“Every Season Sacred” with Kayla Craig
Shownotes:
If you’re a parent or you know a parent, today’s conversation with Kayla Craig is a good word for you. But this episode also holds a lot of wisdom for everyone, in every season of life. Life is messy and chaotic and complicated, but finding time to pray doesn’t have to be.
Kayla is a writer, podcaster, former journalist, and mother to four kids, ages seven to thirteen. She is the creator of the Liturgies for Parents Instagram account. Kayla offers short prayers and liturgies because she found that, when you don’t know what to pray, borrowing someone else’s words will get you through the moment. She is encouraging, engaging, and not afraid to admit that she doesn’t have all the answers--and you don’t have to have them, either.
Resources:
Learn more about Kayla on her website
Liturgies for Parents on Instagram
Transcript:
Chris McAlilly 00:00 I'm Chris McAlilly.
Eddie Rester 00:01
and I'm Eddie Rester. Welcome to The Weight. Today, our guest is Kayla Craig. She's a former journalist who is now writing books to help families and parents integrate faith into their life. She's the author of "To Light Their Way," and also "Every Season Sacred." Chris, what did you think about our conversation with Kayla today?
Chris McAlilly 00:23
It was a great conversation and a reminder that, you know, in the midst of a time of life--she's writing as a working mom of many children... And in the midst of that she is creating space and resources for others to encourage prayer, imagination, spiritual curiosity as a family. And the way that she presents her work, it's both beautiful, it's accessible. It's not meant to create another thing to do. It's just meant to resource and to help you kind of find your way to maybe some language that you didn't have, and maybe some spiritual or contemplative practices that you haven't maybe known are available to you as a resource for how you navigate this part of your journey.
Eddie Rester 00:35
Four kids. Well, and what I loved is, she talked about holding your hand, not giving you something to hold. Not another weight. I think sometimes when we think, "Oh, we have to help our kids learn. We have to teach our kids the faith," we we feel the weight of pressure that's not ours to bear. And she offers resources for parents and kids in this book. And the thing that I admire about the book, and we talk a little bit about in the podcast, is the book itself is a work of art. It's got beauty to it. So it doesn't feel like a workbook. It feels like something you want to open. You want to be pulled into this. And you know, I love aesthetics. And I think that's a big part of the book for me, is it just welcomes you in.
Chris McAlilly 02:07
Yeah, shout out to Karie Sue McCaleb, our children's pastor at the church, who put Kayla Craig on our radar. We hope that if this is an episode that you liked, that you'll put it on somebody else's radar and continue to spread the good word of the work that she's doing. And, as always, we're grateful to have you with us on the podcast. If you like it, share it, but also leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts so others can find our work. [INTRO] The truth is, the world is growing more angry, more bitter, and more cynical. People don't trust one another. And we feel disconnected.
Eddie Rester 02:49
The way forward is not more tribalism. It's more curiosity that challenges what we believe, how we live, and how we treat one another. It's more conversation that inspires wisdom, healing, and hope.
Chris McAlilly 03:01
So we launched The Weight podcast as a space to cultivate sacred conversations with a wide range of voices at the intersection of culture and theology, art and technology, science and mental health. And we want you to be a part of it.
Eddie Rester 03:16
Join us each week for the next conversation on The Weight. [END INTRO] We're here with Kayla Craig today. She's written a great book, a great tool for families, "Every Season Sacred." Kayla, thank you for being with us today.
Kayla Craig 03:34
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Eddie Rester 03:37
Yeah. So tell us a little bit about, before we dive into talking about "Every Season Sacred," tell us just a little bit about you and family and just kind of who you are.
Kayla Craig 03:47
All right. How much time do we got? Yeah. My background is in journalism. So I've worked in the magazine industry and newspaper. But my heart has just always been on the page and connecting with people. And so when my husband and I adopted our son Joseph from Nigeria, I knew I wanted to kind of stay home and freelance. And then I started kind of processing my mothering journey and my intersection of faith into that. I just kind of started sharing my heart online. And then we grew our family with three more children, via birth and adoption. And we had five kids in four years, I think? Or four kids in five years. Gosh, I know how many kids we have, I swear. But so it was it was a lot going on.
Eddie Rester 04:40
I wouldn't blame you if you lost count. Yeah,
Kayla Craig 04:44
I do know. I do know their names and ages. You know, we go to the pharmacy, they're like,
"Tell me their birthday," and I'm like, Okay, I got this. Let me think about it for a second, but I got it. But anyway, so it's been a really full life, and I am just in the thick. I'm in the messy middle of parenting right now. My kids are between the ages of 7 and 13. My daughter, we adopted when she was about three weeks old, and she has Down Syndrome and a variety of different disabilities and delays. And we have just a wide range of needs and joys and strengths and struggles. And there's never a dull moment in our home. So in 2020, before the pandemic, before anything else happened, I was thinking, gosh, we're tired. We are collectively tired. Parents are tired. And so as kind of a spiritual practice for me, I started writing these short little prayers, or liturgies. And I started sharing them online. And then all of a sudden, the world shut down. And everybody was like, we don't know what to pray. We have no words at all. And I'm like, I don't really know either. But, borrow mine. You know, if you need something. Because the words of another have been so meaningful to me in my life. When my daughter was really, really sick in the hospital, somebody gave me a book of prayers, and that kind of saved me in that time, because I didn't know what to pray. I didn't even know what to think. And so I knew that meant something to me. So I thought maybe I can give this as an offering to others. And that's how Liturgies for Parents came to be on Instagram. And now we have a podcast, and my first book "To Light Their Way" is the collection of prayers and liturgies for parents. And then my new book "Every Season Sacred" kind of grew out of that part. So that's a little bit of, yeah, who we are.
Eddie Rester 06:47
I think what you said is so helpful. So often, when people think about prayer, they think about, "Well, I've got to come up with prayer. I've got to figure out a prayer. I'm not confident, and I don't know what to say in my prayers." And I think for you, what you discovered is what I think ,what I hope, most Christians discover at some point. The prayers of others are a gift for us, sometimes. So yeah, I'm just thankful to hear you say that out loud.
Chris McAlilly 07:19
Yeah, I see you. I have three kids myself, and I'm also an adoptive parent. And then we have biological children as well. And life is absolutely crazy and chaotic. Eddie doesn't know what it's like, You know, his children, maybe he remembers, but he's forgotten what it's like to be in the thick of it.
Eddie Rester 07:40
I feel like a loser amongst the two of you. We have two kids. And they are...
Chris McAlilly 07:45 Amazing. They're both amazing.
Eddie Rester 07:47
One's out of college, one's a junior in college, so. But I remember those days, when your feet hit the ground, and you run until you collapse at the end of the day, and maybe everybody got a bath. And maybe they didn't get a bath.
Chris McAlilly 08:02
It is hard. You know, so our kids are 12, 9, and 6. And at any given moment, you feel like--I can't even imagine with an additional two. At any given moment, somebody needs your attention, and you don't have any time for yourself. And often, you know the words... I mean, like accessing language, or for prayer for... I guess I constantly feel like I'm failing at, you know... One of the things I've told Eddie and I've told others before, is, you know, as a pastor, I feel very confident and comfortable in a room with hundreds of people, offering the gospel, sharing my faith, offering all these words that I've prepared, but when it comes to just kind of communicating the faith to my kids, oftentimes, I feel lost. I mean, I really don't know where to begin. And it's like, I don't even know kids. I love my kids. But you know, kids are not my zone, in terms of if I were going to teach. And so, you know, I think, I wonder kind of how have you found resources in the midst of a busy life? You know, what are some of the resources that you've gone to, that you found really helpful.
Kayla Craig 09:24
Yeah, you're not the only person that feels that way. That's how we feel in our home. And I think that's where "Every Season Sacred" came out of. It came out of an actual need. So I had to sit down and think, how can I integrate a life of faith into our real life? Into soccer games and practice, and buying groceries and meeting work deadlines and all of the things that real families have every day to figure out. Then we have to wrestle with our own questions of faith, our own doubts and fears and unknowing. And then our kids ask us hard questions. And we're like, oh. We're exhausted, you know. So that's kind of where "Every Season Sacred" came in, is how can I resource a parent, not as a how-to, but as kind of a handhold, as a guide of somebody who is also walking through this in real time. And maybe you can, you know, take what works, take these different resources and spiritual practices that I have in the book, use what works for you. I always say, you know your kids the best. You know, their ages and stages and personalities. You might ask one of those connection questions for the week. It might be when you're driving to school. You know, it doesn't have to be, we all gather around the fire, and we have these, like, hour long devotionals. Like, wow, that's incredible, if that's what works for you, but that doesn't work in my family. So "Every Season Sacred" came out of a very real need, and we're still figuring it out in real time, you know.
Eddie Rester 10:56
One of the things I love about the book, I read the introduction, and I read several of the meditations and prayers, it's guilt free. This isn't a "if you don't do an hour and a half with your kids," like you said, "sitting around the campfire every night, your world is gonna fall apart. You're not a Christian." It's very much a, "here's a resource for parents. And here's how you can then lead your kids with this." Tell us a little bit about that approach. Because it's not just you've got something--this isn't just for the kids. This isn't just for the parents. This is actually both. How does that work in the book?
Kayla Craig 11:35
Yeah, when I talked to my publisher about this, and I talked to my editors, and I said, I kind of have this feeling that parents, we need to care for our own souls. And so I kind of have this idea of this year-long resource that's part for just the soul of a parent so that then they can care for the soul of their family. So it's kind of this both and. And they were like, "Hmm. We've never really seen that before." Like, okay. But they were like, "Let's go with it. Let's go with it." And I think, I hope that what we landed on feels that way, feels like a parent can turn to it, spend some time reading the reflections and feel seen, and cared for. The reflections are not even dated. So they're just kind of split into seasons. So I wanted it to feel really low pressure, because I know parents are very low on time. And I also know that they're busy taking care of everyone else, you know. So what could I offer that helps them feel a little seen and known so that they're filled with something? And then they can take and borrow the connection questions that are very open-ended. I brought in that kind of journalism background where it's like, we're not asking yes or no questions of, "Did you have a good day?" But it's like, how can we go a little deeper? And they might not even seem from the outside like a faithful question, right? It might be, "when was the last time you felt like you belonged at school?", or whatever it is. But there's always something underneath it. And so to kind of get into a rhythm where you're seeing...
Chris McAlilly 13:09
I wonder how you would... Like, I guess, when you were growing up, where did you see, I guess, how did you learn to pray?
Kayla Craig 13:09
It's all spiritual. God is in all of this. God is in all things. Jesus is with us here and now. And when you go, and when you come back and get up in the morning, and lay your head down at night, all of it is sacred. So that's kind of my hope is that you would be filled as a parent so that you have something to then connect with your family on, because we want to have connection with our kids. We want them to connect with God on their own. But at the end of the day, it's like, I'm so tired. I don't have any more words about this. Like, I don't know what to ask. It's so much easier to not, and it's not because we don't care, but it's just because I think we're so tired. You know? Yeah, that's a great question. It's a really interesting. I feel like my faith journey is a little different than a lot of the folks that I talk to, because I didn't grow up in a super stringent home or very strict home. It was just kind of sometimes we go to church, sometimes we didn't. But I was just taught that Jesus loves me so much, and I could trust him and I could always go to God with anything I was thinking or feeling and that it wasn't wrong to feel frustrated or angry or scared. And I think that really helped me. Because then as I became an adult, I could make my faith my own and I wasn't having to deconstruct from a really unhealthy faith or have to kind of... You know, we're always on a journey and wrestling and pulling the threads of our faith and different expressions and experiences of it. But I feel really grateful. Because I've seen my husband have to walk through what it was like to be raised in a very different context of who God was and who he was in light of that. And so I feel grateful. But I also want to resource my kids with even more, more than what I had maybe. And so it's kind of this both both-and.
Eddie Rester 15:32
This book really feels like a resource that if families are heavily invested in the church, and want to really kind of add to that life with their kids, deep faith, but it also feels like a resource for someone who maybe has been away from the faith for a long time, or not maybe even completely confident in their faith. That's a resource that they could use. Is your background how that kind of came to be? Or how did that sensibility find its way into the book?
Kayla Craig 16:06
I'm so glad you said that, because I wanted to create a book that I could give to the people in my life, who... There are a lot of people that are in my demographic who stopped going to church in 2020, because of the pandemic and they haven't been back. And I wanted to give them something that maybe could mean something to them, mean something to their family. Maybe they haven't found a church that they have connected with. Maybe they have more questions and answers, but they still want to share faith with their kids, you know. They haven't walked away from the faith completely. But they're kind of in this middle space, and I wanted to create something that they could turn to, that might come alongside them in all of that.
Chris McAlilly 16:54
I think that one of the things I'm realizing, as you... I guess, the longer I'm trying to parent my kids, and then also just kind of observing friends both within and outside of the church. I do think that one of the things that I've realized is that a lot of the way that we navigate life is not we read a long guide book or manual for how to do this thing and then we go do the thing. It's more like, we're thrown into the thing, and now we have to figure out what we're doing. And then in the midst of that, we're looking around for scraps of wisdom, just little tidbits, and just sentences and phrases that can be helpful. I do think that's one of the gifts of social media is that in the midst of the scroll, you can find these little nuggets of wisdom and light, you know. I love the title of your book, "To Light Their Way," you know, the image that I have is just like, you know, walking down a path that's just lit by candles. There have been a couple retreats that I've been on, I have this image of just, they didn't give us flashlights. We just had to follow the candle light. And those images have been helpful to me, especially in moments where life is confusing, or disordered or chaotic or complicated. You know, I do think that there is a lot of power in a single little prayer. And I guess for me, also, you emphasize breath prayer. And I do think, for people that are not familiar with what that is, maybe you could talk about how a breath prayer can be a practice that's orienting in the midst of a messy or complicated day.
Kayla Craig 18:54
Oh, yeah. You know, what I love about breath prayer is it's so simple, and we don't have to overthink it. Because I'm an over thinker by nature, and sometimes all I can do is take a breath. I just need to just take a breath. And I think so many of us, whether we're parents or not, there are just times we just need to take a breath. And so I love this idea that I can pray something short on my inhale as I'm breathing in, and then as I'm letting that breath go, it's one one other phrase. And that is it. And it's just letting your breath become a prayer. And one of my favorite things to go back to again and again and again, no matter what I'm doing--I'm driving I'm sitting down to work, you know, whatever it is--I just pray, "Oh God," and then on the exhale, "you are with me." And it's just, it's something that roots me and reminds me that whatever I'm doing, wherever I am, God is with me. And I just find some hope in that. I don't have to overcomplicate anything, and that God knows, you know, I don't have to have a long prayer. I can just pray that and I find it really amazing.
Chris McAlilly 20:09
It reminded me, just what you're sharing there reminded me of this English spiritual director, he was this monk, you know, lived in the 20th century. His name was Abbot John Chapman. And he was widely known as this amazing man of prayer. And everybody thought he was amazing. All these people went to learn how to pray from him. And you know, he would give people this really simple piece of advice. And he would say this, "Pray as you can, and don't pray as you can't." And I just, I've loved that. Pray you can, and do not pray as you can't.
Kayla Craig 20:48 That's so good.
Chris McAlilly 20:48
And, you know, I mean, I think for me breath prayer, just coming back to simple inhaling the grace of God, exhaling a sense of God's presence or love or whatever it is that you kind of meditate upon, it can be a way when you don't have other words, or language, or you can't form a sentence, or you don't even know what to ask for, or pray for, or say. It can be a simple practice. And I do think that, you know, if somebody is at the very beginning of stages of wanting to figure out a way to kind of orient themselves with prayer as a practice, I do think breath prayer can be one of those simple practices. Are there any others, any other breath prayers that you use, that you come back to again and again? Or are there other simple prayer practices that you that you found really helpful for yourself?
Kayla Craig 21:39
Yeah, well in "To Light Their Way," which is just a collection of prayers and liturgies, I have a whole section of breath prayers, and you can kind of flip through whatever kind of situation you're in. So maybe you need a breath prayer for when you're overwhelmed. Maybe you need a breath prayer for the end of a long day, or for the beginning of a week, or whatever it is. So I tried to like, make it so whatever it is, you can just kind of flip through it and borrow it and not have to even like use the brain space to do that. And I go back--I don't even remember what they are. So I go back and look them up too. But then every week in "Every Season Sacred" there's a breath prayer that corresponds with that kind of week's theming, that week's meditation. So yeah, I mean, I pray them all the time. I have a kid in our family that kind of was struggling with some anxiety and going back to school. And so we talked about different resources that we have, and different things we can do. And I said, one thing is a breath prayer, right? Anybody can do a breath prayer. But in "Every Season Sacred," in the back of the book, there are appendix pages. And there are all sorts of different kinds of practices and rhythms and kind of rituals or habits that you can do with your family, you can do on your own. So there's just kind of getting into the habit of doing daily prayers. If that's a resource to you, maybe you start the week on a Monday morning with a Monday morning prayer, and it's the morning prayer and you do it every week. Or maybe it's kind of exploring what the Examen is, you know, and doing it on your own, but also bringing your kids into it. It's an ancient practice, but it's actually really simple. And I tell my kids, it's like playing a movie of your day, and be like, "Where was God in that?" So, you know, just trying to break things down, so they're kind of grab and go, and use these practices in a way that that serves you. It doesn't have to be something to check off a to do list, but something that can bring you closer to God and kind of help reorient your heart. So you know, maybe you could create a rule of life together and just enter into these rhythms of prayer and kind of set out your values. Maybe you could incorporate, Lectio Divina, and just finding a different way to pray through Scripture. So there's so many different ways, that I say there's no wrong way to pray, just like what you were saying, just inviting our kids into it and by actually doing it ourselves.
Eddie Rester 24:18
Well, and with our kids, it frees them from the stress of it has to be this overwhelming thing. I've got to figure out how to pray for 20 minutes out loud, when a kid can go to school and get anxious and have a moment of being able to understand how to pray. You know, one I pray over and over is "Abba, I belong to you." And it came into my life at an important time. And now for 30 years I have used that. The book, I want to say one thing about the book and ask you about it. The book is gorgeous itself. It's pretty and aesthetically, it has beauty. It offers beauty. Was that you your decision or did your publisher say, Oh, we can dress this up? It seems like it would be something that was your decision. Am I seeing that incorrectly?
Kayla Craig 25:08
You know, I didn't. I cannot take credit for the design. We had an amazing designer that I felt really understood my heart and my hope for the book. And so they really gave me a lot of space. My publisher was really, really gracious with me. And I said, I want this to be something that feels like an exhale for parents. And I had this idea. We live in a big old house, that's actually a former convent. And the Sisters of Mercy used to live here in the 50s and 60s. I write about...
Chris McAlilly 25:39 Wow!
Kayla Craig 25:40
I know! I know. I write about the choice to move here. It's back to our hometown. It's not like a flashy, big city. It's just kind of this working class, midsize town. But I felt called to come here, and so did my husband, to be closer to family and to live in a more diverse neighborhood and all these things. But the house has almost become a character in our lives.
Chris McAlilly 25:40 Holy moly. That's so cool.
Kayla Craig 26:07
And it has three floors. And the the top floor, the third floor, has windows, like what you see on the cover of the book. And I love this imagery of a window is you're looking at there's internal and there's external, right. And I feel like that's a theme in my book of contemplation and action, inside and outside. And so I love this idea. And I had sketched it out on a napkin of four panes on the window. And each pane is a season and a season of our life. And they just brought it to life. And I love how on the inside, there's so much of that window imagery throughout it, and the seasons and the kind of season graphic icons, and so much white space for a book that is really thick, you know, that takes you through the whole year and beyond. They gave us space to breathe. And I appreciate that so much. And I can't take credit for that. But I'm really grateful.
Eddie Rester 26:07 Yeah.
Chris McAlilly 27:09
That's amazing. The fact that you live in a former convent, that's, that's... That's on the nose, given what you're setting out to do, but also think it's beautiful. It reminds me of in the Protestant Reformation, you have this moment where the monasteries get really just kind of dissolved. And so you know, there was a time where you had the separate class of Christians within Catholicism that would be set aside, that would be the ones who would pray for everybody else. And yeah, there's this moment where Martin Luther says, you know, the whole point of the Reformation is that every man and every woman would become their own monk and their own nun and it's almost like what you're doing is saying, All right, let's try to do this as a family. And let's see if we can't set up a a way that's accessible for a family to kind of be its own monastery or own convent. What an incredible gift to your kids. You're such an awesome mom. This is awesome. Wow. You're crushing it.
Kayla Craig 28:23
I'm going to tell them you said that! Yeah.
Eddie Rester 28:27
Say a little bit about the seasons, because I don't think we've talked about that. Yeah, I mean, the name is "Every Season Sacred." But it's set up with the seasons of the year, winter, spring, summer fall. So say a little bit about how that came to be and what why that's important to the book.
Kayla Craig 28:45
Yeah. Well, I live in the Midwest. And we have four very distinct seasons, you know, and...
Eddie Rester 28:52 We don't in the South.
Kayla Craig 28:55
Well, we'll invite you along for the journey, right? So you really see this in spring, it is new life, and it's gray, and it's cold at the beginning of Lent. And then by Easter, there is green sprouting out. There is the sense of new hope, new life. And in the summer, it's lush, and it's this ordinary time, and there's moments of slowness and togetherness, and then in the fall, there's this brilliance, right, the trees go from gold to orange to red, and it's beautiful, and it's stunning. And then there's a quieting. And then there's a death, right? The leaves fall to the ground and it becomes winter. And everything's cold and barren. And you just are anticipating and wanting something more and then there's this this burst of light, right? There's the birth of Christ. And so I love that imagery. And that created such a great kind of scaffolding or structure to take a year-long journey because I wanted to resource parents for the whole year. And so it doesn't matter when you start. You start in the winter, spring, whenever it is, you just flip to that season and go. And then the kind of the reflections follow maybe different holidays, Holy Days, themes that families are experiencing. So in winter, we might talk about depression, you know. And it's going through Advent, and it's going through Lent. So I feel like--and there's so many great resources out there--but I feel like this can replace having to go buy a devotional for each time of the year, right? Like, you can take this and it can be a resource for you, hopefully, for a year. And I tell people, mark it up, if you want to, and go back to it and see how your family is changed. See how you've changed. See how you're answering these questions way differently than you did last year. I think it could be a really, hopefully fascinating resource.
Eddie Rester 30:58
You mentioned that in the introduction to go back. This is a repeatable resource, because every season of life is different. You're going to counter those prayers differently in a season of loneliness. Maybe when you're feeling that you're going to encounter the loneliness conversation differently than at times when you're like, okay, I know, some people are lonely. And so I think when I read, that's the truth of Scripture as well, is that you reread scripture because it speaks to you in a different way in every single season. So, Chris.
Chris McAlilly 31:35
Yeah, one of the other dimensions here that I love that you kind of talked about, I think, I mean, there are multiple ways that are kind of these understandings of how kids come into the world and how they learn. And that influences, especially how Christians teach the faith in the next generation. If you begin from a place where kids are, you know, they're bent towards sin from the very beginning. And there's a lot of, you know, kids do all kinds of crazy stuff. And there's this sense that you need to kind of form their sinfulness out of them and get them to a different kind of place. There's this other total different kind of school of thought that says, you know, there's this almost a childlike faith. There's a natural, almost a built-in gracefulness to children, that is inquisitive, and it's curious, and it is kind of bent towards experiencing the world as wonder. And I can tell like, your bent towards the kind of the second frame. I wonder kind of how you developed convictions around that and how that influences the way that you think about teaching the faith your kids.
Kayla Craig 32:47
Yeah, you know, like, I think about my kids and how much I have learned about God through knowing them and growing alongside them. And I feel like each of them are so different, and yet, they have taught me so much. It has been such a gift to look at them and see the face of Jesus in my daughter that has Down Syndrome. And then my son who's got this curly blond hair and blue eyes, and is like a tornado of energy. You know, like, all of them are so different, and yet, they point me to goodness. They point me to grace. They point me to the love of Christ in ways that I hadn't experienced before. And that has been such a gift to me as a parent. And so I love entering into a holy curiosity with them and a posture of learning and growing together. And so I hope that that sense of nothing's perfect, everybody makes mistakes, but ultimately, we have a God that chases after us and pursues us and loves us, and I hope that is reflected on the page.
Eddie Rester 34:01
I really, I sense that. I haven't read the whole book. I've read chunks of it. What do you hope? Let's say a family picks this up. What do you hope four or five years from now they are experiencing or they have experienced through this? What's your hope for parents and for kids?
Kayla Craig 34:24
I hope that it's just that they are talking that they're connecting with each other, and that they're connecting with God and connecting with their neighbor. You know what I mean? That faith starts to be something that is just an integrated rhythm, integrated part of their day and not like, oh, every once in a while we go to church, and then sometimes we hear something about God and it's not really part of our actual life. Like, I hope that there is kind of this lived out faith that it's just an overflowing of the heart, you know, and that families would just connect with each other and God and their neighbor. I think that would be amazing gift to hear.
Eddie Rester 35:06
One of the things years ago, I think it was a time when, as a pastor, we were trying to figure out children's ministry. And there's a book we read that explained that, on average--and this is pre COVID--on average, an active Christian family is in church, the kid will be there 40 hours a year. An active family. And you think about 40 hours a year. It means that kind of the faith shaping, the predominant faith shaping, is going to happen somewhere else. And I remember thinking about that as parent how overwhelming that was. What would you say to parents who are like just thinking about it, "I don't have the tools to shape." What encouragement, I guess, would you give to them?
Chris McAlilly 35:51
I wonder how you organize your day so that you can be productive? I think any working parent... It's like, you've written a lot of words. You've done some awesome work. And you know, clearly you gotta carve out time and space. And I think this is a challenge for anyone that's in this season of life that you're in, and that I'm in. I mean, for me, I have to get up. If I don't get up before everybody else in my house gets up, then my whole day is filled with it feels like chaos. If I don't have a brief moment where there's not chaos, where there's not talking, where somebody doesn't need me. You know, I don't... It's hard for me to think straight after that. I wonder about for you. How do you organize your life so that you have room, not only to pray, but but to produce prayers for others?
Kayla Craig 35:51
I mean, it goes back to what we talked about at the beginning of our conversation is that we all feel that way. And I have a friend who is a therapist, and she said, if you're worried about that, that's a pretty good sign that you're doing okay, you know, and so to take some of that pressure off. Like God loves your kids more than you do. God is gonna pursue your kids, and you just have to be there, you know. And kids sense that. And so much of our communication is nonverbal, honestly. My daughter is nonverbal, and she teaches me so much about communication, and what her needs are and wants are. And so I think just living it out, being there, letting your kids know that no matter what, you love them, and you're there for them, and that no matter what God loves them, and God is there for them. I mean, gosh, that's the core of it, right? Eddie, we don't have to keep putting all that pressure on ourselves. And you don't have to reinvent the wheel. There are so many great resources out there. Like, borrow my words, borrow somebody else's words, but know you don't have to have all the answers. And you don't have to have it all together. That's such a good question. I feel like you're listening in because I just had a conversation about this about two hours ago with my spiritual director, because I was saying, like, my life is chaos. I don't know how to fit in work, and then I don't want my vocation and my work to then take me away from my prayer life, my walk with Jesus, you know. And we were just talking about the very tangible aspect of how to plan a day so I don't completely lose my marbles. And so I think I'm trying to figure that out. I wrote "Every Season Sacred" over a summer, and my kids were home. And I said, I'm never going to do this again. It was really hard. And there were glimmers of beauty and joy and wonder, but it was also really hard, you know, because it is an intense season of life. And so I would take my notebook, and take my kids to whatever, like, baseball practice they were, and I was like writing as they were practicing. I did a lot of this by hand because it was just on the go. And so I had one retreat that was a two-day retreat, and I got a lot done there. But I really just was in a constant rhythm of getting something done. And I set myself a lot of mini deadlines, and I kind of plotted out, okay, I'm doing 52 weeks. So I need to do this many weeks every week, and I'll be done at the end of summer. So you know, it's just trial and error and figuring it out as you go. And I think it depends on the season you're in, that your kids are in. What it looks like for me now with all four kids at school is a lot different. And so just trying to figure out how to create healthy boundaries, rhythms so that I can take care of myself and take care of my family. And I have a good partner in my husband, too.
Chris McAlilly 39:56
Well, if you're about to go pick up your kids and we're right at the moment where we need to give you a little bit of time before you go and do that. So we'll have to wrap this up here in a moment. But I think one of the things that I hear you talk about integration, you talk about rhythms. I don't hear you talking a lot about balance. I do feel like balance is a hard thing to achieve, or at least I'm finding it to be very difficult.
Eddie Rester 40:19
I'm not sure it's achievable.
Chris McAlilly 40:21
I think it's an illusion, or something people talk about, if we could just get balanced, I don't know, if it's there. What I'm trying to achieve is just presence, you know, if I can be fully present where I am, you know, that's a good day. And there are definitely days where, you know, what I have at work spills over into the ride that I have going on in the car, or there are times where, you know, I do have enough energy to actually engage my children in the car and say, "Wow, isn't it a beautiful world?" Like, "Isn't this amazing? Thank God. Let's give thanks to God." But I don't know, it's something that it's a work in progress for me. I'm so grateful for your witness and your work and all the ways in which you kind of encourage. It's inspiring, actually, I would say, you know, what you're putting out in the world, I think it is beautiful. And so I'm super grateful for it, just as a reminder to me and to many others.
Eddie Rester 41:25
Any final word that you'd offer for parents who are like, I just don't know, when. This sounds all great. I just don't know when. Any encouragement or thought you'd give to them on that?
Kayla Craig 41:39
Yeah, you know, I think I want this to be super guilt free, shame free, have it on your table and crack it open when you can. The reflections in there are not very long, and you have a whole week, you know. And so maybe there are weeks where it's just like life is intense, and in the season, you're not gonna get to it. Maybe it's a whole season where it's just like, this isn't gonna work. But then you pop back in. And it's like, there are a ton of open ended questions. Take one and talk about it on one day, on your way to school. You know what I mean? Like make it work for you. I really don't want it to be another thing on your to-do list or on your shoulders. Like, just let that go. Put it on your table, grab it, flip it open when it works for you. There's an index in the back. So if there's something particularly going on in your life, you can go find that. We might be in fall or winter and that reflection is in the spring. Don't feel hemmed in. This is just, you know, a way to get you started, but make your work for you.
Eddie Rester 42:45
Kayla, thank you so much for your time today. We really, really do appreciate the work that you've done. The book is "Every Season Sacred." So thank you for being with us today.
Kayla Craig 42:54
Thank you so much. It's been such a great conversation. I appreciate it.
Eddie Rester 42:57
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Chris McAlilly 43:06
If you would like to support this work financially or if you have an idea for a future guest, you can go to theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]