Guacamole and God: A bit on Parenting my Toddler

by Melissa Borgmann-Kiemde

Being a mother is the hardest role I have ever taken on (save, being a wife!) I think most days I could go back to teaching at North High and find it a "cake walk" compared to mommyhood. My students in Minneapolis have nothing on Marguerite Kiemde in terms of inspiring intense emotion and the deepest sense of inadequacy within me. (Good thing I'm wildly in love with my daughter!)

Kiddo has been sick. Let's just acknowledge this fact. We are going on day six of Ms. K. suffering from a hacking cough, green-yellow-phlegm in her nose, and a whacked out eating and sleeping routine. I am trying to ride this wave of unwellness, by nurturing, supporting, parenting her in the best manner I know. (Stroller-rides in the sunshine, warm chicken broth, lots of songs and snuggling during the day and night.) Yet during several moments in this past week, I have admitted defeat. Her suffering I cannot alleviate, and this fact, coupled with my own plate full of desires/ dreams/ tasks to complete, makes me quake within my own sadness, anger, frustration and wall-hitting. Her suffering parallels and informs my own. And I wonder where to turn in such moments.

It just sucks being inadequate -- or feeling inadequate.

Yesterday, it was a packed up bowl of guacamole that my precious kiddo threw at me, hitting the side of my car, that started my descent into parenting-self-doubt hell. Tantrum? Yes, it was a tantrum. She was mad she had to get in the car. I have been "feeling" these deep emotional expressions of defiance (or passion?) since baby girl was six months old and arching her back and letting me know she was pissed, or wanted to be in charge.

I feel for her. I get on every level the desire to throw guacamole when you are mad. What I'm faced with now, is how to compassionately and boldly parent in the face of what I understand.

I can add to the guacamole break down. Any moments of "no" or "redirection" (shoot, even a cheerful hello when she's engrossed in something else) this toddler takes personally, falling into a puddle of tears. She closes her eyes, opens her mouth, the snot pours out of her nose, and she wails. Tears stream down her face. I can count all her teeth during these moments. I imagine her experiencing utter rejection in these minutes; her expectations of the world are not being met with a desired response. Mom's and other's expectations or desires are threatening to her very core, and this brings on the tears.

Today, both my neighbor and a church friend were met by Maggie's hysterical outbreaks when they warmly greeted her. Did kiddo not hear the friendly tone in their voices? Did she mis-interpret their words? Were their "Hey Maggies!" translated into requests for something that she wasn't able to deliver on? I am plagued on this count. I wonder, "Why the broken heart, kiddo?"

With closed eyes, then, and outstretched arms, my daughter begins walking towards me in such moments of despair. She's like a blind zombie baby moving desperately in my direction. I try to embrace her need, without overdoing the coddle. I try not to laugh. And I ask myself: "Do I really need to 'save' her from these moments?" Ack! This is the parenting rub I'm currently up against!

My spiritual self sees these moments of angst and emotion akin to my own melt-down moments, sans the adult filter. My child acts out physically in a manner that I think perfectly expresses what I am doing inside on a faith level with God. Wailing. Eyes closed. Arms outstretched. Blind. Trying to find comfort or security or a saving grace.

So in my inadequacy as a parent, I take a deep breathe and try to tune in. I may comfort, reassure kiddo, but really its not my comfort to give. I believe with all my heart that within Marguerite, within all of us, is the Divine indwelling, that can provide a peace not found anywhere else. Question is: how do I teach her to tune into this kind of love?

My friend Lisa, witness to one of these outbreaks today, who works with kids all day long, said, "Ah, give her some toys. She will cry. She will learn to self-soothe."

I agree. And I pray. I hope for the "God-soothing" wisdom and instinct to develop and be re-inforced as she grows. May the moments of heart-ache that Marguerite experiences teach her about the world, about her own desire, and may she find a balm within her, a song that carries her into the next moment of love.


Photos by Louisa Marion Photography

Speaking to the Fears of Same-Sex Love and Recent Suicides: A Prayerful Response

The past month's headlines reporting the suicides of young people - who have chosen to end their lives because they are perceived as gay - has caused the deepest sorrow in my heart. I have been praying about how to respond.

My prayer is informed by my own life experience. My best friend committed suicide six weeks before we graduated from high school. The death of Greg Schulte has shaped almost the whole of my life, career, vocation on this earth to date. I have worked in many ways - since the events of March 28, 1987 - to be a person of great love, using the gifts I believe God gave me to inspire others in their life journeys; I have worked to cultivate young and old people's perceptions: to see and believe in themselves as beautifully, perfectly made and with a great purpose on this planet. Namely: to love.

When young people kill themselves in such alarming rates, I am called again to revisit my vocation, my response, my work.

My brain, heart, spirit go to my daughter. I look into the face and eyes of Marguerite Marie Kiemde: this beautiful five month old child conceived by François Kiemde and me. I don't want her journey as a young person to include such encounters with self-loathing, hate and fear that inspire such death. I don't want Marguerite - or any of her peers - to encounter the taunting, teasing, tormenting because they might be viewed as homosexual. I don't want any more young people to want to die and to act violently on this desire to not want to continue living.

I try to go to the root of this horrible phenomenon of young people committing suicide. I pray about the best way to address this, transform it, see a way toward a life-giving and loving response and solution.

I read. I listen. I pray. I talk to friends and family who are gay and those who fear homosexuality, and judge same-sex love and relationships as sinful.

I hold the news of these suicides alongside the recent release and mailing of a DVD by our archbishop in Minnesota who is working to define and defend marriage as that natural and appropriate for heterosexual men and women. And I pray. I hear a larger message about a call to partner and commitment, delivered I believe with the most sincere of intentions -- as one extended in love -- but also conveying a message of diminishment to all gay men and women who love and respond to their call to partner. I feel diminished in hearing the message.

I try to hold the contradictions. I wonder about how these messages of our church are connected with the deaths of young people? Is it possible our church leaders are part of the root problem inspiring a desire to die?

Ellen De Generes spoke recently to the bullying of gay young people on her TV show. I wonder how much of a problem this hate of gay children is with just younger people taunting them, as compared with their parents, teachers, priests, elders sending equally hateful messages that torment?


"Respect the person" is a phrase uttered repeatedly by our church and community leaders about our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. This is a form of the "hate the sin, love the sinner" mantra coming from a number of our Catholic priests and bishops, Christian leaders. And I have to say: It's simply not enough. I have to back up and challenge the sin that is being identified in the heart of homosexuals. I ask: "What is it? The sin of loving someone of the same gender? The sin is desire? The sin is attraction? The sin is acting on your desire to love and connect?"

I keep hearing Sr. Eileen Currie, my spiritual director at Sacred Heart Jesuit Retreat Center in Colorado: "Who do you think gave you your desires?" After a brief pause, she answered emphatically: "GOD!" I can hear all the non-procreative arguments about the root of this desire to physically love someone of the same gender being wrong. And I hold firm: That any intentional alignment with another, of any gender, honoring the intimate soul and being of that person, is nothing, save for a generative and loving action. Period. Heterosexual. Homosexual. Love begets love. It fuels and inspires our every waking moment. If it can be honored, seen, as in fact what it is: the most natural and beautiful gift God gave us. The sin of our leaders, teachers, adults, preachers, is not seeing this, in my humble opinion. We diminish and trample on the dignity and gifts of whole faction of God's creation. It's rampant in our society, culture. And, then, it leads to this. Death.

Why does anyone want to live when all they see and experience are messages of how bad they are? When they are told their call to love is inferior, or rather, intrinsically evil and wrong?

I'm with Ellen. I'm with so many trying to create space to dialogue, educate, be in relationship, transform this fear-space and culture that perpetuates the desire of a person to die. I don't want this walk of fear, shame, death, tragedy for Marguerite, or anyone else's child. I pray for Love.

In peace and prayers,
Melissa Borgmann-Kiemde

Blessingway Poem by Becca Barniskis

On Sunday, May 16th, sixteen women and one small boy gathered in my St. Paul living room to extend blessings over me and this child that I am about to birth. Lead by doula Alisa Blackwood, these women shared prayers, good thoughts, and poems aloud. The following is one poetic piece that arrived via email that afternoon. I share it now as a source of inspiration for not only me, but all expectant moms. I am grateful to the author, Becca Barniskis. Love!

Dear Melissa:

It is spring and your baby is coming.

As holy as God.

But more accessible than he.

Smoother, cuter, able to fit into your arms.

I wish for you a mind of prayer

when your baby decides he is ready.

I wish for you deep strength

and patience for yourself and your body.

I wish for you courage

to not doubt what your body is capable of doing.

And when Baby arrives

may you be awake and enlarged

by the experience.

May your love give you the energy

to figure out who Baby is

and what he needs.

May the journey be joy-filled.

You are a mother.

You are made to mother.

You will mother this child in the best way.

Love,

Becca

****

Becca Barniskis lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where she works as a poet, teaching artist and free-lance writer and consultant in arts education. She edits the Resource Roundup section of the Teaching Artist Journal and is a founding member of Artist to Artist.

She is the mother of Earl and Lulu. And someone I claim as dear friend.

Leaning toward New Life

My grandfather is in the nursing home dying. He is no longer eating, refusing food, and taking only water for the most part, in tiny sips or doses from a sponge, when he is able. His mind remains sharp, but his body is in rapid decline.

I hold this knowledge in my own limbs as I move through my day, acting as normal as possible, but knowing death is imminent. It's a precious time. A sacred time. These are days, moments of privilege and re-ordered priorities, as family members recognize the closeness of Francis Liewer's passing.

Last Friday afternoon, in lieu of driving directly to Omaha, Nebraska, from St. Paul, Minnesota, to see my siblings, my husband and I changed routes and instead pointed our car to Norfolk, to St. Joseph's nursing home, where my grandfather had just been moved. It was a happy choice we made, shifting our course, and going to my hometown. My mother's voice the other end of the line -- tearful, weary, breaking in a rare occasion, after spending eight days next to her ailing father; Francois and I knew we were being called to grandpa's bedside.

At six months pregnant, I am not only emotional, but my body is larger than it's ever been, carrying baby and new weight, readying and making way toward giving birth. Tending to my grandfather's health brings all aspects of our human bodies and vulnerabilities into fuller awareness. Grandpa's thinning skin, his clammy fingers and touch, the bulging bed covers where underneath, I know, are further apparatus to aid him in blood and bodily fluid flow. I sit next to him at St. Joe's, hold his hand, moisten his dried, cracking lips with a damp cloth, and marvel at the proximity of age, death, wisdom, angels. Inside my own belly, baby Kiemde kicks and rocks, rolls over. The nearness of new life is almost enough to make me buckle: Grandpa's, my child's.

My dear friend Sr. Jill Underdahl recently wrote to me saying that, among other things, "St. Joseph is the patron saint of happy deaths." As a sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet in St. Paul, Jill shared this information about her order's namesake, expanding my prior knowledge of the saint. "Because it is imagined that both Jesus and Mary were present to Joseph at the time of his death, Joseph's death is called 'happy.'" This information makes me smile. In addition to being patron to carpenters, fathers, the universal church, Joseph is busy tending to the dying.

In my previous investigations regarding St. Joseph, I discovered a much cruder kind of patronage placed upon him: that of happy home sales. As I put my Juno Avenue house on the market two years ago, I did much research on this matter, and found a way to move beyond the superstitious "buy-a-St. Joseph-statue-and-bury-him-upside-down-in-your-backyard" action, to my own prayerful, ritualistic way of placing his figure in a sacred spot where I paid some serious homage. I looked on Joseph as father, foster father in some respects, tending to baby Jesus, holding this precious, innocent life: protecting, loving, guiding, nurturing the child from youth into adulthood. I meditated on the many ways that that kind of parenting, that kind of care could be akin to the process of letting go, releasing something, anything beloved, and letting it evolve, become anew.

Selling my house became a seriously spiritual action. I believe St. Joseph oversaw this process. My grandfather passing, is another spiritual action. Here again: I see, (hope, imagine, pray,) Joseph is overseeing this!

As Grandpa releases his body, lets go of his limbs, these human bones and muscles and sinewy tissues that make up his earthly form, and becomes pure Spirit, (as I so believe), St. Joseph is there. As his physical body betrays him in its functioning, I imagine a larger kind of liberation occurring. The tethers of his skin and bone form are retracting, and allowing something inside him to open up, be born anew.

In a few short months, I will give birth to a new baby. At this time, my husband Francois and I have discerned that our child will be delivered at a hospital in downtown St. Paul; it's one bearing the name of "St. Joseph."

Last Friday, holding my grandfather's hand, I looked into his eyes, and asked him if he was aware that we were expecting a baby.

"Yes. You are due on May 5th,"he announced. While he had the date wrong, his knowledge of the correct month Baby Kiemde is to emerge made me beam.

"Grandpa, I have a request: I want you to be there, at the birth,"I said, placing his hand on my stomach. "We will be at St. Joe's, just as you are now, with this saint overseeing things, but we'd like you there in your spirit, pure soul form. Can you promise this?" He smiled when I asked the question. "When our baby is born, he will know you; she will see you, and probably scream and cry. But you will witness this all, and help him or her come forward."

He grabbed my hand again before I left, and squeezed.

These are moments of life I'm clinging to as I lean toward all that is imminent, on the verge of shifting, coming forward, getting born.


In peace, prayers, contemplation,
Melissa Borgmann Kiemde

Our Wedding Celebration in Review: Melissa and Francois Kiemde

Queen Mab Friends, Family, Readers -- Far and Wide:

Perhaps you were able to be with us physically on our wedding day; perhaps you joined us in prayer from afar; either way, we hope you enjoy these images documenting what was an amazing experience for us. Gratitude goes out to each and everyone of you who helped us bring forward this blessed day -- one celebrating love, commitment, community. We recognize how truly fortunate we are to join in this blessed sacrament of marriage. We wish that each and every person called to loving commitment would have such an opportunity. What an honor it is; what a joy, now, to share these pictures with all of you.

Blessings to all this day! Here's to celebrating many seasons of Love!

Melissa and Francois

Rehearsal Dinner and Wedding Prep Site

Hello Dress!

Hair and Make-Up Artist Extraordinaire: Rhonda Jackson!

Blessed shoes

Across town at St. Jane House, the Groom and his bridal party prepare themselves...

Beloved "Gabby Love, Love!"

I love this man's laugh and smile!

Daddy and his little girl

Beautiful Frederic and Handsome Francois

Bouquet (and all flowers) arranged by Antoinette Bennaars-Mawanda; Engagement Ring handed down by the Liewer/Arduser Great Grandparents; Gold bands: Kay Jewelers

Seeing each other for the first time

Ms. Sassy and Ms. Sassy: all dressed up!

The Kiemde Clan

Kisses for dad!

The Borgmann Clan and newest members...

To the Walker Sculpture Garden!

We know the beauty and abundance of the "Cherry in the Spoon.."

Wedding Party, from Left to Right, Back Row:
Aaron Borgmann, Usher; Francois Zongo, Groomsman; Ben Borgmann, Usher;
Middle Row: Marianna Toth, Bridesmaid; Stephanie Johnson, Matron of Honor; Melissa Borgmann, Bride; Francois Kiemde, Groom; Frederic Nassa, Best Man; Joy Chaney, Bridesmaid;
Front Row: Gabby Kiemde, Groom's Girl

Our Wedding Party ROCKS!

So does our photographer, and her eye: Alisa Foreman, Shadow Lake Portraits

More poses in front of Frank Gehry's "Standing Glass Fish"

Loving the Art!

Artwork: "Five Plates, Two Poles" --
and a Bride, Groom and Bouquet?

Back at the church, we add bridesman, David Mann,
and Usher, Matt Peiken to our Wedding Party Photos

The Music!
Thank you to the St. Olaf International Choir, along with other Church of St. Philip singers and musicians, who all nicely round out our wedding ensemble

Nadege Ouevi sings a prelude tune in French

Let the wedding-aisle-walking commence!

Thank you Mom and Dad for getting me this far...

Our trifecta of priests: Fr. Dave Liewer, Fr. Dale Korogi, Fr. Jules Omba Omalanga

Sr. Rafael Tilton, OSF, proclaiming the Word...

Before a beautifully peopled prayer space...

Ann Shallbetter and Julie Strahan lead the congregation in music

Jeffrey Bissoy reads from Corinthians

Collaboration, singing, "The Lord is My Light!"

Our unity candle ritual becomes a COMM-UNITY ritual

Love this Light!


Francois and Melissa light their candle from the community flames

Fr. Dale Korogi delivers a beautiful homily (always!)

Sr. Jill Underdahl, CSJ, is the first to read her prayers of the faithful,
written for this occassion, alongside Zac Willette.

Can you tell we love their words?

More beautiful musicians!

I love this man so much!

Breaking the bread (Thanks to Lee George who baked our eucharist)

The community blessing

Procession out! Gabby Leads the way....

Our wedding cake, courtesy of Carolyn Sawyer and Mark Wenzel

What a feast! Thank you to all of our blessed guests who made this banquet possible, bringing food to share with the entire community. And Merci to Mark, Olga and the nuns, for laying it all out so magnificently...

Pot Lucks are really amazing, you know?

Center pieces and decor, courtesy of Olga Nichols and Brian Mogren: Team Ambiance!




What's a table without roses, candles and champagne? Ha!

And the Open Mic commences with Bridesman, Emcee Extraordinaire, David Mann

Zac Willette, our master of ceremonies from the Rehearsal Dinner, returns to toast us after his beautiful words on hunger, love and abundance, the night before.
WE LOVE THIS MAN!

Julie Landsman warms us with her words

Brendan Teehan sings, "Sweet Melissa"

Friend Jody Tigges with her toast

Berato Wilson, Former North High Writing as Performance Student and Teens Rock the Mic poet graces the stage and silences the guest with his original poem

Delaney Melissa Teehan, God-daughter and toastmaster extraordinaire!

Another sung toast: Beautiful Brent Floren

Our dear friend Colette DeHarpporte with a reflection on love by Jesuit, Pedro Arrupe

Kathryn Kaatz with wise words for us all

Our best man, Frederic Nassa, honors his longtime friend, Francois Kiemde

Groomsan, Francois "Jr" Zongo, toasts baker/ mentor/ friend/Groom, Francois "Sr." Kiemde

And the matron of honor toasts her sister Melissa

Nephews Noah and Trent Borgmann round out the musical toasts right before....

Parents of the Bride, Beth and Steve Borgmann, sing their toast
to love and one another:
"You are My Sunshine!"
(such fine harmonizing by these two!)

Can you hear Francois laughing?

How about Melissa giggling?

Our toasters are so entertaining; we are so fortunate!

It's unanimous: We love the Open Mic Tributes to Love!

Bring on the Band!

The good, bad, funky: Hookers and Blow!

People of all ages will rock out

Guests from Francois' family in Madison: Sister Agnes Kiemde,

and former countryman, Saidou Kabore, with his wife Veronica

Hello musicians...

Yes! We love the music!

More boogying! Kathryn and Larry get down!

Two crazy cats find one another to dance it out...

Happy, dancing family of Liewers

Wedding Reception hosts: John and Mary Michaels


Much love and gratitude for our journey ahead....
Merci Beaucoup!