First Days & Slow Ways

Found the love that we shared in September

4/5 kids are now back in school and Mothering Spirit is officially launched, praise the Lord. Feeling deep resonance with this blessing to begin from Kayla Craig.

Found this prayer for Labor Day too late to share in advance, but it’s worth a pray every day: to unite our prayers, morning and night, with all who labor.

This poem is over 100 years old but reads like it could have been written today: “September, 1918” by Amy Lowell.

Two Substack newsletters I’ve loved lately:

Sharifa Stevens on holding on through the beauty an​​d pain of parenting right now (plus a gorgeous poem from Rita Dove).

Micha Boyett’s The Slow Way: Time is a Gift of Love and Co-remembering and Changing Seasons.

The mom who cried on the first day of school from Coffee + Crumbs.

Thoughtful theological reflection on the maternal love of God in Jewish Scripture from The Christian Century.

A L’Arche flash mob, beautiful and slow and inclusive. Pretty sure L’Arche is the closest I’ve come to the Kingdom of God.

Worth your time: this conversation about The Gift of Gabe: Seeing As God Sees with Dawn Carillo and her son Gabe who has Down syndrome, from the Benedictine Center for Spirituality and Enrichment.

Want an in-person retreat this fall? Check out the Wellspring Mother Artist Retreats in Philadelphia and Collegeville, MN, or this retreat on Our Lady of Guadalupe from Shannon Evans and Vanesa Zuleta Goldberg: Living a Liberated Life.

The Holy Labor is not the only newsletter you can get today! Have you checked out Mothering Spirit’s free Substack newsletter? Every week we’ll bring you a quick round-up of the latest essays, prayers, and resources from our writers.

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Find my books here: Everyday Sacrament | Grieving Together | Prayers for Pregnancy & Birth | To Bless Our Callings | Living Your Discipleship