In the Midst of Chaos: Caring for Children as Spiritual Practice

In the Midst of Chaos: Caring for Children as Spiritual Practice

by Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore
In the Midst of Chaos: Caring for Children as Spiritual Practice

In the Midst of Chaos: Caring for Children as Spiritual Practice

by Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore

eBook

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Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781506454603
Publisher: Augsburg Fortress, Publishers
Publication date: 03/01/2019
Series: The Practices of Faith
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 242
File size: 3 MB

About the Author

Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore is E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of Religion, Psychology, and Culture at Vanderbilt University. A Henry Luce III Fellow in Theology and an author and editor of over sixteen books, she is widely recognized for her work on families, women, and children and her national and international leadership in pastoral and practical theologies.

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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

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Parents fear that because they can’t find the time and silence needed for prayer in the all-consuming whirlwind of caring for children, faith must be put on hold. In the Midst of Chaos challenges this assumption. Through personal stories, biblical text, and the ideas of religious thinkers and child psychologists, this book offers a fresh perspective on faith that reclaims routine practices of family as deeply spiritual."
—Michele Borba, author, 12 Simple Secrets Real Moms Know

"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. In the burgeoning arena of Christian practice writing, In the Midst of Chaos stands at the very top of the list."
—Serene Jones, Titus Street Professor of Theology, Yale University Divinity School

"What does it mean to ‘sanctify the ordinary,’ to ‘redeem the waking, walking, buzzing routine itself’? 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 to ponder and to clarify the deep questions that stir in those of us who raise families, hold down jobs, and want our faith to mean something in the real world."
—Wendy M. Wright, professor of theology, Creighton University; author, Seasons of a Family’s Life

"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, Center for the Theology of Childhood

"This is an absorbing book that moves seamlessly between an imaginative reading of Christian texts and compassionate insights from personal experience. It transforms the chaos of parenting into an arena for spiritual practice in which parents discover the 'clearest truths about our deepest values.'"
—Herbert Anderson, visiting professor of pastoral theology, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Berkeley

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