latest redesign of Mothering Spirit and let me know what you think!