how i nurture my mothering spirit – ginny

In the classic girls’ book Betsy-Tacy Go Downtown by Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy’s mother understands the creative process. She gives her daughter an old trunk to use as a writing desk, a special place where Betsy can sit and be alone and pen stories to her heart’s content.

“Betsy’s mother was a great believer in people having private places,” says the narrator.

Betsy’s mother gets it.

I, too, have a private desk of my own. It’s a brown desk in the bedroom, pushed up against the corner where two windows meet. Ever since my second child was born, it has been the place where I go to pray, to read, to write.

It’s a place that is mine and mine alone: the only place in the house where this is so.

Motherhood is all about sharing: sharing one’s time, one’s energy, one’s body, one’s last Kleenex. I would not have it any other way, because all that sharing has stretched me in ways that nothing else could have done. My two young boys are worth every bit of it, and more.

But, like many of us, I still need a small piece of physical space to call my own.

On the writing desk, I’ve put all kinds of special items and trinkets. There are family photos, a small statue of Mary that I bought in Lourdes, a Valentine card sent to us by a dear friend the year that she died. There is a quotation from Hemingway that always jumpstarts my writing process. There are candles to light and books for inspiration. In the desk drawer is a rosary – two, actually – for times when I need the soothing repetition of prayers I know by heart.

The desk is like a little shrine of all the things that sustain me: family, friends, faith, reading, writing.

It’s my own space, and it is capable of working wonders. A few candlelit minutes there in the evening are enough to slow my breathing and help me pick off the burrs of stress that routinely attach themselves to my day.

Whether I pray, or read, or write, or just stare off into space, that desk reminds me that I have an inner life worth cultivating and tending. It’s a reminder that although I am a wife and a mother and a teacher and a writer, underneath it all, I’m always me.

And I’m a more peaceful me when I let myself be nourished in – and nourished by – this special private place.

 . . .

Ginny Kubitz Moyer is a writer, teacher, and mother. She is the author of the new book Random MOMents of Grace: Experiencing God in the Adventures of Motherhood. She blogs at RandomActsofMomness.com.

when we all add up

31 + 31 + 3 + 1 

He’s obsessed with numbers now. All he wants to do is stand at his easel and scribble numerals in chalky pastel, then furrow his brow and punch the digits into his cash register.

Adding and subtracting have transformed his small world into an explosion of equations. He begs us to fill up the chalkboard or the paper with long strings of numbers he can add together. Then he greets the familiar ones as old friends.

70…that’s Papa’s age. 22 is my favorite song on the CD. 50 is for 50 states. 28 is the date.

This is how the world makes sense to him right now, at the still-small stage of 3.5. Neatly ordered by numbers, waiting to be added or subtracted at the touch of his fingers pounding the calculator keys.

It’s not my language – I love words and art and music – but I try to meet him there. (And try to remind myself as I struggle to scrape together interesting-enough equations to delight him dawn till dusk, that words and art and music sing with numbers all their own.)

But when he tires of adding up all the units of measurement I know and the phone numbers I can remember and the street numbers of family addresses and the birth dates of old friends, I always default to this one:

31 + 31 + 3 + 1

All the ages under this roof. Two parents, two kids. Added up together.

For a brief moment in time, our ages are caught up in a numerical anagram: they in us and we in them.

Back when my boy started this obsession with numbers, I realized for the first time that our ages would be patterned like this for a few short months. I’m no math whiz myself, so when I tried to calculate if and when this might happen again in our lifetimes, my brain got bored and slipped into pondering the grocery list. Suffice it to say, it seems a rare occurrence. (The left-brained engineer at my elbow agrees.)

But the rarity seems right for now – this slender sliver of a season when our lives are so intimately, bodily, exhaustingly bound up with each other. These months (because we still measure in months) when we’re still a clump of a family unit, not yet stretched by the sprawl of adolescents who strain to pull as far away as they can, or redefined by a Rolodex with separate entries for every adult child’s address.

Right now we’re all bound up together. 31 + 31 + 3 + 1.

Our two boys are their own selves, to be sure. But they are still so wrapped up in us, and we in them. Sometimes when these two squirmy worms are wriggling all over the couch and each other and my lap and the book we’re trying to read, I find myself wondering where each of us starts and the other ends.

Parenting brings about a strange and profound redefinition of self. You are at once the same person you always were and a new creation, birthed by the child before you. Magazines warn you not to lose yourself in the exhaustion of new motherhood, yet you can’t help but stare at the bleary-eyed stranger in the mirror and wonder what happened to the girl you once were.

And yet there is something of you in them, something of your younger self that glimmers back in their eyes or frown or laughter. You see your spouse in their smile, too, and bits of others in the shimmering hologram that is a child: the spitting image of grandma in this light, an uncle’s twin in that photo.

You catch your breath when you see it, and then it’s gone.

31 + 31 + 3 + 1. Scribbled on his dusty chalkboard, these numbers speak truth of this fleeting stage when we are so easily glimpsed in one another. When we are so closely linked to those who surround us.

When we all add up together.

how i nurture my mothering spirit – roxane

The Healing Powers of the Pot Roast

In the early part of November 2012, I experienced a profound moment of healing by spoon.

It functioned like salve on my weary mother’s soul – a bowl of pot roast made by my sweet mother-in-law.

She’d prepared the roast and its accompanying vegetables in her Crockpot the night before, the overnight simmering of soup and juices from the meat producing a scrumptious gravy that would have had world-class chefs swooning.

While the rest of my family was occupied in other spaces – the youngest of them splashing in a nearby hotel pool – I’d found a moment to steal away into the quiet of our dining room to eat what was left of the roast, most of which had been nearly completely devoured earlier by hungry men.

Sitting in the dimly-lit room, breathing deeply, slowly now, I prepared to consume the first homemade meal I’d had in months.

Comfort food, they call it, and this moment made it true for me. With each delectable bite, restoration was beginning.

For nearly a year I’d been trying to do the impossible, working outside the home with five kids still needing so much more of me than I could offer with my attention elsewhere.

But now, after weeks of discernment, I’d made the difficult decision to resign from what had seemed, by all accounts, my dream job. It would mean giving up a paycheck that had lightened our financial load but brought extra responsibilities that weighed down my heart, causing my middle child to utter one day, “You’re not a being a mom anymore.”

I’d done what I could to rearrange the pieces of my life to accommodate all, but came up short. The emotional, spiritual and even physical effects were manifesting themselves, and I had to ask myself whether the job was worth risking an illness that could remove me from life altogether.

Ironically, the kitchen, which I consider the heart of the home, was a room I avoided like the plague during that year. I knew that if I entered, I wouldn’t make it out without depleting the extra energy I needed to push through my busy days.

Fast food had become normal; my oven, a neglected appliance. The dining room was a place to linger only as long as was necessary to gulp down a slice of pizza or a burger.

But sitting before that bowl of real food made with loving hands, placed gently in a warmer and transported 120 miles to our home earlier that day, had reintroduced me to the place where my heart longed most to be.

A few days after leaving the job, I prepared my own slow-cooked meal, and as I scooped out portions to each family member, a surge of love and joy took hold. I was ready now to feed my family, both in food and through my presence in ways that had not been possible for far too long.

And in the midst of it, I became aware that if not for that wonderfully nourishing meal several weeks earlier, the moment would have passed unappreciated. In that gift of warm sustenance, I’d been given a poignant reminder that we cannot offer others something we haven’t first taken in ourselves.

In doing whatever is necessary to create space in our days to ensure we’re nourished, we’ll have something to offer back those we love. And they, in turn, will give to others when it’s time.

A potato, a carrot, a tender chunk of meat – the healing powers of the pot roast.

A bowl full of love that wooed me back to life.

. . .

Roxane Salonen lives in Fargo, N.D., with her husband and five children, ages seven to 17. A church cantor, book reader and coffee drinker, she also works as a faith columnist and features writer for her city’s daily newspaper.

Roxane is the author of two children’s picture books – First Salmon and P is for Peace Garden: A North Dakota Alphabet. Find her pondering on “faith, family and following the muse” at Peace Garden Mama: roxanesalonen.blogspot.com/

how i nurture my mothering spirit – leanne

I fell in love with writing about the time I learned how to use a pencil.

From that moment on, my imagination ran wild with stories, poems, and songs. For most of my childhood, I could be found with a pencil in one hand and a spiral bound notebook in the other.

If I had a bad day, I immediately took to writing for comfort. When I was lonely, I made up imaginative stories where my fearless heroine had countless friends (or didn’t need any). When something terrible happened, I wrote about it to soothe my angst and sorrow.

By the time I reached high school, life had gotten in the way of my writing. I was busy keeping up with my classes, but I was equally distracted by new friends and the social scene. My writing took a backseat and all my notebooks took to Rubbermaid bins in the basement.

Soon I was a college student and life got even busier. Every now and then a poem would find its way out of me, but I mostly wrote for class.

After college, I became an employee of the real world. My various careers allowed me to dabble in press releases, brochure writing, and the occasional article. That writing left me empty, though.

Once I became a wife and a mother, my fingers suddenly itched to document our journey. I wanted to write about the ups and the downs. I needed a way to process my feelings. I needed to write again. This time, I didn’t reach for a pencil and notebook. Instead, I started a blog.

As I pondered what exactly I do to nurture my mothering spirit, I came up blank at first. I don’t drink coffee. I’m usually too tired to read. I’m hopeless at anything crafty. I’m a terrible cook. I’m more of a spectator than an athlete.

Feeling discouraged, I asked my sister what she thought I did to take care of myself.

“You write,” she reminded me.

Instantly, I realized she was right.

After I tuck my little ones in bed, I take to the computer and let the day flow out through my fingers. When we have a good day, my writing is like a snapshot to preserve those wonderful moments. When we’ve had a bad day, I’m able to reflect, decompress, and eventually change my attitude, all by writing about it. When something terrible happens in our own home or in our world, I write to soothe my angst and sorrow.

Writing is as much my passion now as it was when I was 10. It’s my catharsis. It’s how I unwind from an overwhelming day. It’s how I’m able to wake up the next morning refreshed and ready to take on the adventure of motherhood.

My writing doesn’t take me on wild fantasies as it did as a child, but it energizes me in much the same way. My motherhood couldn’t survive without my writing. Thankfully, there’s never a shortage of things to write about.

Leanne Willen enjoys writing about faith, family, and finding happiness.

Her blog, Life Happens When, encourages others (and herself) to embrace the moment and enjoy the journey of life.

nurture your mothering spirit – kate

This winter I find myself not just a mama, but a pregnant mama.

This two-fold mothering is more exhausting than I ever would have imagined, and I find myself struggling, especially in the depths of winter, to find ways to nurture my mothering spirit.

What works best for me is to dabble in a variety of ways, allowing my energy level to determine what fits best at any given time. As a religious person, I find that each of these ways is also prayer for me.

1. I write. Writing helps me get my emotions out on paper (or on the screen, as the case may be). I write to my daughter in a notebook I started when I was pregnant with her; I write in another notebook for the baby that grows inside me now. I write blog posts, intimate emails, and personal journal entries. Every day, I write.

2. I sing. Throughout my life, song has been the most profound vehicle for expressing what lies deep in my heart. Psalms and table songs from Christian liturgy resonate with me, bringing back years of memories. In my sung memories, I find solace and hope.

3. I read. I read my daughter’s favorite books aloud, savoring each word and basking in her joy. I read for my own pleasure, taking a half an hour on public transit or an hour after work (when my husband is up for it!) to do nothing but steep myself in a story or an idea.

4. I create art. A dear friend of mine introduced me to collage journaling recently, so I have saved scraps of this and that for creating page after page of colorful, multi-layered visual art. I also sketch, albeit poorly, and sometimes my favorite art is the kind I make with crayons on plain paper with my daughter.

5. I walk. In particular, I love to walk in areas bursting with trees, whether residential neighborhoods or forests. I love the scent of life long-lived, a smell even winter can’t break. The shadows cast by tree branches comfort me, and the light that dances around the shadows delights me.

6. I  take pictures. I remember one snowy winter evening in my childhood when I went outside, armed with a film camera (digitals didn’t exist back then!), and I snapped photos of my backyard. The sinking sun glowed red and pink and orange, casting sparkling hues off the untouched waves of snow. I managed to capture startling beauty with that little camera of mine. Even now, when I am outside, I look for small wonders. When I seek them, they find me.

7. I practice hospitality. There is only one thing I  love more than dinner with my family: sharing a family dinner with guests. I love bringing the sacred liturgy of meal-sharing into my home, sharing the stories, tastes, touches, sounds, smells, and sights with dear friends. I love the preparation, the extra care, the special recipes, the ability to pull together a rich, familiar, memorable feast.

8. I laugh. And this is one of the many ways I know I married The One, because my husband manages to make me laugh every single day. He is particularly good at getting me laugh when I am grumpy (and as a tired mama, grumpiness develops more often than I’d  care to admit). In addition to the laughter that my hubby miraculously inspires, I have voice messages saved from my best friend who, in the first three seconds of any message she leaves, produces some bit of unique silliness that has me chortling for hours.

9. I pray to G-d as Divine Mother, Daughter, and the Love that binds them, reimagining the Holy Trinity as a wholly feminine Presence. (In keeping with Jewish tradition, which I greatly revere, I do not write out the vowels for the names of G-d.) I also love the metaphor of G-d as Father and Son, but by praying to G-d as Mother and Daughter, I find myself immediately and overwhelmingly in profound understanding of the way G-d is in relationship to the world. If G-d loves Her Daughter the way I love mine, I can imagine no greater source of awesome wonder.

These are some of my favorite ways to honor my holy, marvelous role as a mama without forgetting the rich person I was before I became a mama. Even in winter, if I take a moment for myself in one of these ways, I end up enveloped in warmth and light.

. . .

Kate Allen is a Christian mother of two: one outside the womb and one still in the womb. She writes about her mommying at Corn Dog Mama and writes about all her other favorite subjects at Life Love Liturgy.  She has an M.A. in Liturgy and Scripture from Saint John’s School of Theology*Seminary in Collegeville, Minnesota. 

nurture your mothering spirit – lydia

At night, when my five little ones are finally settled upstairs in their rooms and last drinks of water have been fetched and last kisses been dispensed, I make my way down the stairs, headed for a recharge.

It has been a journey, this learning just how I nurture my spirit in the midst of the huge life God has called me to - life as a Mother. Mothers are the center of their homes in so many ways – we are the very heart. We are nurturers and love-givers. We are that soft spot deep in the center of the family where all can come for encouragement and restoration.

Yet so often we can forget to bolster our own center, forget to place a priority on the things that build us up and keep us fully equipped to do our job. For the good of the family, Mothers need to take care of themselves.

It has taken me years to peel back my own layers and find out what it is that gives me that rest. I’ve found the answer gradually, and was surprised at the simplicity of where the answer has led.

As a homeschooled child myself, my own Mother discovered that I was one who learned kinetically. I learned through doing and touching and handling. I loved ballet and learning new choreography, committing it to memory not by studying it, but by doing. As a grown Mama to my own little people, I am realizing that my kinetic tendencies extend beyond learning and right deep down into my very soul.

For this reason, when my children are tucked into their beds and the lamps turned out, I find something to do. Over the years I’ve grown more and more interested in knitting and sewing and baking – all things that I learn by doing and continue to challenge myself with.

I love the act of creating. As people created in the image of the Creator, humans have this tendency deeply ingrained in their DNA. For some it may be photography, or writing html code to make something amazing. For others it may be cooking or design. Writers paint word pictures and even a lawyer negotiating a settlement is creating something. For me, it happens to be a bit of handwork – knitting a sock or embroidery. Making a baby doll or sewing a quilt. And sometimes – just baking something.

Sometimes I choose something a bit more challenging, which requires intense concentration. At other times, I choose something mindless and easy, and while I am creating, listen to a book recording, or music, or “watch” a movie with my husband. Mostly, I enjoy the silence, a peaceful time ruminate on whatever comes to mind – time for my own internal thoughts and prayers.

There are days when I create right in the midst of homeschooling, with my little ones along for the ride, but I most cherish my quiet moments of working alone.  That is truly where I find restoration for my Mama spirit.

. . .

Lydia is a Homeschooling Mama to 5 (soon to be 6!) little ones in a small town in Michigan. She loves all things simple, beautiful, practical and homemade. Catch up with her at Small Town Simplicity.

why a spirituality of parenting?

We don’t text. We cloth diaper. My kids love tofu. They don’t watch TV.

But all those eye-rollers? I’m not dogmatic about their place in our family life. Frankly we fell into each of those choices, somewhat surprised to find ourselves there, and we’re just bumbling along in our day-to-day like everyone else does. We worry about ourselves and that’s enough.

But the one thing I am dogmatic about (and we’re all dogmatic about something, aren’t we?) is that this family is going to give faith a fighting chance. We’re not going to be self-righteous and we’re not going to be smugly sure of our beliefs about the unfathomable mystery of the Divine and we’re inevitably going to butt heads over religion and God and going to church on Sunday mornings.

But we are going to give faith a fighting chance.

So when I read the latest round of atheism’s-enlightened-and-organized-religion-is-for-the-simple-minded, I was reminded for the zillionth time why giving my children a religious foundation is both the least popular and the most counter-cultural choice I’ve made as their parent.

As the number of nones increases, those of us who check a box for a particular affiliation are left feeling lonelier by the day. (Frankly I’ve found more support from kindred spirits in this small space, this cobwebbed corner of the Interweb, than anywhere else in my life, including the parishes of which I’ve been a part.)

So what’s the point? With statistics that depressing and companions so few, why try to raise my kids Catholic? And furthermore, why bother wasting time and energy reflecting and writing about such a futile effort?

This is why:

Every so often I find myself re-reflecting on why I do what I do here. I tentatively call these questions and musings my fumbling “towards a spirituality of parenting” – not because “spirituality” is some catch-all, New-Agey, feel-good phrase, but quite the opposite: because it means something particular, something deeply rooted, something incredibly challenging.

So what is a spirituality of parenting?

It’s a school of thought. A spirituality of parenting is the way I approach the questions, changes and challenges that face me every day. I try to think deliberately about how to reframe the frustrating parts of raising young kids in order to see the God’s-eye view of this calling. I’m far from the first to find family life a source of both deep joy and troubling ambivalence, of astonishing wonder and mind-popping rage. In the midst of all these emotions and tensions – my children’s and my own – the clearer vision of this calling as a spirituality of parenting gives me the perspective I need. It’s the way I see and think about my actions as a parent. It’s a lens.

It’s a set of practices. A spirituality of parenting involves conscious, chosen practices that help me to be a more mindful mother. Some of these practices are disciplines (praying), others are pure delight (playing). Whenever I try to breathe deeply instead of fly off the handle at my preschooler, I remember (annoyedly, but remember nonetheless) how concrete practices help me to be a calmer mother. Approaching parenting spiritually helps me to be intentional about everyday actions. It’s a lesson.

It’s a way of life. A spirituality of parenting is nothing to achieve. It can’t be mastered; it can only be tried, again and again, and found to be a faithful way of living together. Intertwining my faith in God with my love for my children feels like the most natural thing in the world at times, and the most irreconcilable tension at other times. But I know that searching day-to-day for the sacred moments among the mundane is the best way I can live as a parent. It’s a lifestyle.

. . .

To approach parenting as a spirituality means that the everyday monotony matters. The hard stuff matters. The exasperating mistakes matter. The beautiful, breathtaking moments matter, too. When all of the work and wonder of raising a child is held up in the light of the goodness of this journey, and we who stumble down the twisting path of faith say with surprise there’s Spirit there, too.

That’s when I remember why I do what I do.

To help them – and me – give faith a fighting chance.

Spirituality is not to be learned by flight from the world, or by running away from things, or by turning solitary and going apart from the world. Rather, we must learn an inner solitude wherever or with whomsoever we may be. We must learn to penetrate things and find God there.

- Meister Eckhart -

cores and edges

It’s one in the morning, the bleary-eyed hour. He’s up crying for me and only me, no other consolation will suffice. I stumble across the dimly lit hall, make my way to his bed where he sits with tousled hair and wet eyes, sniffling in the dark. I need you to stay! he wails into my arms. Mama, I need you to stay with me!

Inwardly I groan, already tired from up-too-late working, craving the warmth of my own bed. I know he won’t fall asleep with me next to him; I know his brother won’t have anyone to hear his cries if I drift off here without the monitor. But I can’t say no to the sobs of a small boy. I curl beside him and pull his heaving chest close. You’re okay, I soothe as I stroke his messy hair. It’s all fine now.

But of course he doesn’t rest.

His antsy arms wiggle in and out of blankets, legs thrash back and forth as he rolls around trying to get comfortable. In the delusional mind games of nighttime parenting, I convince myself that if I can model peace and quiet, it will be contagious. So I lie there, still and silent, breathing deeply in and out, willing him to sleep.

It doesn’t work. (It never does.)

I lie there next to his tossing and turning as his feet kick against my shins, his knees poke into my stomach, his elbows bang into my arms. I’m tired, too! I want to complain. But I stay still, my body perched on the edge of his bed, a straight and solid line, and I think about what it means to be the edge.

He has to push against me – kick and thrash and push and roll away – and these nighttime jabs, innocent and innocuous, are only the beginning. Because that is how the child defines himself against the parent: you are the edge, I am my own core. Only if I push against you do I learn the limits of myself.

. . .

Two hours later, his brother awakens in the room next to mine. It’s been ages since we’ve been up in the wee hours like this, but we’re traveling, I’m solo-parenting, everything is topsy-turvy. So of course I pull him close when I see his chubby arms outstretched, wailing mama! mama!

I sigh, snuggle back into the bed with him, snarl at the clock’s laser red reminding me just how little sleep tonight will bring. Again I break a long-set rule and let him nurse mid-night, anything to soothe so quickly. It’s strange and simple all at once, this nursing of a toddler, reminding me how fleeting babyhood flies, yet lingers far beyond first steps and words. He’s still not far from newborn days but every day he inches further.

Struggling to stay awake, I watch him rest there lying in my lap, his arms lazily grazing my shoulder, his legs trailing off around my middle, his feet curling round my back. Now he is the edge and I am the core. He wraps around my self for comfort; I am again the source of life and warmth. He is the one I push against now, wanting to be finished, sleeping, away, alone. But he reminds me that this mama work always calls me back to core: do what is simple, loving, present.

This is how I define myself against my child: I must rest here at the core, heart’s center from which you must push away to become your own. Only if I stay here can you become your own strong edge.

And only if I stay here can I learn the strength within myself.

. . .

Cores and edges.

Maybe family is just that. Always jostling up against the jagged corners, then easing back into smooth centers. Always struggling to define ourselves against the other, then grateful for the comfort of the core that knows us best.

We push and pull, resist and return, stretch and surrender. We need and we need from each other and we never stop needing. The needing changes as seasons turn, of course; sometimes we need to round ourselves into softer cores, sometimes we need to harden our hearts into tougher edges. But the give and take of learning to live together is just that – a give and take. Moulding each other, letting ourselves be moulded.

Learning when to push out into the edges. And when to pull into the core.

how i nurture my mothering spirit – melissa

We woke late. It was snowing outside. Because I am the mom that relies heavily on hand-me-downs to dress my child, I trusted that one of the three bags of winter clothes on my front porch would carry my kid through the cold weather season. On this particular Sunday, running late to church, I prayed that the suspender-snow-pants I eyed earlier in November (before it snowed) would be long enough to cover my two and a half year old’s ankles, making up for her short socks and lack of snow-boots.

Ack. They didn’t.

Pant legs riding up and tennis shoes sinking into the drift on our unshoveled walk - can you hear Marguerite’s yelps as the deep snow hit her exposed legs?

I still can. As I begin my Tuesday morning Centering Prayer routine, it is my daughter’s “help, mommy!” screams that are the sound track playing in my mind. It takes a lot for this background music to subside.

. . .

I’m not certain when exactly I discovered Centering Prayer. I was still single, to be sure. I think I’d left my first career in urban education and probably folded the non-profit I’d co-founded. There’s a period before marriage and motherhood, and after teaching high school English and spending time on the road with spoken word poets that gets a little fuzzy. But in that three-year window, I fall in love with meditation and all forms of getting still, small and listening to the Divine indwelling.

I remember listening to Fr. Richard Rohr and James Finley on CDs talking about Jesus and Buddha while cleaning my house. I read the Buddhist Pema Chodron and practiced tonglen. I learned about the art of maître, as the Tibetan Buddhist nun describes “seeing ourselves without judgment.” I combined all these new practices with what I gleaned from Fr. Thomas Keating on Centering Prayer. And I began a ritual traveling to north Minneapolis every Tuesday morning to join a group of motley-Christians at St. Jane House for twenty-minutes of quiet.

To this day, I carry this practice forward with me as a routine way of restoring and renewing my mothering spirit.

. . .

We begin our practice the same each week: the Director of the Urban Spirituality Center Brian Mogren rings the chiming bell three times and our circle of convened prayers gets quiet. Someone reads a psalm, and nine times out of ten these words are spoken:

Divine and Hidden Friend,
I often feel that I fail at prayer,
but I rejoice that your Spirit
prays ceaselessly in the cellar of my heart.

Grant me the grace to sit still,
that I may hear the Spirit’s silent song,
ever flowing like a river deep within,
singing my love for you.

Quiet my restless heart,
calm my roving, runaway mind,
as now, in communion with all the earth
and her many-colored children,
I enter into the song of love,
the prayer of stillness.

On this particular Tuesday, as my daughter’s song of need, want, and woe echoes through my body, I realize that her plea is my own. “Help, mommy!” vibrates within my heart; I recognize her desire as part of the ache and longing of my own limbs; her want of aid in traversing deep snow is not far from my want of aid in taking my next best earthly step. “Let it not be cold, Holy Mother. Shelter me, Oh God. Help me journey safely, loving Creator.”

The ceaseless longing and never-ending lists of my life play through my prayer, but I recognize them as that which unites me to not only my children, but all others. It is my centering prayer that unites me to you. I am grateful to not be alone.

. . .

Melissa Borgmann-Kiemde is a contemplative writer and teacher. She loves all things imaginative and playful. When she is not spending time squeezing lemons, digging in the garden, or molding play dough with her girls, she has the good fortune of mining her life for spiritual nuggets that get turned into blogs - that her bread-baking husband Francois likes to read. You’ll find her work at Visitation Monastery of North Minneapolis and at her own personal blog QueenMab Contemplates.

how i nurture my mothering spirit – maureen

As a mother to three young children, I am rarely afforded an opportunity to do something just for me. It seems like I always have questions to answer or mouths to feed or messes to clean.

But on chilly winter days I try to carve out ten minutes to brew a pot of homemade chai tea for myself. The kids never get in my way: they know if they are good they’ll enjoy a tiny cup, too.

Chai tea reminds me of India, a place I have visited more than once, before kids and grown-up life consumed my every thought. It was and is one of my favorite places on earth, and whenever I indulge my chai craving I fondly recall my time in a spicy and hazy and colorful land.

I brew the chai in a small saucepan on the stove, but I strain it into a beloved Irish tea pot given to me by my soulful grandmother. With every pot, I think about my relationship with her and the many Irish women who came before us. The tea connects me to my roots.

The tea pot is missing the lid (my son turned flung it across the room, cracking it in two). The spout is thoroughly chipped. It is tea-stained on the inside. In many ways, that tea pot is a metaphor for my life: haggard but enduring, dependable and beautiful, imperfect yet…perfect.

Homemade chai requires an array of exotic ingredients. While I’m sure my recipe is far from authentic, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Fresh ginger is one of my favorite flavors – I work it into many recipes on a near daily basis. I whisk raw milk and raw honey into the brew, simple ingredients that reflect my concern for the environment and my dedication to real foods.

Making homemade chai gives me a chance to nurture my spirit and reflect on things that matter to me. And sharing a cup with an eager 2 year-old makes it all the more sweet.

Homemade Chai

4 cups water
7-9 whole cloves
½ cinnamon stick
A few whole peppercorns
1-2 inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and smashed
3 black tea bags
A few shakes of ground cardamom
2-3 tablespoons honey
1 cup whole milk

Bring water, cloves, cinnamon, peppercorns and ginger to a boil in a small saucepan. Reduce heat and simmer for a few minutes.

Drop tea bags into the pan. Stir in honey. Shake in the cardamom. Let the tea brew for 3 minutes. Remove tea bags.

Increase heat and whisk in milk. Bring to an almost boil, whisk again, and remove from heat. Strain into a tea pot and serve.

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Maureen Smithe Brusznicki is a wife, mother and friend to Mother Nature. When she’s not playing with her kids, experimenting with homemade cleaning products or cooking in the kitchen, she likes to blog about living a healthy and simple life at Homemade Mothering. Maureen has also ventured out into the business world by starting her own line of cloth diapers called Terra Baby.