Spiritual Direction nyc

July 9, 2017

Chicken In a Biskit, Jello Molds, and a Bad Word from the Birthday Girl

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Day 24 of my 30-day writing challenge

After a late night flight to the West Coast, and a day spent celebrating our birthday girl – she turned six today! – I’m sitting in my childhood home, jet-lagged and bleary-eyed. For some reason, I’m eating Chicken in a Biskit crackers as though my life depended on it, even though they taste nothing like chicken, and were obviously named by the same person who taught the Chick Fil-A founder how to spell.

We’re in town for the national conference of our denomination, which starts next week, and to see my mom and her husband, who still live in the house I grew up in. The house looks largely the same as when I lived here – an endearing, goofy mix of Asian porcelain dolls and Christian kitsch, primarily Precious Moments figurines and art with Bible verses on it.

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Contributing to the time-warp atmosphere in the house is the fact that my mother, who retains the Depression-era thriftiness of her parents’ generation – saves everything. I raided her bathroom for nail polish this morning (I needed it after my hair dye disaster two days ago) and found bottles that I’m pretty sure predate the Cold War, as well as enough hotel soap, shampoo, conditioner, and lotion to supply all the hypothetical survivors of a zombie apocalypse.

Most importantly, Mom has saved all of her Tupperware jello molds! All I need is an ambrosia salad and a church potluck, and it’ll be like I never left.

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Of course, many things have changed in the past decade, as well as since I first moved away twenty years ago. My mother remarried the year after I moved out of state for graduate school, and my sister and I have also married and had kids, so the old family photographs are constantly being mixed in with new ones. The trees are taller, the house is bigger (it was remodeled several years ago), and my old bed looks smaller.

In the category of new things I could do without: My daughter celebrated her sixth birthday with a some new vocabulary. She was losing a board game to her brother, and decided to express some good-humored frustration with a word we had never heard from her before. She said she learned it listening to Spotify. Is that where the kids are learning their swear words these days?

July 7, 2017

So Many Dumb Ways to Dye: My Misadventure with “Splat” Hair Color

Day 22 of my 30-day writing challenge

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Dear me, let us be elegant or die – Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

My hair has been going white since I was sixteen, starting with a shock in my bangs. Wikipedia tells me that this is caused by a localized decrease in hair melanin, and goes by the delightful name of “Poliosis, also called poliosis circumscripta or blondika or Bujwit’s burden.” The first name sounds like a fatal disease; the second like a fatal disease that sneaks up on you, quietly and with discretion; the third like a leggy assassin from Scandinavia. As for the last name, I really, really want to know who this Bujwit was, and why his white hair was such a trial to him, but alas, it appears there are limits to the internet.

In my twenties and early thirties, my hair gave me a Rogue from X-Men vibe, but gradually, as the white spread, I started to look more this little guy here.

angola_colobus_monkey_2 — Hi, I’m a Colobus monkey!

Then I discovered that past a certain age, half-white hair does not make you look like a super hero. It makes you look like Cruella De Vil. While I cannot deny she has a certain fabulousness, I do not particularly want to look like someone who murders puppies for kicks.

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Thus, for the past year or two, I’ve had a lot of fun dying my white streaks in bright colors. Since my hair is already white, I don’t have to bother with the bleaching most brunettes have to go through; I can just wash in the Manic Panic and go. I’ve also used permanent dye meant for dark hair, which gives my white strands a pop of color and leaves more subtle traces through the rest of my hair.

Last night, my teenage daughter helped me pick out my latest attempt at color: Splat’s Midnight Indigo. I had some time this morning between doing laundry and packing for our vacation that starts tomorrow, so I pulled on my plastic gloves, dabbed some Aquaphor on my face, neck, and shoulders to keep the color off my skin, moved the bathmat out of the bathroom so it wouldn’t get stained, and went at it.

It was a disaster.

The last time I dyed my hair, it was considerably shorter. I was completely unprepared for how much messier it is to dye waist-length hair. By the time I was done rinsing out my hair in the shower, the bathroom looked like the shower scene from Psycho, but with Smurfs. Blue dye was EVERYWHERE. Splattered all over the shower tiles and curtain, swirling around the tub, staining the shampoo bottles. On the sink, floor, toilet, cabinet. And since I apparently did not apply Aquaphor with enough vigor, it was all over myself, including my hands, arms, shoulders, neck, and face.

To add insult to injury, I also put a splotch on my laptop when I frantically googled “how to remove hair dye from skin.”

Thankfully, Dr. Bronner’s Liquid Magic Soap, at full strength, really is almost magic! It took me over an hour, but I no longer look like a visitor from Planet Pandora.

My face is clean, although my scalp near my hairline is obviously too dark. My fingernails and toenails are blue, but I can cover that up with nail polish. The remaining problems are the tops of my ears and a stain on my neck that looks like the world’s worst hickey. Did I mention I’m going on vacation tomorrow? To a church conference?

My husband hasn’t stopped laughing at me. My five-year old immediately burst into “Dumb Ways to Die,” the charmingly morbid PSA by Metro Trains Melbourne.

dumb-ways-to-die The most vexing problem is that Splat is a semi-permanent dye, which means it as long as my hair is wet, it will leave stains everywhere: Clothing, bedding, skin, any porous surface. Did I mention that I have so much hair that it takes forever to dry? That means for the next six weeks I am the human version of a leaky pen. Everyone, grab your children and your upholstery and run!

July 6, 2017

Backyard Barbecues, Beer, and Bad Jokes about Protestant Preachers

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Day 21 of my 30-day writing challenge

Yesterday, as is usual for most warm-weather holidays, we invited a horde of people to our backyard for a barbecue, a combination of church folks, neighbors, students, and friends. The kids played on the tire swing, bounced in the hammock, rolled in and out of the pup tent we’d pitched for the day, and walked around in Pigpen-worthy clouds of dirt.

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The adults contented themselves with cheese-stuffed, bacon-and-jalepeno-wrapped hot dogs, babyback ribs, and many other delights from the meat kingdom. Not to mention – because our crowds are always international – kimchi, turkish delight, homemade guacamole, and cevapi (a Serbian skinless sausage). There may also have been a teeny bit of alcohol on the premises, although nothing stronger than hard cider and fruit-flavored hefeweizen, which my beer snob husband surprisingly did not object to.

I grew up in a church that did not allow alcohol, although everyone freely admitted (contrary to other churches I knew of) that when Jesus turned water into wine at the wedding in Cana, it was actually wine, and not grape juice that had been mistranslated as wine by some non-believing Bible scholar who was already up to his tweed collar in hellfire and damnation. There were people who felt it was okay to have a glass of wine discreetly, in their own homes, but I never saw anyone drink in public and certainly not at a church event.

So it was a huge culture shift for me when I started attending a different denomination as a graduate student and found that not only was drinking allowed, but my church leaders regularly hunkered down in a bar not too far from the church office. My husband (then boyfriend) was an employee of the church, and he and the other pastoral interns and younger staff members would go out after work to The Ginger Man, a gleaming, wood-paneled bar in midtown Manhattan that boasts 70 beers on tap, in addition to whatever comes in cans, bottles, and kegs.

(Their website claims that Michael Jackson has called it “one of the finest beer bars in the world.” If that endorsement does not cause you to moonwalk immediately to their location, I cannot imagine anything that would persuade you.)

When my husband became an elder at the same church, he and the other the newly ordained boys went out for a celebratory pint or few. I warned them not to drink too much, or they might wake up in the morning with no memory of the evening and the complete text of “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” tattooed on their chests.

Jonathan Edwards jokes are soooo funny, guys. You should try telling one at your next party.

Seriously, though, I think you’d need more than a chest to fit the whole text of that sermon. It’s a long one.

Fun fact (gleaned from Susan Stinson’s literary biography of Edwards, Spider in a Tree): George Whitfield, a contemporary of Edwards, and a key figure in the Great Awakening, was a preacher of such spiritual power and sublimated erotic energy that women fainted during his sermons.

Here’s George:

The senior pastor of my church (who did not hang out at The Ginger Man with the baby pastors) was kind and professorial, radiating intelligence, trustworthiness, and gentle humor. I admired him greatly, but never once felt like fainting in his presence. He reminded me of Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Beaker’s friend on the Muppet Show.

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* * * *

Including the gorgefest that was our barbecue, yesterday was not overly burdened by high-class or healthy cuisine. Everyone including Grandma and Grandpa had biscuits with sausage gravy for lunch, and I think the kids had instant ramen at some point in the morning. The whole day was the food equivalent of blunt force trauma.

My five-year old loved it. She rarely likes to say her bedtime prayers, preferring to let me do it, but last night she couldn’t wait to offer this up:

Dear God: Thank you for our friends and family and thank you that we had biscuits and gravy and noodles and a barbecue today. Amen.

It just goes to show: the Spirit moves people in different ways. Some eat, some drink, some pass out on the floor. However God might have showed up in your life today, I hope you, too, found something to be thankful for.

July 3, 2017

“Imaginative Prayer: A Yearlong Guide for Your Children’s Spiritual Formation” (Book Launch)

Day 17 of my 30-day writing challenge

I’m so excited to have received my advance copy of Jared Boyd’s new book, Imaginative Prayer: A Yearlong Guide for Your Child’s Spiritual Formation. The book prepares parents to guide their children through a year of imaginative prayer, and to have real and meaningful encounters with God.

Jared has been my teacher for the past year at the School of Spiritual Direction. He is also a pastor, spiritual director, the founder of The Order of Sustainable Faith, and the author of Invitations and Commitments: A Rule of Life. He and his wife have four daughters.

I can attest to Jared’s wisdom, his deep understanding of imaginative prayer and spiritual formation, his ability to explain things in simple and accessible language, and the hard work and love he puts into parenting his children. I can’t think of a better person to have written this book, and I look forward to reading it and putting it into practice with my own family.

I’ll post a detailed review sometime in the next few weeks. The book will be released on July 11, 2017, but is available for pre-order now!

July 2, 2017

Rainbows over New York City

Day 16 of my 30-day writing challenge

This was the scene in New York City today, at 8 pm, during a light summer storm. My husband’s cell phone snapshot doesn’t do it justice – the sky was bluer and the rainbows brighter.

My husband’s parents are visiting from out of town, and we’re enjoying a few days of staycation with them. This afternoon we saw Despicable Me 3 with the kids, then took them to the grandparents’ hotel pool. My son is a virtual fish; my younger daughter is allergic to being even close to horizontal in the water. I’m trying to think of a metaphor that would do justice to the flailing and the drama – the only picture that comes to mind is those hens from the movie Chicken Run.

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(Because I am a pessimist of the highest order, I spent swim time trying not to think of recent CDC warnings about the high bacteria content of public pools. It did not help my paranoia that the hotel had posted more than one sign forbidding blowing your nose in the water.)

We finished the day with a trip to Jackson Hole Diner, home of one of the best burgers in the city and a jukebox filled with 50’s music, both of which made Grandpa very happy. My son was more excited to see an autographed photo of Ed Sheeran, one of the many celebrities who have eaten themselves into a red meat coma there.

I just realized! I think my son might be trying to grow Ed Sheeran (or some other boy band mate) hair. I’m not saying it’s a conscious choice, but it would explain his refusal to let me cut it, even after after he injured himself with his hair yesterday. I’m not kidding – he was in the shower, jerked his head around for some reason, and whipped a long, wet hank of hair directly into his eye.

But I digress.

The rain was starting as we arrived at Jackson Hole, and the double rainbow appeared a scant half hour later. We took turns running out to see, to stand in the sun and breathe the freshly-washed air.

It was one of those perfect moments where NYC feels a little like Paradise.

June 30, 2017

Raising Wild Things Without Becoming One: “How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen” (Book Review)

Day 14 of my 30-day writing challenge

Last week, I dusted off my flute and fumbled by way through a Poulenc Sonata whose second movement is my favorite piece to play. It’s a slow, haunting, minor melody with dramatic bursts of dissonance. I learned it as a young college student, and the thing I remember most about that process was my female teacher telling me, only half jokingly, that it was a passionate song and that I probably needed to be deflowered before I could do it justice.

The comment mystified me at the time, and looking back, I think I get it even less. I think there’s some fallacy that young people – children, teens, even young adults who are short on romantic experiences – don’t feel things deeply, and are unacquainted with the joys and sorrows that we bigger people have access to. As though there is some sort of sexual experience card that buys you admission to an elite club of emotions.

One of the few things that I took away from a graduate school class I had in Children’s Literature is that children feel things very deeply indeed, and the best children’s writers understand that and don’t condescend to them. To read Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are” is to be invited into a world of primal love, rage, fear, attachment, rejection, joy, and hunger. It’s to see in vivid colors and sprawling crosshatchings that children can seem monstrous to adults, and to themselves, because they feel so much, not because they feel so little.

As I read How to Talk to Little Kids Will Listen: A Survival Guide to Life With Children Ages 2-7 by Joanna Faber and Julie King, what stands out is the authors’ respect for the inner lives of little ones, one that carries across from the preceding book in the series, the classic How to Talk so Kids will Listen and Listen so Kids will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlisch.

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The first principle for talking to your youngsters comes early in the book:

Children depend on us to name their feelings so that they can find out who they are. If we don’t, our unspoken message is: ‘You don’t mean what you say, you don’t know what you know, you don’t feel what you feel, you can’t trust your own senses.

Children need us to validate their feelings so they can become grown-ups who know who they are and what they feel. We are also laying the groundwork for a person who can respect and not dismiss the needs and feelings of other people.

John Berger famously wrote that women are always watching themselves being watched. Children, however, are always watching themselves be watched by their parents or other important adults in their lives — not, as women do, to make themselves objects of the male gaze — but instead to help them affirm and shape their own subjectivity and agency. Again and again, my kids say, “Mommy, watch me! Dad, did you see me do this?” If we don’t watch them, they are unsatisfied. It’s almost like the action didn’t happen. So it makes sense that the same is true for feelings as well.

I’ve long been the prototypical dismissive parent when it comes to feelings. My son is mad because his sister is mistreating a toy that he just threw on the floor in a fit of temper? Well, that makes no sense! My daughter is crying because she has to leave the park? Does she not appreciate that we spent two hours there already? This is, I’m afraid, a classic East Asian-influenced upbringing: Whatever you feel, you shouldn’t. Stop it!

Faber and King’s strategy for affirming feelings instead of yelling and berating — thus setting your children on their way to becoming adults with compassion for themselves and others, while also helping to direct them in a way that adults can live with — is simple. The formula goes like this:

I understand / hear / know (your feelings about x). The problem is (explanation of parent’s perspective).

In my house, examples might be:

I understand that you’re angry that you can’t run around the house naked when you’re hot. The problem is we have guests over for dinner, and they don’t really want to see bare bottoms with their broccoli.

I hear that you’re sad that you didn’t get to eat ice cream for dessert. The problem is that you already had cake for breakfast and too many sweets aren’t good for your teeth or your tummy. (. . . Wait, what? You had a lollipop, too? When did that happen?)

I know you want to watch more Netflix. The problem is you’ve already watched seven episodes back-to-back of “Puss N’ Boots” and Mom has to at least pretend to be a responsible adult.

There is much more to the book, which includes tools (and stories of parents implementing them) not just for handling emotions, but also for engaging cooperation, resolving conflict, expressing praise and appreciation, and for parenting kids who are on the autism spectrum or have sensory issues. There is also a chapter that will appreciated by skeptical parents: an acknowledgement that there are times when all these tools will fail you, including when your children are hungry, sleep-deprived, overwhelmed, or being asked to do something beyond their capacity. These caveats seem more than fair, considering that adults don’t do very well in those situations either. Listening and affirming skills are crucial, to be sure, but there are times when all of us just need a cookie and a nap.

June 25, 2017

Let Us Now Praise Instant Ramen

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Day 9 of my 30-day writing challenge

I did not have much time to write today. It’s a Saturday, which means THE KIDS ARE HOME ALL DAY. Also, my husband and oldest daughter are sick; worship band practice ran way overtime; and I discovered too late my packet of curry powder was somewhere between “scorching a hole through your esophagus” and “incinerating your head” on the scoville scale. This necessitated alternate dinner plans for everyone except my freakishly heat-loving husband, for whom the only plausible explanation is that he’s already shorted out every single nerve ending on his tongue.

It was, nevertheless, a leisurely day by our standards. Nobody had to be run to and from school by car, bus, or train. My husband didn’t have to dash between his two part-time jobs — three, if you count his pastoral gig — although he did have to work on his sermon. There was time for a trip to the park, free summer bowling at the neighborhood lanes, and a board game before dinner. And two and a half loads of laundry. (Always laundry).

As for our last-minute dinner, thank God for instant ramen. I say that in all reverence and respect. If it weren’t for ramen, I would have starved by now. If not at college, then certainly at my last job, where I ate it for lunch at least two to three times a week.

In my defense, I rinsed the excess oil off the cooked noodles, used only half the flavor packet (where all the msg is), and added greens, and sometimes egg or tofu, to make it healthier.

Most of the time.

Look, I know ramen isn’t pretty, and it’s got way too much sodium, and a billion years from now, when an alien civilization excavates our trash heaps, they will find bricks of curly, plastic-looking, desiccated noodles along with twinkies, spam, and saran wrap. But it’s fast and warm and yummy and has that lovely umami flavor that makes your taste buds really happy. It also reminds me of my roots in Hawaii, where you can buy the Hawaiian version of ramen, called saimin, from McDonalds.

My son took an impromptu family poll yesterday while we were on our way to the supermarket: If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, would you choose pizza or ramen? He and my younger daughter both picked ramen without a second thought. So did I. My husband wrinkled his nose. But he’s the white guy in the family, so what do you expect? (Okay, so my kids are half white, but in this case, their Asian genes dominated.) My older daughter wasn’t in the car, but she’s enjoying her bowl of ramen for dinner as I type, so I’m counting her vote in absentia. Besides, she’s a singer, and cheese clogs up her voice, so ramen it is.

It wasn’t planned, but we came home from the supermarket with a 24-pack of ramen. I’m just surprised we waited until today to break it open.

June 23, 2017

Tales from the Nail Polish Apocalypse

Day 7 of my 30-day writing challenge

A few years ago, Kelly Ripa won a “Best-Dressed” award from the New York Post for her “un-self-conscious” style. Her reported motto was, “If it’s clean, I put it on.”

Kelly Ripa has way higher standards than I do.

My kids go to school in clothes with pen and paint stains on them, with holes and hanging seams I haven’t bothered to mend. I do draw the line at offensive odors, but the truth is, unless it’s 90 degrees out, lack of odor isn’t necessarily a reliable indicator that someone’s pants haven’t been worn past their freshness date.

Last night, though, was the lowest we’ve fallen in a while. One of my sister’s colleagues needed to produce some promotional materials, and she invited my sister’s kids and my youngest daughter to be part of a photo shoot. We needed to be there at about 10 this morning, so I got ready ahead of time. I picked out two potential outfits – they needed to be solid colors, no logos. I checked my daughter over. She was clean.

At that point, I stopped paying attention. That was my first mistake. I was busy mentally writing my blog post for the evening when my daughter came into ask me a question. She wanted to know if it was okay to paint on paper using nail polish. She was clutching a bottle that I thought was a kid-friendly, water-based polish that was mostly empty and half dried up. So – again, not really paying attention – I said, “Sure!”

That was my second mistake.

Then, my daughter wandered into the living to ask her big sister for permission to use her nail polish. Her sister, assuming that the nail polish was to be used on, you know, nails, also said, “Sure!”

That was also a mistake.

(This is the diabolical genius of kids. They make sure that nobody in a position to object knows the whole story.)

Meanwhile, I’ve retreated to my room to actually work on my blog, and I have no sense of time passing until my daughter comes into my room again, waving a bunch of papers that are completely covered in nail polish. Which I expected, so that was fine.

What was not fine was what I discovered when I started to help my daughter clean up. First of all, I discovered that the polish was not the water-based, easily washable color I’d believed it to be. It was the full-on, salon-grade, hard-as-a-diamond stuff. Second, I discovered she’d been painting not just with a brush, but with her fingers. She had polish smeared on her shorts – shorts that she had not worn before that afternoon, mind you – on her legs, and all over her hands. And the polish color? A bright, shocking crimson.

Remember, we have a photo shoot in the morning. And here’s my five-year-old, looking like she’d just bathed in the blood of virgins or some other pagan sacrifice.

I dumped her in the tub, googled “how to get nail polish out of clothing,” got out the acetone and paper towels, and got to work trying to undo the disaster.

I never did get the polish out of the shorts (thanks a lot, internet), but I did manage to clean the kid, by dint of soaping her within an inch of her life, then scraping off each fleck of polish with my nails. I even managed to do a load of laundry before bedtime, which meant that my daughter made it to her photo shoot this morning with not only clean skin, but clean underwear. Double win for mom!

I thought she had a clean dress, too, but I realized after we were already in the car that it had a spot on it.

June 22, 2017

Rag Dolls and Riches: The Things that Endure

Day 6 of my 30-day writing challenge

This morning, my youngest graduated kindergarten. She was first in line as all the kids walked into the auditorium, flanked by their teachers. As soon as she heard the first note of “Pomp and Circumstance,” she charged down the aisle, a wide smile on her face. The boy behind her was more hesitant, so she’d bounced down half the length of the auditorium before anyone else followed behind her. She loved every minute of the spotlight.

She’s moved through all of her five years so far just like this. She was a flirtatious baby and toddler, always looking around for the next person to pull into her orbit. She can make friends with a lump of coal. She walked early. She waits for no man, woman, or small fry, and heaven help the person or object that thwarts her will. She’s a force of nature, bright and warm as the sun: loving, passionate, and fiery when crossed.

As her godmother and I sipped coffee this morning while waiting for the ceremony to begin, we talked about how our little graduate takes after her namesake, her great-godmother, or Vovo (which means “Grandma” in Portuguese).

Last week, my daughter brought me an old, well-loved rag doll in need of serious coiffure repair. She had decided its messy nest of yarn hair needed some trimming, and found her haphazard snips didn’t yield quite the results that she wanted.

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Vovo originally made this doll for my son. She also made the soccer uniform it once wore. Now, its shorts are missing, as are its socks and shoes. It is covered in stains whose origin I do not wish to know. The impromptu haircut did not help its bedraggled appearance.

My older daughter also has a doll from Vovo. But my youngest was born after Vovo’s doll-making days were over, so she has adopted the dolls of her siblings.

Vovo made hundreds of these rag dolls throughout her adult life – sewing the muslin body and clothes, stitching in yarn hair, and using cloth markers to give them eyes, noses, and smiles. She gave her dolls to new babies, to young children, to anyone she thought could use a happy, floppy face brightening up their space or their day.

Since around the time my youngest was in the womb, Vovo hasn’t made any dolls. She has a form of dementia that doesn’t allow for that kind of work, or for her to live outside of a nursing home. But her sweet and giving nature has remained. She still recognizes family members and enjoys their company. She’s a favorite at her home, helping other residents and cheering them up when they’re sad. She sings hymns and prays for her companions.

Once, she slipped out an unlatched gate and wandered out of the nursing home. Several hours later, after a frantic search, she was found, untroubled and completely at home, in a church.

Before the onset of her condition, Vovo prayed for my family many times, in an earnest stream of Portuguese, always wearing a smile that was the very definition of “beatific.” We didn’t understand a word, but we recognized in her prayers, and in her, something holy and blessed. That’s why, when our youngest daughter was born, not long after Vovo’s symptoms had begun to be recognized and diagnosed, we decided to give her Vovo’s name. It seemed fitting, and also holy, that our baby was coming into the world at the same time that Vovo was also coming to inhabit it in a new way.

So far, my daughter has not demonstrated the fundamental patience of her Vovo – we’re still working on that! – but what they do have in common is an enthusiasm for living that draws people to them like planets around a star. Both love to give and receive gifts, no matter how small. My girl will become radiant with excitement if someone gives her a pretty stone or a 25 cent toy. She gives complete strangers her artwork; tiny, weedy flowers picked from the cracks in the sidewalk; stuffed animals; or anything she has on hand. The focus of her attention, the intensity of her desire to draw people in, whether old friends or complete strangers, is a gift she bestows on almost everyone she meets.

I thought about Vovo’s legacy as I worked on the doll she made, re-attaching yarn hair and mending a cut in the fabric from my daughter’s over-enthusiastic scissor use. In spite of her neurological deterioration, she retains an unshakable core of faith, kindness, and generosity of spirit that continues to illuminate everyone around her.

Vovo continues to reflect what the Apostle Paul tells us about the limitations of our human existence, and the things that endure in spite of our frailties. I can’t think of a better person for my daughter to have as a namesake.

Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. Three things will last forever–faith, hope, and love–and the greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13:12-13).

June 17, 2017

Sleeping With Bread: Adapting the Ignatian Examen for Children and Small Groups

Day 3 of my 30-day writing challenge.

Friday night is Bible study night at the Myers house, and has been for over a decade now. Tonight’s study featured friends of more than 10 years and a friend of less than 1. We’ve almost always started with dinner (Pre-made lasagna tonight, plus the transcendently crispy wings and buttery garlic knots from the small Italian place one block over) and informal conversation before moving to the study portion, but in the last few months, we’ve started by asking people to share their “highs” and “lows” for the week.

This routine is something we first learned about from friends. Their family would go around the dinner table every night, giving every person a chance to say the best and worst thing about their day. We loved the way it gave everyone, no matter their age, a chance to reflect, speak, listen, and connect, and we started doing the same thing with our family.

Recently, we revived this practice again, after I read about it in Sleeping with Bread: Holding What Gives You Life. Its dreamy watercolors make it look like a children’s bedtime story, and one of its aims is in fact to make the Ignatian examen accessible to children, as well as to anyone looking for a basic, gentle approach to this practice.

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The examen is a way to review your day – how God was present, and how he might be inviting you to move forward – by asking yourself, “For what today was I most grateful? For what I was least grateful? Over time, paying attention to where in your days you find grace and life, and where you experience pain and resistance, points you towards how God might be moving and guiding you. It builds awareness and discernment, hope and faith.

For children, authors Dennis, Sheila Fabricant and Matthew Linn simplify the examen questions to precisely the ones we learned from our friends: “What was your high today? What was your low?” These are concepts children can easily understand – our five year old answers them quite vocally. We’ve also found them to be helpful in our small groups. They are non-threatening enough that most people don’t mind answering them, even visitors and new members. People can provide answers as detailed or as vague as they choose, sharing small ups and downs or deep joys and sorrows. Finally, the questions are easily explainable to English language learners; that’s an important criteria in our church, which was started specifically to welcome immigrants and internationals and to foster diversity.

Our group continues to gradually learn more and more about each other – what each person cares about, what they are going through, the unique ways they relate to God. And if we are good listeners, then each person has a chance to feel heard, valued, and loved.

Around the room tonight, the group’s highs and lows were predictably varied. My twelve-year old’s high was that there was no school on Monday; My kindergartener was excited that her graduation cap and gown were delivered today. There were a lot of lows pertaining to work – finding work, the wrong work, conflicts at work.

After completing our group examen – although we never actually use that term – we read Psalm 8 together. Psalm 8 juxtaposes God’s glory and the vast universe he’s made with his intimate care for all of his creatures, down to the very smallest. Verse two says “You have taught children and infants to tell of your strength.” Sleeping with Bread and the examen can help parents do just that – partner with God in teaching their children to be aware of both God’s majesty and his daily involvement in their lives. And it’s good for the adults too.