On Being Contemplative with a Toddler

Judy, one of our friends from church, shared with us this article that she found somewhere a couple of Sundays ago. We're not sure who wrote this article, as there were no names on the sheet of paper we received, but there is an e-mail on it: clarenerida@gmail.com We therefore think that the author's name is Clare Nerida. We also couldn't find the article online, so we typed it out here in its entirety to share with our friends here. We found it to be of great help indeed!

I am neither a very successful nor a very faithful contemplative, but contemplative spiritually is back on my radar again at present. Our daughter, who will be two in September, is our vibrant companion at worship services and she is challenging me to consider how I experience public worship. Many weeks I cannot recall anything from a Sunday service even if I have been in the room for the entire time, sung the songs, participated in the prayers, taken communion and ostensibly listened to the speaker. All of these things I do while also keeping one eye on a toddler, providing quiet activities, intercepting potential conflicts, rationing out snacks and drinks, giving cuddles, protecting power points, foiling escape plans, encouraging sharing with playmates, rolling large rubber balls, creating finger puppet stories, reading board books, and trying to monitor whether we are becoming too great a distraction for the adult worshipping community we are alongside.


Other parents will recognise all these things. I am relatively new to this parenting gig and it has come as a surprise to me that so many parents apparently accept these distracted years as just part of parenting. Many appear to take a sort of leave-of-absence from worship, or even spiritually entirely, while their children are small. This may be by being there-but-not-there as I am currently mostly doing, or by actually staying away from public worship, exiting the building when things get too tough, or spending five or so years in a cry room designed to minimise the impact of children on the wider worshipping community, not maximise the worship experience of the parents or children confined there. It's not in my nature to accept this situation graciously. I profoundly believe children belong in church. I am therefore in a process of wriggling around inside my current reality seeking ways that I can really be present to the spirituality of it, the reality of toddler-catching as a worship experience, rather than fighting against it.


I am a grumpy wriggler and this is a frustrating time. What keeps coming up to me is the gift of contemplative attention to the present moment. It is easy to see our daughter as a hindrance to my encounter with God. However, if I really believe that God is in the present moment, in the daily realities of each life, and deeply interested in and part of my everyday experiences, then a busy toddler is where I need to be seeking the presence of God, not a hurdle to get out of the way so I can be with God.


One thing that is abundantly apparent when spending time in the company of a toddler is that life is marvelous and should be enjoyed exuberantly. Every moment contains a miracle if it is encountered for the first time, and miracles are to be celebrated. Ordinary miracles, like for example the regular arrival of trains at our nearby station or the fact that two large colourful rubber balls are to be found every week in the church storeroom, are to be celebrated over and over and over. My daughter shares with me her gift of wonder, and if I am prepared to move at her pace I too can experience the regular wonder of God moving in our days.


Toddler-catching teaches me to slow down. It's not the sort of slowing down that conjures images of lovely streams of peaceful water and long afternoons reading or writing amidst beauty. It is a slowing down that means unspectacular essentials, like folding washing or doing dishes, take even longer, and non-urgent tasks (a category that expands exponentially with a toddler in the house!) may just not happen at all. It is a slowing down that accepts that her route is an unhurried meander with many diversions, and while her abilities are expanding astoundingly they still do not allow her to do many things in the way or the time that I might hope. There is no rush to turn her into an adult, or even into a bigger child. Now is the best time for her to be the toddler she is now. It is her being, not her doing, that fills up our days together.


While there are many lovely moments, even whole lovely days, toddler-catching as a lifestyle is not romantic. I don't slow down, and I get cross. I don't celebrate miracles and watch the world with wonder, and I experience frustration and boredom. Being present is not just about being present to the toddler I companion, but also to the adult me alongside her. How do I encounter God in grouchiness, irritation and tedium? Here also is God. God is not just in laughing with my toddler as she peekaboos from behind the shower curtain, rejoicing at her acquisition of complex language or exulting with her as a ladybird crawls on her hand, but also in my yelling at her when she lurches out of my grasp mid nappy change, being all out of patience when she kicks me in the shower, or being bored witless at pushing a playground swing AGAIN. The where and how of God in all this I confess to barely ever being present to and almost never appreciating.


This is the reality that I exist within all week and it is still my reality on Sunday mornings when I arrive at church. I suspect much of my life I have put my reality somewhat on hold when I enter a church and allowed myself the luxury of experiencing God in a sort of 'special mode' that can pick and choose what the rest of my life to allow in. Arriving with a toddler, I do not have this luxury. I am hoping to learn to be present to God in the nappy bag antics, finger puppet games, food distribution, shared play monitoring, volume management and general toddler chasing that is my Sunday morning reality. This is my worship. Sometimes snippets of what the wider community at worship are doing together also make it through into my experience and I hope to learn to savour these fragments rather than be frustrated that I did not receive them embedded in their context.


Perhaps my worship community may also be able to find ways to include my experience in their shared experience of worship. The reason I cannot participate in worship in the ways I used to is a very obviously present person beside me. Possibly many others cannot participate in worship as it is presented for a range of other reasons that are less obvious, from physical health to mental state to the reality of weekday worlds that presses in on Sundays. As I wriggle around trying to find a way to be present to my reality, I have been wondering if our worship services ask many or even most people to shed much of their reality in order to participate fully. What are the daily rhythms and realities of your life, for better or worse? How can you be present to God in them, both during the week and when you gather for public worship? Perhaps worshipping alongside a toddler sometimes might give you some insights into your own world and the presence of God meeting you there, in the ordinary miracles of your every day.