PPPST! (St. Patrick's Parents of Pre-pre-schoolers Team) 2012

Welcome Intrepid Parents!

Here is a convenient place to meet virtually and to see what was "food for thought" in past months. We meet once a month before the 10am service (9:15 to 9:50am) on the First Sunday of every month. There is a nifty "small group" meeting room just past the office that suits our needs quite well. Needless to say there are snacks to go with morning tea or coffee. Childcare is available in the nursery for a quiet respite from parental duties.

Please join us! The Rev. Loren Lasch is a good first contact. Ellen Teplitz and I (Janet Lee) are your facilitators.

We start with a centering bell app that I installed on my mobile phone: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.googlecode.mindbell&hl=en .
When I hear it ring randomly throughout the day, I might take a deep cleansing breath or I might say the Jesus Prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner".





In November 2012, we prayed this prayer from The Book of Common Prayer:
46. For the Care of Children

Almighty God, heavenly Father, you have blessed us with the
joy and care of children: Give us calm strength and patient
wisdom as we bring them up, that we may teach them to love
whatever is just and true and good, following the example of
our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

We asked the question, what does Jesus have to say to us about parenting?


In December 2012, we read this short passage from a book called, What Mothers Do by Naomi Stadlen. It helped us to think about how we can best serve each other in small group. Sometimes all we can do is listen...

Naomi and Ruth. ("Call me Naomi no longer; my name is Marah for the Lord has dealt bitterly with me.")   http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=255773724

"It took me many failures to realize that this silence is healing. It acts as a shock-absorber. No more needs to be said. The crying mother feels less alone, and the listening mothers feel they have taken on a tiny fraction of her lot. All feel lighter and stronger, despite the pain they have shared. After some time, the bitter mother will dry her eyes, thank everyone, and the meeting moves on to something else.

Silence often works better than words. Mothers sometimes use meetings to seek or share advice, but this can easily go wrong. Each mother's situation is specific to herself. Often when one mother learns something from another, it's a tiny bit of information that she finds useful, not the informant's entire system. But when a mother has survived the early months of uncertainty, she can be tempted to believe that she can rescue newer mothers from this difficult time. 

Most of the time, what mothers seem to want from each other is compassion--without any advice. That's why their stories can sound harrowing. The harrowing quality is to elicit pity. A mother may often give a more one-sided picture than is truly the case. This is because the mother longs to be bathe in her listener's compassion. She has probably spent all morning being patient and compassionate toward her child and craves some attention for herself."

Naomi Stadlen

There are related conversations in a previous post:
http://jkdesignspot.blogspot.com/2013/07/ive-been-reading-this-recommended-book.html

Please join us on Sunday 5 Jan 2014; and as always, there will be snax :)!
The ModSub