I’m not complaining, mind you. Just stating a fact. And I know for those of you who are—or have been—where I’m standing, you get it. Unfortunately, family life is only getting more challenging. Although smartphones give us around-the-clock access to our children near and far in a way that brings me comfort, wireless life isn’t family-friendly. Work is always a click away, and, more and more, work seeps into family life until family life, if we’re not careful, becomes a mad dash to get chores out of the way so we can get back to our emails and texts to do yet more work from our kitchen table, our living room, even our bedroom. We might tell our kids they spend too much time in front of their screens, but the truth is that we adults are similarly tethered. Except in our cases, instead of watching a show or Facetiming friends, we’re usually stressing over work that probably could have, should have waited until tomorrow.

So, what’s a family to do? I think it requires a shift in mind-set. We have reached a place where we’ve been led to believe that what we do at home is a luxury not as important as what we do at work. But we all know that what goes on at home is not only critical in the most basic ways—if parents and children are going to be clothed and fed and ready for the world—it is life-affirming and vocation-fulfilling on the deepest levels.

For most of us, the word “vocation” conjures up images of priests and religious. The vast majority of us, however, are called to the vocation of marriage and parenthood. Often those of us who take those vows don’t see ourselves as fulfilling an important vocation—and, to be honest, too often our Church doesn’t see us that way either. From all appearances, at least to those of us in the trenches, the vocation of marriage seems to be second to the “real” vocations, but the truth is that it is in marriage and family life that all other vocations are given their foundation. What’s that saying made famous by Pope St. John Paul II? “As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.” And the Church, I’d add.

If families are not put at the forefront of the Church’s work, it’s unlikely vocations to the priesthood and religious life will increase because those vocations spring from the domestic churches that are our homes, those places where we stay awake all night caring for a sick baby, feed a cranky toddler, bail out a flooded basement, cheer straight As on a report card, guide a teen going through a difficult time, hug a child heading off to college. Celebrations and challenges, heartbreaks and sorrows are all part and parcel of this beautiful, messy, sometimes-overwhelming and often-underrated vocation that we fulfill even as we hold down jobs and manage all the other daily necessities that every life requires.

When we leave our jobs at the end of the day, we married couples don’t have time off; that’s when the most important work of our lives begins. It’s time for those of us who have been called to the vocation of marriage and family to stop giving it a backseat to everything else. For each one of us, this is the only job that really matters.

This column originally appeared in the Feb. 14, 2019, 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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But yesterday something interesting happened. As I drove home from the grocery store, rounding the bend with my house in sight, I had an epiphany of sorts, an Aha! moment out of the blue. Suddenly I felt awash in gratitude. I started ticking off all the things for which I should be grateful. Not the usual things, like vacations or job promotions or celebrations, but mundane things, the stuff that surrounds me most of the time, the things I typically take for granted, or, more likely, complain about. My blessings flashed before my eyes one after another, and even after I got out of the car and dragged the grocery bags into the house, I was still buzzing with the beautiful reality of my privileged life.

Here’s the Cliff Notes version of that gratitude list:

— For the privilege of spending my Saturday morning cleaning toilets and sinks, mirrors and showers in our three bathroom. What a blessing it is to have the energy and time to do the work required, and to have the bathrooms that make life so much easier for a family of five (even if one is away from home most of the time).

— For the privilege of going to the store on a Saturday afternoon to pick up some groceries, most of them not necessities (real maple syrup, anyone?) and some of them complete indulgences (hazelnut coffee). What a blessing it is to not only have the money to buy what I want but to have the car to drive to the store, the ability and agility to get around quickly, and the option of choosing between three large supermarkets in my town, all loaded down with everything from soup to nuts — and patio furniture, just in case you need to pick that up with a gallon of milk.

— For the privilege of running up and down the basement steps throughout the day in order to do load after load of laundry. What a blessing it is to have a powerful, oversized washer and dryer that lets me clean our clothes any time of the day or night, and, while I’m at it, for my family’s clothes that often feels overwhelming when it is overflowing the hampers but is anything but when we need a warm sweater or a comfy pair of leggings or a dress shirt for a business meeting.

— For a trip to the local soft serve ice cream shop with my girls, even if we had to eat it in the car bundled up in coats thanks to the dreary weather. What a blessing it is to be able to drop everything at a moment’s notice and take my family out for a taste of summer on an otherwise wintery day.

I could go on and on. So many blessings disguised as chores or burdens or just another item on my “To Do” list. To people who don’t have the means or the transportation or the energy or the time or the ability, the many things that get in the way of what I imagine could be a happier life are the very things that make my life so very easy to manage and, as a result, happier, if only I’d take the time to notice. The blessings are there. Always. We don’t get to happiness after the laundry and the shopping and the toilets; happiness is right there in the middle of it all. How is it that I always seem to forget that?

#EverydayDivine #MeditationInMotion #Mindfuless #Gratitude #Blessed #MiraclesInTheMundane

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Ever since we moved back to New York after almost six years in Texas, we’ve heard the same thing over and over again from friends, relatives, co-workers, and absolute strangers: Are you ready for the loooooong winter? As if we live in Nome, Alaska.

We smile and remind everyone that – in addition to the fact that we’ve already lived through a loooooong winter in upstate New York since arriving here in early January last year – we were born and raised not all that far from here. Our kids may not have seen snow before landing at Newark International Airport, but I have many fond memories of snow days and sleigh riding, cold toes and hot cocoa. Yes, we’re ready for the loooooong winter because it gives us a chance to sloooooow down.

With the holidays behind us and months of cold weather ahead, there is nothing to do but put on an extra sweater and switch into slow gear. (OK, there is the fairly regular need to shovel the driveway, but we have to get exercise somewhere, right?) Winter is a time to sit by the fire and read a chapter book with Noah, to play Chutes and Ladders for the gazillionth time and maybe not even mind so much, to sip a cup of tea in the middle of a Saturday afternoon because it’s too cold to take the kids to the park. Am I ready for this? I can’t wait for it.

As someone who has spent her fair share of years away from the ebb and flow of the seasons, I can assure you that it is a wonderful thing, too wonderful to miss, really. It’s easy to take the beauty of winter for granted until you’ve lived in a place where it’s summer almost year-round.

I was reminded of that one unseasonably warm afternoon early last month when I decided to take the kids on a hike. I almost didn’t suggest it because I knew the trees would be bare, the trails would be lifeless, and the sounds of nature would be muted. As we set out on Beaver Trail, with Olivia in the backpack and Noah leading the way, I was struck by the awesome splendor of the woods around us.

The stark, rigid lines of winter brought everything into focus. We could see things we had never seen before – beyond waterfalls, behind fallen trees, past fields and pine groves. We even surprised a deer. Actually, he surprised us before bounding up a hill.

I felt rejuvenated by the knowledge that winter was coming and with it some much-needed time to refocus our attention on what’s important to our family. Maybe, if we’re lucky, our own vision will become winter-sharp and we’ll see beyond the boundaries we usually set for ourselves.

I wanted to shake off the record-breaking warmth of that day and feel the cold, crisp air of winter catch in my lungs. I wanted a reason to do nothing more than gather the kids in the family room with a big bowl of popcorn, our costume box and a pile of books.

Sure, snow can be a hassle. We have to shovel it. We have to drive in it. We have to get on with the details of our lives and sometimes it slows us down. But that can be a good thing. That’s why God invented toboggans and miniature marshmallows.

Are we ready for the loooooong winter? Let’s just say that for the first time in 30 years I own a pair of snow pants.

This column originally appeared in Catholic New York in January, 2002.

The post The upside of winters in upstate appeared first on Not Strictly Spiritual.

This is a season that asks us to be patient, to bask in the waiting even as the rest of the world rushes us to deck the halls and play Christmas music. This is a season that asks us to hold things in tension—birth and death, Christ’s arrival in a manger and Christ’s second coming—even as the rest of the world urges us to focus on buying gifts and accumulating things.

The Advent wreath serves as a visible sign of God’s impending arrival, a growing glow and sense of anticipation as we prepare to celebrate again, as if for the first time, God’s willingness to break into our world and live among us as one of us. Light beyond all bounds. Light that never goes out. Light that burns within each one of us.

Each time you light the candles on your Advent wreath this season—day by day, week by week—may it be a reminder to step outside the frenetic pace of the world and set your life to a slower rhythm, a sacred cadence that gives you room to breathe in God’s goodness, to revel in the waiting, to look into the darkness all around you and find the Light that can never be extinguished.

You can get a monthly subscription to Give Us This Day by clicking HERE. Why not get one for a friend or family member this Christmas?

The post Lighting the Advent wreath: just hit pause appeared first on Not Strictly Spiritual.

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.

My brief reflection from Give Us This Day earlier this week:

Whenever we take our children to Manhattan, we are confronted by the reality of “these least brothers” Jesus talks about in today’s Gospel. On subways and street corners they hold out battered cups in battered hands. Our kids look to us to gauge whether we should be doing something, and if not, why not? We tell them we can’t give to every street person. And even as we explain, we fight our own guilt over ignoring those with the least who live among those with the most.

The post Confronted with Christ 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.

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.

The post Miscarriage: Love and loss 17 years later appeared first on Not Strictly Spiritual.