Parents fear that because they can’t find the time and silence needed for prayer in the whirlwind of caring for children, faith must be put on hold. In the Midst of Chaos challenges this assumption. This book offers a fresh perspective on faith that reclaims routine practices of family as deeply spiritual.
In the Midst of Chaos: Caring for Children as Spiritual Practice
How the daily practices of life with children can shape our faith
In the Midst of Chaos explores parenting as spiritual practice, building on Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore's fresh conceptions of children from her book Let the Children Come.
She questions conventional perceptions that spiritual practices require silence, solitude, and uninterrupted prayer and that assume a life unburdened by care of others. She is both honest about the difficulties and attentive to the blessings present in everyday life and demonstrates that the life of faith encompasses children and the adults who care for them.
Miller-McLemore explores how parents might use seven daily practices, such as play, reading, chores, and saying goodbye or goodnight as rich opportunities to shape both parent and child morally and spiritually.
Through these experiences, she shows how the very care of children forms and reforms the faith of adults themselves, contrary to the belief that adults must form children. In the Midst of Chaos also goes beyond the typical focus on individual self-fulfillment by tackling difficult questions of social justice and mutuality in the ways families live together.
Readers will find in this book an invitation to love those around them in the midst of life's craziness and to live more deeply in grace.
- Publisher Fortress Press
- Format Paperback
- ISBN 9781506454597
- eBook ISBN 9781506454603
- Dimensions 5.75 x 8.75
- Pages 256
- Publication Date January 1, 2019
Endorsements
Michele Borba, author of 12 Simple Secrets Real Moms Know
In the Midst of Chaos is not only refreshing; it illuminates as much as it surprises
The seriousness with which Miller-McLemore takes up the exhausting topic of postmodern parenting is not only refreshing; it illuminates as much as it surprises.
Serene Jones, Yale University Divinity School
Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore helps us who raise families, hold down jobs, and want our faith to mean something
With wonderful honesty and a wisdom born of informed theological reflection, sound cultural critique, and the lived experience of parenting three boys, Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore helps us who raise families, hold down jobs, and want our faith to mean something in the real world.
Wendy M. Wright, Creighton University, author of Seasons of Family's Life
This deeply pondered and theologically literate book will not let you go without a blessing because the print will not stay on the pages.
The flip of chaos and flop of quiescence are rejected in favor of finding God’s presence in the living complexity of every day. This deeply pondered and theologically literate book will not let you go without a blessing because the print will not stay on the pages. It is as good and true as it is beautiful.
Jerome W. Berryman, executive director of the Center for the Theology of Childhood
This absorbing book transforms the chaos of parenting into an arena for spiritual practice
This absorbing book transforms the chaos of parenting into an arena for spiritual practice in which parents discover the ‘clearest truths about our deepest values.’
Herbert Anderson, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, coauthor of Mighty Stories, Dangerous Rituals
Table of Contents
Editor's Foreword
Preface
1. Contemplating in Chaos
2. Sanctifying the Ordinary
3. Pondering All These Things
4. Taking Kids Seriously
5. Giving unto Others... But What About Myself?
6. Doing Justice and Walking Humbly with Kids
7. Playing the Field: Xbox, Soccer, and Other Fun Family Games
8. Take, Read: From Seuss to Scripture
9. Blessing and Letting Go
References
The Author
Index