Learning to love the small things. Introducing the School for Spiritual Formation

Swinging at the Mississippi, just so.

This morning I took Hannah from her bed and began our morning routine.  We usually sit on the step into our “sun room” in the back of the house and eat muesli & yoghurt together while reading a book.  We make coffee and bring it to Almut, we occasionally sweep the first floor together (Hanna has her own broom) and we pick up to make the house clean for the day.   

But the past few mornings have not been usual. In part this is because Hannah is changing and can now reach things she could not (she wants to reach everything at once), but it is mostly because I have been distracted.  Distracted by cares of projects and concerns and mostly desiring to be doing something else important. Distracted by my important projects, I have not been the most loving father in our morning routine.  

And so I have been coming back to the advice of Thérèse of Lisieux and her “little way.”  A sickly child, and often also as an adult, Thérèse became convinced that, with he…