I spent many years yearning to be a mother before the miracle of my three sons finally happened. During some of that time I was running an adult literacy program in a public library, and sometimes I would console myself by going to the stacks and looking for books about the spiritual aspect of parenting, which is what I was yearning for the most. That’s where I discovered one of the wisest spiritual teachers of my life: the late Polly Berrien Berends, author of Whole Child, Whole Parent and Coming to Life: Traveling the Spiritual Path in Everyday Life.
Through my old journals I see myself trying one of her spiritual practices, which is to do a deep dive into just one verse of scripture.
Journal entry, June 8, 2007
The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and strengthen your bones; You shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. (Isaiah 58:11)
So, given how much I hate gardening, why did this verse jump out at me? It’s a comforting image of being cared for, of an organic natural process, of having needs met, of nourishment, of a dry spell coming to an end. Of feeling wilted, and then refreshed, of having faith that what I need will be provided. That the living waters are there if I am in a frame to accept them, to receive them. That if I ask, it is answered, if I knock it is opened. I love Polly’s simple wise advice to just listen for the next good idea that God might have for me. I tried that last night when How was so discouraged and angry about bad politics at work. I gently asked questions as they came into my mind, mindful not to be asking for the wrong reasons (to make myself look smart or insightful, or to make his anger go away), but for the right reasons of just trying to reveal the way things Really Are. I don’t know if it made any difference to him or if he even noticed, but it helped me stay more loving and more calm and focused. I picked up Whole Child, Whole Parent again and turned to a section about anger, which I have to reread again, and was struck with the idea that it’s inadvisable to try to mediate the other parent’s anger, and that doing things for the express purpose of not making someone angry is just as manipulative and ultimately annoying as blowing up at them and stepping all over their toes. Just keep focused on what is, and what isn’t, and seek guidance and wisdom along the way.