I think a lot of people are realizing that truth and registering it on different levels. With regularity I see funny memes and cartoons go by on social media that all drive home the same sort of point: If, in 2015, someone had asked you where you would see yourself in five years, you never would have guessed it would be here, in the middle of a pandemic, wearing a mask, carrying hand sanitizer as if it were a talisman, isolating from friends and family. But here we are, and, for the most part, we’re doing OK, if we’re fortunate enough to remain healthy.

Think back to when all of this started in mid-March. When I left my office, I figured I’d be back in a few weeks, a month or two at most. I didn’t imagine we’d be heading into the next school year still uncertain about how everything was going to work and whether any of it is a good idea. We are in uncharted waters every single day, treading water when we have to, swimming frantically when the situation calls for it, and every now and then sinking back and floating with ease, but always trying to just keep our head above the surface and carrying on.

It’s not easy, but for those of us with a deep faith and a regular prayer life, it’s a little easier, I think. We feel less alone because we are connected to something so much greater than ourselves on a daily, constant basis. As we go through our days, we are very much aware of life’s uncertainty, now more than ever, and of the need to accept what’s been put in front of us and to surrender control, at least a little bit, to stay sane and centered.

I look at my three children — each of them confronted with hurdles that had to be overcome during this pandemic as internships were lost, study abroad was canceled and gymnastics, once a daily staple, became a distant dream. And yet they have accepted, adapted and surrendered in the best sense of the word, the spiritual sense. They are moving forward, not completely sure where they’re going or where they’ll end up but trusting that forward is the only way to go. And that is the essence of faith. We don’t know —we can’t know—what’s coming (even when we think we do), but we have to keep moving forward. Accepting, trusting, adapting, surrendering to wherever God leads us, even if it wasn’t on our radar screen.

In one of his most famous prayers — one that’s worth keeping close at hand — famed Trappist monk Thomas Merton wrote: “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that, if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

Accept. Adapt. Surrender. Trust.

This column originally appeared in the August 13, 2020, issue of Catholic New York. Photo above by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

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For the past few days I’ve been looking at the numbers on the calendar, growing more and more introspective as we inched closer to August 6. It was 22 years ago today that I learned the baby I was carrying, my second baby, had died 11 weeks into my pregnancy.

With a mother’s intuition, I had known something was wrong during that pregnancy from a couple of weeks before. The day Dennis and I — with Noah in tow — went to the midwife for my regular check up, I didn’t even take the little tape recorder with me to capture the sound of baby’s heartbeat, so convinced was I that I would hear only silence. I went back for the recorder only after Dennis insisted. But somehow I knew. Because when you are a mother sometimes you just know things about your children, even when there is no logical reason you should, even when they are still growing inside you.

When we went for the ultrasound to confirm the miscarriage, we saw the perfect form of our baby up on the screen. I remember Dennis looking so happy, thinking everything was okay after all, and me pointing out that the heart was still. No blinking blip. No more life.

With that same mother’s intuition, no matter how busy or stressed I am, no matter how many other things I seem to forget as I race through my life at breakneck speed, I never forget this anniversary. It is imprinted on my heart. As the date nears, I feel a stillness settling in, a quiet place amid the chaos, a space reserved just for this baby, the one I never to got hold, the one I call Grace.

In the past, I have talked about the ways Grace shaped our family by her absence rather than her presence, and that truth remains with me. I am very much aware of the fact that life would be very different had she lived. She managed to leave her mark on us, even without taking a breath. She lingers here, not only in my heart but around the edges of our lives — especially the lives of our two girls who followed her. I know them because I did not know Grace. What a sorrowful and yet beautiful impact she had on us.

So thank you, baby, for all that you were and all that you have given us without ever setting foot on this earth. The power of one small life.

The post Miscarriage: love and loss 22 years later appeared first on Not Strictly Spiritual.

When I wrote my first book, Parenting a Grieving Child: Helping Children Find Faith, Hope, and Healing after the Loss of a Loved One, back in 2002, I included a section called “When the Unthinkable Happens,” where I addressed 9-11 and what was then a much-shorter-but-still devastating list of school shootings. In 2015, a revised version of my book was issued by Loyola Press, in part because our world had changed so dramatically we needed to update several sections to help parents and other “helpers” who might be called on to calm the fears of the children in their care. What a sobering task, to comfort your children and know full well you can do nothing to protect them because the people who have the power to effect change refuse to do so.

The fact that my children regularly have to practice lockdown drills and learn how and where to hide if a shooter is on a rampage should not be business as usual. The fact that my workplace sponsors active shooter awareness training is depressing but necessary. That we have reached a point where any of this is “normal” and is addressed only through rhetoric with little to no action is irresponsible and perhaps even criminal. Our children are worth more than this; our country is better than this.

When my oldest left for his study abroad semester earlier this year, I had a swell of panic as I imagined all that could go wrong as he navigated life in a foreign city. Eight weeks later, I realize my two younger children may be in much greater danger in their suburban schools than my son is riding the bus line around Rome. How is that possible? How did we get here, and why aren’t we willing to stop this runaway train of devastation and death before one more child has to die?

It feels especially appropriate, given the state of our world, to be journeying toward Calvary during these weeks of Lent. The Scripture readings raise the same questions: How is this possible? How did we get here? We know the events that will unfold over the course of Holy Week. We know the horror human beings are capable of inflicting on one another, even on the Son of God. We also know that the pain and sorrow of that week will end in new life for all of us, and we cling to that hope even as we stare into the abyss. Darkness will not win.

It can be hard to remember that when my teenage daughter is in her bedroom crying as she reads news reports out of Parkland. We are better than this, made in God’s image, and God calls us to create a better world, to bring about His kingdom here on earth. We cannot do nothing and expect change. We must have courage and, like the women who stood at the foot of the cross on Good Friday and ran to the tomb on Holy Saturday, refuse to be paralyzed by fear, swayed by the comfort of convenience, or convinced all is lost. Love wins. We will celebrate it on Easter, but we must live it every day, for the sake of our children, for the sake of our world.

This column originally appeared in the March 1, 2018, issue of Catholic New York.

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For the past few days I’ve been looking at the numbers on the calendar, growing more and more introspective as we inched closer to August 6. It was 19 years ago today that I learned the baby I was carrying, my second baby, had died 11 weeks into my pregnancy.

With a mother’s intuition, I had known something was wrong during that pregnancy from a couple of weeks before. The day Dennis and I — with Noah in tow — went to the midwife for my regular check up, I didn’t even take the little tape recorder with me to capture the sound of baby’s heartbeat, so convinced was I that I would hear only silence. I went back for the recorder only after Dennis insisted. But somehow I knew. Because when you are a mother sometimes you just know things about your children, even when there is no logical reason you should, even when they are still growing inside you.

When we went for the ultrasound to confirm the miscarriage, we saw the perfect form of our baby up on the screen. I remember Dennis looking so happy, thinking everything was okay after all, and me pointing out that the heart was still. No blinking blip. No more life.

With that same mother’s intuition, no matter how busy or stressed I am, no matter how many other things I seem to forget as I race through my life at breakneck speed, I never forget this anniversary. It is imprinted on my heart. As the date nears, I feel a stillness settling in, a quiet place amid the chaos, a space reserved just for this baby, the one I never to got hold, the one I call Grace.

In the past, I have talked about the ways Grace shaped our family by her absence rather than her presence, and that truth remains with me. I am very much aware of the fact that life would be very different had she lived. She managed to leave her mark on us, even without taking a breath. She lingers here, not only in my heart but around the edges of our lives — especially the lives of our two girls who followed her. I know them because I did not know Grace. What a sorrowful and yet beautiful impact she had on us.

So thank you, baby, for all that you were and all that you have given us without ever setting foot on this earth. The power of one small life.

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We started making “helpful” suggestions about things Noah could be doing differently in his social life, his work life, his life in general. He listened patiently, reminding us ever so gently at one point that he was doing pretty well (really well, actually) in terms of academics and everything else.

Later that same day, Dennis and I were hiking at a nearby nature preserve, when I had a revelation. There’s something about immersing myself in nature that clears my head. Suddenly, in my mind’s eye, it was 17 years ago, when Noah was only 3 and had just started attending a Montessori pre-school near our home in Austin, Texas. Although we loved everything about the Montessori method, we would get frustrated when, day after day, every time we asked Noah what he had done at school, the answer would be something along the lines of, “I did hand-washing work.”

Dennis and I—fully in first-child parenting mode—would roll our eyes and obsess over what seemed like a total waste of Noah’s time and our money. How much are we paying for him to wash his hands? Why isn’t he taking advantage of the more interesting “work” that was available? We reminded Noah that when we had been at the open house, we saw a really cool farmhouse over in the corner. We suggested he play with that when he returned to school.

When we picked Noah up after his four-hour stint the next day, we asked how things went, waiting hopefully for news of the farmhouse. Looking a little forlorn for a boy of 3, he told us he had tried to play with the farmhouse, but the teacher told him he wasn’t ready for that work yet. That was for the older children. And so, poor Noah took the correction that rightly belonged to his parents.

I recalled all of this out loud to Dennis as we stood on a wooden bridge, the words tumbling from my mouth like the water rushing over the falls below us. “This is just like what we did to Noah with Austin Montessori,” I said, somewhat stunned by my own realization. We think we know better, but sometimes our children really do know what’s best for themselves, whether they are 3 years old or nearing 21. They live in their own world, in their own skin, and if we’ve done our job as parents, they know what they need to do—or not do.

Both Noah and Olivia, 17, are navigating the difficult path of young adulthood quite nicely, not only acing their schoolwork but steering clear of the pitfalls and problems that often plague so many high school and college kids. It’s time for us to start trusting that, while they might need some occasional guidance and figurative hand-holding now and then, they really do know how to handle the day-to-day rhythm of their own life circumstances better than we do at this point.

A few nights later, with our family gathered around the kitchen table again, we explained to the kids (including Chiara, who at 12 has many years of parental instruction ahead) that we recognize our own misguided attempts to try to live their lives for them out of our own fears for their futures.

We can’t prevent the inevitable failures and heartaches—theirs or our own. And that’s OK, because we only succeed by failing now and then. We’ll all get to the farmhouse when the timing is right.

This column originally appeared in the Aug. 3, 2017, issue of Catholic New York.

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Yesterday I talked with John Harper of the Morning Air Show on Relevant Radio about celebrating Advent with children, young and old. You can listen to that short conversation at the link below. Just advance to the 31:50-minute mark. I hope your Advent is off to a peaceful start, even if your rituals inspire household riots.

Here’s the link to the interview:

http://relevantradio.streamguys.us/MA%20Archive/MA20161129c.mp3

The post Entering Advent, sometimes kicking and screaming appeared first on Not Strictly Spiritual.

It’s amazing to me how this baby I never met, whose little heart was there but had stopped beating before I had the chance to hear it, still has such a powerful presence on my psyche and on my heart. Grief starts with such sorrow and pain, but, in this case, over time, it has blossomed into a blessing and the connection to a completely untarnished little soul who prays for me and her father and siblings from the other side. Grace was definitely the right name.

And now, here is the annual post I run in remembrance of baby Grace:

For the past few days I’ve been looking at the numbers on the calendar, growing more and more introspective as we inched closer to August 6. It was 18 years ago today that I learned the baby I was carrying, my second baby, had died 11 weeks into my pregnancy.

With a mother’s intuition, I had known something was wrong during that pregnancy from a couple of weeks before. The day Dennis and I — with Noah in tow — went to the midwife for my regular check up, I didn’t even take the little tape recorder with me to capture the sound of baby’s heartbeat, so convinced was I that I would hear only silence. I went back for the recorder only after Dennis insisted. But somehow I knew. Because when you are a mother sometimes you just know things about your children, even when there is no logical reason you should, even when they are still growing inside you.

When we went for the ultrasound to confirm the miscarriage, we saw the perfect form of our baby up on the screen. I remember Dennis looking so happy, thinking everything was okay after all, and me pointing out that the heart was still. No blinking blip. No more life.

With that same mother’s intuition, no matter how busy or stressed I am, no matter how many other things I seem to forget as I drive my other three children to and fro, I never forget this anniversary. It is imprinted on my heart. As the date nears, I feel a stillness settling in, a quiet place amid the chaos, a space reserved just for this baby, the one I never to got hold, the one I call Grace.

In the past, I have talked about the ways Grace shaped our family by her absence rather than her presence, and that truth remains with me. I am very much aware of the fact that life would be very different had she lived. She managed to leave her mark on us, even without taking a breath. She lingers here, not only in my heart but around the edges of our lives — especially the lives of our two girls who followed her. I know them because I did not know Grace. What a sorrowful and yet beautiful impact she had on us.

So thank you, baby, for all that you were and all that you have given us without ever setting foot on this earth. The power of one small life.

The post Miscarriage: Love and loss 18 years later appeared first on Not Strictly Spiritual.

If you missed the show, you can catch up here. And if you go to Allison’s website, you can catch an entire week of shows devoted to my books — Everyday Divine on Tuesday, Parenting a Grieving Child on Wednesday, and Walking Together on Thursday. Here’s the show:

The post Talking everyday prayer, grief, friendship and more appeared first on Not Strictly Spiritual.

When it comes to teenagers, you expect a certain amount of eye rolling and apathy, but put those same kids in a faith formation class for an hour and fifteen minutes at the end of a long school day and right at the dinner hour and you’ll see a level of teenage disinterest that could make you wither on the spot. That’s what my husband and I faced when we stood before the 21 high school sophomores we teach at our upstate New York parish.

The scene was nothing new and nothing unexpected. We taught most of the same kids last year since they’re in a two-year program that will culminate in confirmation this spring. However, I’m willing to wager that their apathy isn’t necessarily related to a surge of teenage surliness but rather to a lack of foundational catechesis, and I say that while having taught many of these kids in fourth and fifth grade. I have used every trick in the book—from group activities to stump-the-teacher sessions to outright bribery through baked ziti and brownies—to get these kids to hear me when I talk about the Mass, about the Gospel, about our beautiful Catholic teachings and traditions. Yet every year, when they reluctantly return to class, I find I’m grateful if even half of them remember the Our Father.

When I look out at these kids—regardless of age, regardless of whether they’ve gone to Catholic or public elementary school—I assume I am seeing 75 percent as future ex-Catholics.

Read more HERE.

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For the past few days I’ve been looking at the numbers on the calendar, growing more and more introspective as we inched closer to August 6. It was 17 years ago today that I learned the baby I was carrying, my second baby, had died 11 weeks into my pregnancy.

With a mother’s intuition, I had known something was wrong during that pregnancy from a couple of weeks before. The day Dennis and I — with Noah in tow — went to the midwife for my regular check up, I didn’t even take the little tape recorder with me to capture the sound of baby’s heartbeat, so convinced was I that I would hear only silence. I went back for the recorder only after Dennis insisted. But somehow I knew. Because when you are a mother sometimes you just know things about your children, even when there is no logical reason you should, even when they are still growing inside you.

When we went for the ultrasound to confirm the miscarriage, we saw the perfect form of our baby up on the screen. I remember Dennis looking so happy, thinking everything was okay after all, and me pointing out that the heart was still. No blinking blip. No more life.

With that same mother’s intuition, no matter how busy or stressed I am, no matter how many other things I seem to forget as I drive my other three children to and fro, I never forget this anniversary. It is imprinted on my heart. As the date nears, I feel a stillness settling in, a quiet place amid the chaos, a space reserved just for this baby, the one I never to got hold, the one I call Grace.

In the past, I have talked about the ways Grace shaped our family by her absence rather than her presence, and that truth remains with me. I am very much aware of the fact that life would be very different had she lived. She managed to leave her mark on us, even without taking a breath. She lingers here, not only in my heart but around the edges of our lives — especially the lives of our two girls who followed her. I know them because I did not know Grace. What a sorrowful and yet beautiful impact she had on us.

So thank you, baby, for all that you were and all that you have given us without ever setting foot on this earth. The power of one small life.

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