SPIRITUAL CONVERSATIONS WITH CHILDREN — LACY FINN BORGO | EP 51

[DAWN GABRIEL]
Hi, I’m Dawn Gabriel, your host of Faith Fringes podcast, recording live from Castle Rock, Colorado. I am a licensed professional counselor, owner of a counseling center and a sacred space holder for fellow therapists. This podcast is for those who want to explore more than the traditional norms of the Christian culture. I create intentional space to explore your own spiritual path, a space that allows doubt, questions and curiosity without the judgment or shame, a place to hear another story and dive deeper into how to have a genuine connection with God.

For my fellow therapist, listening, I will often pull back the curtain of our layered inner world that comes with our profession. I bring an authentic and experienced way to engage your spiritual journey in order to connect you with your deepest values for true renewal and soul care. But really this podcast is for anyone listening who’s desiring a deeper and genuine connection with God. For those of you wanting to engage your spirituality in new ways, Faith Fringes is for you. Welcome to the podcast.

Hello, and welcome back to Faith Fringes podcast. This is Dawn Gabriel, your host. I’m excited to be here with you today. I have a really special guest and I’m recording this intro actually after I did the interview, because it was so impactful for me and I just wanted to give a little bit more information before we, or not information, I wanted to share more with you before I start with the interview. As you may have known or picked up through my other episodes, one thing that is super important to me is my journey as being a mother. It’s also one of my most, I would say hardest things in my life. Maybe that is what something you guys can relate to is being a parent is sometimes some of the hardest things and the most blessed and amazing things all wrapped up in one.

So often I find myself focusing too much on my failures as a mom, and that goes with my like high expectations and perfectionism and just feeling some shame around my parenting and feeling like I’m not doing good enough. So those are all more my dark thoughts about my myself, but when I am doing better, of my thought patterns I often am searching and it’s really important to me on how to cultivate more spirituality and connection with God, with my kids and not just handing out a Bible verse without explanation or without I don’t know, sometimes I feel there’s no connection when you’re just mouthing a Bible verse or saying that. So I started searching how can I really teach this spiritual formation or spiritual connection on a deep and authentic way with God, for kids?

I do not work with kids. I am way more able to work with adults. That is my comfort level. So even with my own kids, it’s been harder to understand them. It’s just out of my wheelhouse. So I’ve learned a ton from them, but I often struggle with how do I engage them spiritually? So I started searching for a book because that’s how I learn, I love books and it was really hard to, I mean I wanted to get away from therapy books. I didn’t got to do it that way, although I’ve read plenty. But I found this book that was so impactful and I think because it was so deep, but so inviting and rich with some of the nuggets of truth in there and then just some of the practical ideas, but there was just this beautiful combination of this sacred held space for people working with kids on a deep level.

So I found this book called have. It’s by Lacey Finn Borgo and as I was reading, I was only two chapters in, highlighting a ton, but really experiencing a ton as I was reading it, because it was all about her experience as like having a holy listening time with kids. It wasn’t about therapy. It wasn’t about teaching them. It was literally entering in and how to listen to where God already shows up in kids’ life. So it was so impactful said, I have to get her on this podcast on my podcast. So I started trying to find her and I found her on a website. I emailed her and she graciously said yes to come on. This interview, I took so many notes and I am super excited for you guys to meet her and to listen in on our conversation. I think you’ll get right away just her beautiful energy and the way she listens into God.

Please listen all the way through because at the very end she gives a blessing that I cry to the whole thing. She gives a blessing specifically for therapists who are parents and wanting to integrate or to bring that spiritual connection with their kids on a deeper level. So I’m very excited for this interview. Let me tell you a little bit about her. Lacey Finn Borgo has a doctorate of ministry and teaches and provides spiritual direction for various organizations in spiritual formation, in spiritual direction, including Renovaré, the companioning center in Mercy Center, Burlingame California.

Lacey has a spiritual direction and supervision of spiritual directors’ ministry for adults and provides spiritual direction for children at Haven House, which is a transitional facility for families without homes in Olathe, Colorado. Her book, Spiritual Conversations with Children: Listening to God Together was released in March, 2020. Her children’s book All Will be Well will be released October of 2022. Lacey lives on the Western slope of the Rocky Mountains and worships with the local Quaker Meeting. You can find her at gooddirtministries.org, Lacey, welcome to the podcast.
[LACY FINN BORGO]
Hello. So good to be with you on a glorious Friday.
[DAWN]
I know. We were just talking off air that we both live in Colorado and didn’t realize that till today.
[LACY]
That’s right. Yes, yes. A little bit of snow.
[DAWN]
Yes, us too.
[LACY]
Little, little April Fool’s delight.
[DAWN]
That’s right. It is April Fool’s today while we’re recording. I love it. Well, Lacey, I would love before we get started for us to hear a little bit of background on you, like how did you get involved with spiritual direction and children? I’d love to hear some of that.
[LACY]
Sure. So I think I have been accompanying people in their spiritual lives since I realized I was having my own. And I care about sort of those deep things. Even as a child, that was part of, what stirred in me or those deep things and that deep place where God’s desire and human desire intersect. So when I was a, my first two degrees are in education and I was a public school teacher. I also taught in a private school and also a public school in upstate New York. So we lived in New York for eight years and I realized one day a wonderful child, I call him Christopher was not allowed to eat in the lunchroom any longer. His behavior had become problematic for everybody involved.

So he got to, “he got to” eat lunch with me every day. I was a new teacher and I was so tired and I just had nothing else to give this kid other than keeping him from disrupting others or hurting himself. So he got to eat lunch with me every day and because I didn’t got to teach him anything, I mean, I just had nothing else to give him I just started asking him questions. And to sort of honor the boundaries between spirituality, God, church and state, I used the three transcendentals goodness, beauty and truth. So I just started saying, so Christopher, just tell me some things good that happened to you today, or this week. Christopher tell me something beautiful.

Mostly I just wanted the kid to talk so I could not have to and bless him he did. He opened up his inner world to me, and I realized that there was so much more to Christopher than his behavior. There was so much more and he, he got to eat lunch with me every day, that year. I just became almost aware of this inner life, inner spiritual life of the child. I moved to Colorado, which we lived there when I was a kid and I was encouraged to go to seminary because I got this thing about accompanying people in this way. That’s when I went to what was then George Fox and is now Portland Seminary and got my doctorate degree there. My dissertation was on spiritual direction with children, sort of listening to the deep with children. I’ve been listening with children for about eight years at Haven House, part of my faithfulness, to listen to what’s stirring in the deep with them.
[DAWN]
I love that, because I think so many times, even myself, I struggle with this. I’m used to working with adults as a therapist, but when it comes to my own kids, sometimes I feel lost, especially with the deeper stuff. I’m like, my sons will ask me the most funniest questions about God like so is God stronger than Thor? Or is God bigger than a mountain, like random. I’m like, I’ve never thought of that or what actually happens when people die, like how does our soul get to heaven? My son thought like you would see things like ghosts flying up and it was like, I’ve never thought about this
[LACY]
Yes, yes. So the sense that there are things stirring in the deep.
[DAWN]
Yes
[LACY]
Those existential questions around existence and the nature of suffering and the nature of God, all of that we are born with it because we are longed into existence by the one who loves us. So we have sort of that fingerprint within us, longing back all the time.
[DAWN]
I love that. I think in your book, you mentioned that like the ping, or can you explain more of that? I love, yes.
[LACY]
Yes. So there are particular pings and I sometimes have explained it to children who have God language. So this is children who come from a context and have used of the language of God. So I will say God has scattered God’s fingerprints. I mean, maybe the parable of the sower, if it comes to mind that God has scattered God’s fingerprints for everyone like everyone, goodness, beauty, truth, wonder, mystery. All of that are God’s fingerprints. When we encounter a fingerprint, something within us is stirred. This deep longing is stirred in us. If you come to my house in Western Colorado, and you step out on my back deck and you see a 14,000 foot peak, you can see, you will automatically without thinking about it, push your shoulders back, open up your body.

Your jaw will drop. It’s an automatic response wired into our very reflexes. You will say, oh. You may have no words. That’s a ping. I came up with that, I did not come up with that. A group of seventh grade boys came up with that when I was trying to explain that thing where it’s a thing and it’s, so I explain all the things they said, oh miss it’s like, when you lose your phone. I thought, how do I lose my phone? Do I look like I could lose my phone?
[DAWN]
Everyone loses their phone?
[LACY]
It’s like when you lose your phone, but you can get your computer to ping your phone to find it. It’s like a homing signal. That’s all of these transcendentals wonder, beauty, ah, mystery, those are pings, soul pings. They open us to hearing our longing and connection with God.
[DAWN]
I love that. I love how you put it. I mean, I’ve not looked at children that way. I just love that you’re inviting us into looking at children can have this deep language as well, and they can have pings. It just is so different than adults. Like what do you think gets in our way as adults of looking or inviting children into this place because I have not heard people talk about it like this very much.
[LACY]
Well, I think our reason and articulation get in the way, so we think we understand something first and then experience it. But that’s not actually how the world works and sort of rubber meets the road and for children, especially, they encounter it first. They experience it first. So they may be having, not maybe, they are having experiences of God that are deep and lasting and true, but they don’t have articulation for it. That’s like the right hemisphere of the brain is predominant when we’re young, we shift to the left and as we get older and language and all the things and explanation and understanding and reason, but first we’re primarily right hemisphere, really rich. So the thing about as adults, what really trips us up is we switch and step away from that encounter. But the thing is, the German theologian, Carl Ron would say that we actually bring our childhood experiences, our adolescent experiences of God into the life we’re leading now. So it’s not that childhood way of encountering God is lost. It is within us. We actually are all longing for encounter over information.
[DAWN]
Yes.
[LACY]
We’ve got a lot of information, but it’s encounter that we’re all looking for.
[DAWN]
That’s so true. I mean, even in my adult life, growing up with a lot of head knowledge of God, and I’m so grateful for the foundation. Like in the last few years, I mean, the whole reason for this podcast is diving into more experiential parts of God. I call it the fringes of your faith, to experience that connection on a deep felt body sense level. But yes, you’re right. Kids are way more experiential than adults. I totally see that now.
[LACY]
Maybe even sort of using the metaphor that you’re using in your podcast, the fringes, like for children, the fringe is the center.
[DAWN]
True, so true, yes.
[LACY]
Its the center. I mean, that’s why when you’re in the Walmart parking lot with your three year old, that’s why they put a cigarette butt in their mouth that they can’t smoke.
[DAWN]
I know. I have two boys and I’m like, please stop putting anything in your mouth and picking up anything on the ground that’s dirty.
[LACY]
This is how kids start licking the cart at Walmart.
[DAWN]
We totally got COVID from my boys, I know for sure.
[LACY]
The core of them is experience, they’re experiential. They’re going to touch it, taste it, smell it, rub it in their hair, put it in their nose
[DAWN]
Or their brother’s hair or nose
[LACY]
That’s right. That’s what their spiritual life is like. That is sort of the invitation that when we connect with our young children, we connect with the children in our community where there were grandparents, aunties, friends, that’s the community piece. They invite us really to get back in touch with what was most true to us when we were little.
[DAWN]
I love that. Even the research shows like as adults, we need to get back into creativity and curiosity and play like for us to open up and grow. That totally relates to that.
[LACY]
Yes, exactly. I have another boat coming out May of 2023 about called Faith Like a Child. It is welcoming the child within. It’s for adults and how to really lean in to that childlike faith and that very last chapter of John; here Jesus has died. We have resurrection. They had all their life with them. It’s interesting. The very last chapter Jesus calls them children. It’s just remarkable. Why at the end? I mean, you would think maybe He’d be like, okay, now you’re mature and we’re going to shore you up. It’s like really coaching, but Jesus is like children, children, have you got any fish? I wonder if He’s reminding them, calling them back to all those times that he pulled the children and said, all right, you got to know what the kingdom of God is like. Look at the kid, do what the kid is doing. He’s just calling them back to the core, the distinction that He marks when he says also pray like this Abba, Father, divine parent. It’s that childlike being loved longed into being by our mothering father.
[DAWN]
Yes, and as you’re saying that, I’m like, totally. It’s like we get so much in our head and in our way, as we get older in how we think, and then we take a lot of control back, like the illusion of control, I should say.
[LACY]
Good drive.
[DAWN]
But when you look at kids, I remember watching my boys as they were babies, and I remember posting something on Facebook saying, I wish I could feel emotions like they do. Like, they feel them immediately and then they let them go and they could be laughing after they’re just screaming and crying. It’s like innocent and yes, I just remember looking at that, like I have a lot to learn from the children
[LACY]
I’m trying to think where it is, but Richard Foster talks about this path that we take that begins in innocence and ends in character. So I think that is the path, like the information piece as adults are important. But life is not spiritual life and regular life, is not linear. It’s actually like a spiral into the heart of the one who longed us into being. So what we knew as a child, as we go around that spiral, we’re being invited to integrate and welcome it in a brand new way with all the information, with all of the experiences that we’ve had with adults as adults.
[DAWN]
What have you seen for adults embracing that child within? What are some other thoughts on that that would help us engage that more?
[LACY]
Well, I mean, I think it’s important, I mean, you mentioned play. Play is our mother tongue and if we’re around children, they will invite us to play. It’s releasing control, it’s inviting creativity. It’s producing, it’s creating without an outcome. Play is experiencing our fallibility and welcoming failure. No one when they’re truly playing says, oh man, I made a mistake or I failed. Play includes our mistakes and that’s part of that maturation, but there’s also like humor. We truly can’t embrace our holy foolishness unless we learn to play. We truly will never say actually it’s better for me to be laughed as Jesus invites us, unless we don’t take ourselves so seriously. Really ‘s the way to maturity in Christ.
[DAWN]
Interesting. I like the letting go, it reminds me, I think Brennan Manning wrote a book, The Art of Being Foolish or something like, yes, he has really good titles in his books. So it brings that up, but just like the letting go. I often notice that in my own life, how much I tend to cling to what I know and even my skills as a therapist and really like that has gotten in my way with God, like in my trust in him and just the release and the surrender to him. That’s what I’ve been contemplating or the closer I get to him, the more messier I realize I am and not in control. I’m like, what’s happening? This last year has been, I’m like, wow, I feel really close to God, but I just feel more messy too. I’m like, I think there’s something there with, like you were saying, just the going like the cyclical or the spiral. It’s just, yes, I’m just really relating to what you’re saying.
[LACY]
For children, their consciousness is broad and wide. I mean, they actually have a more broad consciousness. This comes from the research of, I think her name is Alison Gopnik, if you want to look, The Philosophical Baby. I know, that was a great title, speaking of good titles. Their consciousness is so broad and they are fully in the present moment and they are taking it all in. Then as we age, we narrow our consciousness. That’s why we can focus. That’s why you and I can have a conversation that lasts more than two minutes and it’s not only about cheeseburgers. Because we have learned to focus.

Well in this, I know this isn’t mathematically correct, but I’m not a mathematician, in that third half of life our consciousness that has developed some narrowness and focus, it has deepened, and we’re invited to go back to that place in our childlike wonder and awe and expand it back out again. So it’s like it’s really wide in the beginning, then adulthood helps us to deepen it. We become deep people and then that third half becomes wide so that we’re not only wide, we’re not only deep, we are deep and wide like the good children.
[DAWN]
I love that, deep and wide. That’s such a good analogy and a way to look at it. I was also interested when I was reading your book, you had some really good ways to invite children in to their spirituality. I wonder if you could talk about some of your favorite ways, and I know you have in your book and you have really good questions and stuff, but I thought it’d be cool to maybe share that some of that with my listeners too.
[LACY]
I think just for one being aware that spiritual conversations first, that everything is spiritual, everything is spiritual. So when your child comes home and they’re talking about getting in a fight with Jimmy in the pencil sharpener line, everything is spiritual. When they are talking about the cheeseburgers and how they had chicken nuggets in the line in the cafeteria that is spiritual. So their very lives are spiritual, all of our lives are spiritual. So any question that you can ask them to help them reflect is a spiritual conversation. So saying like maybe you pick them up from school and they’re in the car and you say, tell me, I wonder if you can tell me about something good or beautiful that happened to you today.

If your family is a faith family and you have a God language and that’s kind part of your faithfulness and then ask you, I wonder where you encountered God today, well, I encountered God when I was on the swing set and I was feeling the wind blowing through my hair. Then the next question might be, well, I wonder what you might got to say to God about that. Maybe thank you, maybe it is the fight for the pencil sharpener. So tell me about what was something hard today that happened. Well, cutting in line and keeps cutting in line. It was really my pencil that he took off the floor. I mean, you can tell I’ve heard a few of these lines.
[DAWN]
Very specific.
[LACY]
Yes, very specific, and say, oh, well, I wonder how did that make you feel? What are some of those feelings? Because our feelings are first line of awareness. So how did that make you feel? Would you like to just stop for a minute and tell God how you feel? So giving God in that moment, allowing the child to give God access to those feelings in that moment. One of my favorite people that I learned from is my friend, Trevor Hudson, who is a spiritual director and a pastor out of South Africa. Read anything or watch anything that Trevor Hudson has ever done. What he says is that it’s not about information. Prayer is not about transferring information. Prayer is giving God access.
[DAWN]
I love that
[LACY]
Through the feelings and the inner places of our lives. That’s from Trevor. So in that moment, whatever a child shares with us, we are inviting them to use their agency, their will, what God breathes into them at their being, to give God access to their inner life. That builds relationship.
[DAWN]
I’m just sitting here like, it makes sense when you say it, but I’ve never heard it that way before. I’m just, and it’s also showing like how I brought up a little more conservatively. It was, I remember having Bible verses recited to me, well, the golden rule is this, and this is how you love one another and love God with all your heart and do unto others as you should have them do unto you, just more like a resuscitation of a verse. I’ve been talking with my husband, like, I don’t got to just give that to our children. I want to invite them into a more spiritual place, but I feel like I have no concept of it, but I feel like you’re giving me language right now on a child level to just yes, invite, invite them in, God into that place and process. I mean, it makes sense when you say it, but I’ve been struggling with getting those two together. So thank you.
[LACY]
And the particular Bible verses and ways of thinking about God, they’re important and their second prize to relationship.
[DAWN]
Ah, yes. I love that.
[LACY]
They’re important. They are important, but what will carry that kid when they’re not with you and things are very difficult and maybe all that they’ve ever sort of information known is being attacked or dismantled will be relationship, it will be the encounters that they have, that when they go to sleep at night, come back to them.
[DAWN]
I love that. I’m taking notes, as you can see. My listeners can’t see that I’m taking notes guys. Wow. So I wonder if you have like a story you could share. I know you wrote a lot of stories, but is there like a favorite story to show how a child entered into that with you because you do, maybe talking about the Haven House. That was such a beautiful place you work at if you could share more about that and share a story from that. I mean it’s in your book, so I’m sure you’re allow it.
[LACY]
Yes. Well, I change names and details. I’m big on confidentiality so unless a child needs some help if they’re going to harm themselves or harm someone else, then I keep it all confidential. So it’s all truthfully fiction, a conglomerate. I would say when children come and meet with me at Haven House, let me maybe just walk you through what that looks like. So I have a white blanket on the floor and I have a battery powered candle, because I’m really not to be trusted with fire. So the child and I enter this space together, it’s called holy listening and we take off our shoes and we step on this white blanket with little green leaves.

We sit down and we turn on the little battery powered light and I say, “Is it okay if I pray?” I want to ask permission too, because for some children, their experiences of God or church or those things can be hurtful and they may not be welcoming of prayer. So I got to honor their agency. If they say yes, then I say a very short prayer, like God, would you help me to listen well to Jimmy? Will you help Jimmy to listen well to you? So really taking me out of the equation as much as I can because this little white blanket space is a sacred encounter with God.

I pray that little prayer for a child who is resistant and has some wounds around that. Also let’s just take three deep breaths together. That interior singulate with some deep breaths, that part of our brain that marks and houses our God experiences wakes up with deep breathing. So for any of your listeners, that might be pastors, if you’re looking out into the audience, as you’re into a parish, as you’re preaching and you see people yawning, tear it on, because that actually wakes up the interior, singulate.

So we enter this together. We turn on the light and we arrive in some way, whether that’s prayer or breath. Then on one side of the blanket are a few items that help us to recognize. So they’re, in education speaking they’re manipulatives. So I have a little bag of all the characters from inside out, the children’s movie inside out. I have another bag full of rocks that have random symbols on it. I might have a bag with some little wooden toys in it, along the play therapy line. What these all are, are tools of projection. So simply they are something that a child can project their inner life on. It gives them expression because children, again, as we said, may not have, and their articulation capabilities will vary depending on their age, their experience, all of those things.

I just want to give them expression. It’s not about me understanding because the holy one is there listening. That’s the spiritual director, I’m just setting the table. So they come in and they get to choose which of these tools of recognition. I’ll ask a question like, “Would you like to choose three rocks that tell a story of something good, beautiful, or true?” When I say true, I mean, what is authentic and real, something real that happened to you today. Or sadness, is there a sad story you got to tell? They choose those rocks and project upon them and tell their story. I just do some active listening. I like the acronym BOW, B-O-W, to help me know how to actively listen.

That means that my body is turned towards them and I don’t have my phone in my hands or anything else in my hands, that I don’t have my arms crossed, which is really hard when you’re doing BOW with your teenager. So I got to uncross my arms and legs and just make sure that my body is saying, I’m here, I’m listening. Then the O stands for openness. So I got to notice my own interior thoughts and feelings. Am I open to hear whatever the child may have to say, whatever that might be? It might be something hard. It might be something joyous. It might be absolutely silly or disgusting. Am I open to hearing that? The reason that we check that is because we all can sense openness or closeness. So we really just got to check in with that.

Then the W is wonder. Is my curiosity hot about why, where God is going to, or has been encountering that child? Is my curiosity hot? Have I not made up my mind about where God is? Is my curiosity hot and fluid, like lava, not concretized, but just full of wonder God, what are you doing in this kid’s life? So as they’re sharing, projecting upon some of those recognized manipulatives, I’m checking in with BOW. Then on the other side of the blanket will be some response tools, prayer tools, like a finger Labyrinth, some prayer beads. I love watercolor paints because they’re so forgiving, so we’ll have watercolor paints.

Then I invite them after they’ve shared a bit of their story, told all the stories that they got to tell. If they have God language, I’ll say, would you like to tell God about that? Would you like to have a little conversation with God, maybe listening, maybe in gratitude, if it’s something good and beautiful? Would you like to paint that as prayer? We engage in the response tools. Then at the end I have, this idea comes from a children’s chaplain, Lian Hadley. I have a tuba chapstick, really it’s just lip balm and. I ask them if it’s okay, if I give you a blessing and I put either a cross or a circle or a heart or whatever smiley face, one kid asked me, can you draw a Pokemon? I was like, of course, I wish I could but I can’t.

As I’m putting this goo on their back their hand I’m saying words of. If they have God language, I’m saying what, Jimmy, God loves you so much. God is always with you. God will never leave you. You are safe and loved in God’s arms. In fact, this little goo on I’m putting on your hand is so that if you see it, so it’s clear, I usually get clear chapstick, so if he catches the light, you can sort of catch a glimpse of God. I haven’t made or ordered in the eucalyptus smell. So if you catch a whiff of it, that’s sort of catching a whiff, a reminder, oh, look for God. God is with you. Parents report that the kids are like wash all of me, but not my hand.
[DAWN]
I was wondering. Yes, I bet.
[LACY]
But I’ve also given those, we call it blessing bomb to families and blessing each other before you go out for the day. Then when you catch a glimpse of that, little glimmer of that, the blessing bomb on the back of your hand. Once in a family retreat that I did I invited the children to take this blessing bomb and to bless their parents. So here the parents got in lines to come forward. I mean, the parents were sobbing. I had no idea this was how it was going to go. One parent was like, not only on my hand. He got down, a father got down on his knees, “On my head.” The sad part is that I chose just a little bit of tent, so his man, he had a face by the time we were done. But he just wanted to take it in.
[DAWN]
Yes.
[LACY]
This reciprocal love and blessing on one another.
[DAWN]
Oh, that’s so beautiful. I love, what I’m hearing from you, even when I read your book and just experiencing you right now, is that yes, the deep, but also you’re giving such practical, but beautiful tools. Like it’s such a good combination of deep stuff, but like beauty with children and yes, I like seriously have not taken this many notes in a podcast interview for wow. So I’m going to have to listen back to all this. I feel blessed just hearing all this. I’m definitely going to be getting my kids and trying some of this just to help them enter into that. This is exactly things I’ve been looking for. Yes, thank you so much for your time, but your heart and just willingness to talk about this and help us understand children and spirituality better.
[LACY]
Maybe if I could give one final word, is to say parents and those who are around and accompanied children, remember that you are always a learner. So we learn this together. You don’t have to have all your ducks in a row. You don’t even have to have ducks or know where yours might be. Spiritually speaking, you can learn alongside of children. There is no sort of this is what it’s supposed to look like. What it’s supposed to look like is what it looks like right now in your home right now. So you can partner with your kids to become, to really listen to what God is stirring within each of you and you’ll learn together and that will bond you in really remarkable ways.
[DAWN]
I love that. I wasn’t planning on asking this, but it just came to me, as you were saying, that would you, I have a lot of therapists who are listening, but what I like to do is go beneath the therapist and go into their personal layer. I call it the therapist matrix, where we need to sometimes take off our therapist hat, but it’s really hard to. Could you, I was wondering if you could give a blessing to therapists in their parenting role as we work with our own children. I know that’s totally me because sometimes I struggle with that. I was wondering if you would mind ending with a blessing for therapists working with their kids and spirituality.
[LACY]
Dear therapist, who long, long, long, long to accompany your children well, may you know that your mistakes are part of what matters in the child’s life. May you know that humility, your humility and your loving presence is all that is needed. May you know and have the freedom from having to have it all together. May you know that you don’t parent alone, that the one who longed you into being is ultimately your co-parent. You are also a child in the loving embrace of God. May you taste God’s love and acceptance in the eyes and embrace of your children. May you taste God’s love and acceptance in the eyes and embrace of your children. May you remember that God, as both older than time itself and younger than the newest child, God is the eternal joy and may rest in. Amen.
[DAWN]
Wow. Amen. That was beautiful and yes, tears are flowing. Thank you. Wow. you must have worked with therapists or leaders who have children. Thank you for listening in
[LACY]
Truly the holy spirit knows things.
[DAWN]
Yes
[LACY]
I like to think of the spirit as a holy weaver, the ultimate weaver, weaving all the things together that we need to know. And there’s just no waste in this tapestry.
[DAWN]
I love that. Well, Lacy, thank you so much. If my listeners want to get ahold of you, your books are all on Amazon or they’re going to be, I know you have how many books out right now?
[LACY]
Spiritual Conversations with Children, and the children’s book will be out in October.
[DAWN]
Okay. Then you had another one coming out. You have two more coming out.
[LACY]
Yes.
[DAWN]
I love that. Well I will be signing up for those books. I appreciate that. Then do you have any, if people wanted to reach out or social media, what would you like to share that for people?
[LACY]
Yes, I’m on social media, under my name Lacy Finn Borgo. Great. Mostly it’s just cat pictures.
[DAWN]
I love it. Well, thank you again for your time. This has been a blessing for me too.
[LACY]
It’s so good to be with you. And we’re neighbors
[DAWN]
I know. Yes, we’re in the same state. Thank you so much.
[DAWN]
Thank you for listening today to the Faith Fringes podcast. For those of you wanting to take a deeper dive into your own faith journey, you can grab my free email course Spiritual Reflections on my website, faithfringes.com. If you’re a therapist and would want to work with me, I offer sacred space holding for you through my consulting, as well as my soul care retreats. To find out more, go to my website or email me, dawn@faithfringes.com.

I love hearing from all my listeners. Drop me an email to tell me what’s on your mind. You can also connect with me on social media. I’m on Facebook and Instagram at Faith Fringes. As always, if you’re enjoying this podcast, I would love it. If you could show it by your reviews. Go to Apple Podcast and leave your review so that others can find this podcast and get curious about their own spiritual journey. Thanks again for listening.

Faith Fringes is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Faith in Practice, Beta Male Revolution, Empowered and Unapologetic or Impact Driven Leader, go to the website, www.practiceofthepractice.com/network.

This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.