Zen and the Art of Child Maintenance

I believe the real goal should be to create a society in which women and mothers and families receive the practical and emotional support they need in order to survive…

She came out of nowhere, which is ironic considering the bridge she’s known for. And when Sarah Palin hit the national political stage, I confess that — despite being a…

Two things that I’ve learned as a spiritual being, and as a mother, are that I don’t know everything (and I don’t trust people who say that they do), and…

I remember how it felt not to trust my own voice, and how trembly I felt when I first started to quietly question out loud, and how having children changed…

Here is what I miss about my former, structured religious life: giving everything up to Jesus. In my youth, I would simply pray, with earnest desperation: “Jesus, please help me…

Some days, it feels like things are, in countless small ways, squeezing the life — or perhaps just the patience, the once-pleasant disposition — right out of me. No wonder…

I come to the Sufi because I want to, need to, reconnect with my soul. I can’t imagine that I am the soul of anything. We talk about creativity and…

Here is my confession: I rather like the darkness. Which is not to say I like badness. Above all other virtues, I value kindness, generosity, compassion, peacemaking, and forgiveness. But…

Leaving small children behind is extremely complicated…It’s easy, in some ways desirable, to think of myself as a godlike figure in their lives, to imagine that I’m all-powerful, that my…

We want that peace for them, and we want it for ourselves, as parents. We want it to for the mothers and fathers of Iraqi children, for orphaned children whose…

I used to pray about making “the right choice” in a given situation. Buddhists, I believe, focus on being in the situation at hand, without wasting energy worrying about whether…