The Baptism of Marguerite Marie Kiemde: Annointing Love "Priest, Prophet, King!"

Some days being Catholic is tough. Claiming membership in a larger faith community that's hard on women, diminishes gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, and has a whole bunch of scandal stemming from a secretive, hierarchical male-dominated structure where sex abuse of children has taken place: Ah! Please! It makes me want to run. But this is my church. This is the community of humans and traditions and rituals and beliefs I was born into that I find, at its core, is the best Love-Mystery-Truth-Transformation-thing going. So I stay in the church with my husband, and I work to create and see realized the kind of faith community that I want to be part of.

Enter: Marguerite Marie Kiemde's Baptism! On Sunday, August 8, 2010, François, big sister Gabby and I, along with our larger catholic faith community at the Church of St. Philips in North Minneapolis, welcomed our baby girl into this fold. And it was a blessed and inspiring experience -- reaffirming my own baptismal call to love and live within a human community, consciously seeing the Divine Light of Love within all.

What follows are photos taken by our dear friends Brian Mogren and Michael Benham. We hope they convey a fraction of the Spirit and promise that we experienced on Sunday, and that the captions might hint at what were the most inspiring elements of the day for me.

Enjoy!
Love,
Melissa Borgmann-Kiemde and Family

Presiding guest priest number one from the University of St. Thomas
(There were four priests on the alter this day.
Perhaps to top the three presiding at our wedding? Or to witness Ms. Maggie's welcoming?
*chuckle*
Blessings! )

Pre-service picture snapping

Baby K gets shy?

Our Kiemde Clan: François, Melissa, Marguerite, Gabriela

Putting on the baptismal bonnet

Tuning into the baptismal rite

Fr. Jules Omba Omalanga begins the ritual

The St. Philip's Kids Choir, lead by Nadege Ouevi, sings to welcome in Marguerite Marie

Getting her rest in before the big moment
(And completing a bowel movement?
This child will go to baptism in the fullness of her blessed humanity!
God loves us in all of our stinkiness. :-))

Tracing the sign of the cross

I cannot be any more pleased to hold this child and participate in this liturgy.

How beautiful are these young people?
A key part of this service for me centers around hearing the voices of children singing.
A choir that Marguerite will be part of - someday!

Annointed "Priest, Prophet and King!" Yes!
Hope in our church.
(Can you imagine our daughter's future?
Your own in any faith community?)

In the arms of Godmother Marianna Toth

Love.

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit!

Embracing the Light!
(A favorite moment in the service,
when François puts the candle in our littlest girl's hands,
and she won't let go.)

What do they see? So many precious eyes!
Including photographer Michael Benham

Singing "Wade in the Water."

Melissa's spiritual director, Sr. Mary Margaret, VHM
(Another honorary Godmother.)

Dear friend, Vis Companion, photographer, Brian Mogren

Toni and Geert Bennaars-Mawanda

From Left to Right: Godfather Zac Willette, Godmother Marianna Toth, Gabby Kiemde, François Kiemde, Melissa and daughter Marguerite Kiemde

Welcomed into this larger faith family of priests, prophets, kings, queens, and lots of nuns!
Left to Right: Marianna, Zac, Gabby, François, Melissa and Maggie, Sr. Mary Frances, VHM; Sr. Jill Underdahl, CSJ; Sr. Joanna O'Meara, VHM; Sr. Mary Margaret, VHM; Sr. Mary Virginia, VHM; Sr. Karen, VHM; and Sr. Jean.

And again: In full color!
Left to Right: Marianna, Zac, Gabby, François, Melissa and Maggie, Sr. Mary Frances, VHM; Sr. Jill Underdahl, CSJ; Sr. Joanna O'Meara, VHM; Sr. Mary Margaret, VHM; Sr. Mary Virginia, VHM; Sr. Karen, VHM; and Sr. Jean

Another new member of the catholic community at St. Philip's:
Nina Nakagaki!

Maggie recognizes someone with her kind of humor: a goofy Michael Benham.

Embraced and smiling by her Visitation Sister, Mary Virginia

Singing and faith ensemble sisters Toni, Ann, Melissa with babies Geert and Maggie

New moms in the community: Can we trace the cultural lines present in this photograph?
There's a child here born in Guatemala; another of Ugandan/Kenyan/Dutch descent; one hailing from Asian-Nebraskan parents; and finally a West African-European-Midwestern American infant.

LOVE!

On Being Fed: A Reflection on Mass and Mealtime at the Monastery -- with Ms. Marguerite!

It had been a while. A month at least, since I had stepped foot in the Visitation Sister's North Minneapolis Monastery. And goodness how my bones were missing the place! (While I have the privilege of writing and posting blogs for the sisters from my perch in St. Paul, it's not daily that I have the good fortune to spend time on the ground floor with these beloved women. This last month was a special exception, too -- for not being explicitly, physically present with my Northside crew -- as I had been blessedly holed up with my newborn daughter, Ms. Marguerite Marie Kiemde. Suffice it to say, our eventual visit to the Monastery last Tuesday evening was a special, sacred time re-connecting with my dear spiritual sister clan, and introducing Baby Maggie to the nuns.

In reflecting on the experience of taking my new little girl to meet the sisters for the first time, I back up and find myself asking:
What does a visit to the Northside Monastery entail?
What does my daughter glean from such an encounter?
What good energy eeks out and over and upon a child in this environment?
Who does she meet?
What gets discussed?
What does she learn?
How might she be changed?

And it occurs to me:

These are questions I could pose for any woman or man coming to the monastery for the first time!

As I work to compose this reflection, I note that what Maggie Kiemde encounters and is nurtured by, might be similar for those visiting and possibly discerning further alliance or membership with the blessed Salesian order.

On this particular evening, there was an intimate gathering of people for mass and the following dinner meal. Besides the sisters, my husband François, baby Maggie, and myself, we had one other lay visitor and our dear priest. Brendan was an Americorp volunteer, originally hailing from the East Coast, and returning to the monastery for mass and nourishment - having found the Salesian charism a welcome space for him in his Minnesota tenure. As a graduate from a De LaSalle institute, he felt at home in the monastery. I shook his hand and felt instantly like I'd known him for years. (He physically resembled another friend completing his Masters in Divinity out East.) Fr. Jim Radde, our Jesuit presider, as an old friend newly acquainted with my husband, was warm and deeply contemplative as he said mass, inviting us as usual into a spiritual space piercing both my heart and mind. ("What does it mean to really love yourself? How do fear and self-doubt impair our abilities?")

With our daughter Marguerite calm and resting in her baby carrier, I found myself at peace in the Fremont Avenue Monastery living room. In this chapel space, with these women, and in this configuration of blessed humans listening and reflecting together on scripture, I was at home. I took inventory of my bones, my limbs, noted my breathing, and exhaled realizing how much I crave this kind of experience, this community.

Our evening flowed from a mass with communal reflection time and space -- where each was invited to give voice to his or her prayerful thoughts, questions, hopes-- to a dining experience complete with charged, inspiring conversation.

Over a blessed meal at the table in the sisters' dining room, I heard from Sr. Mary Frances about a latest leadership initiative involving Northside community members. I took note as Fr. Radde, S.J. challenged Brendan about his peaceful communication practices as the young man prepares for employment with Pax Christi International in Belgium. I chimed in with my own questions and theoretical and applied knowledge of story-telling when Fr. Jim brought up his passions around restorative justice circles. I smiled as our own circle of stories intersected and overlapped while we enjoyed our pot roast and vegetables. Sister elaborated on the Leadership Initiative. Having come from a recent convening at St. Jane House, she shared some of the goals of the diverse group of participants:

"We are teaching principles of Salesian Leadership and inviting the members to pose their own goals for change. They will create action plans over the course of the next ten months."

Father disclosed his sadness having learned he wouldn't be making a long-planned trip to Uganda, but eeked of hope and enthusiasm around how his study of narrative practices would be persued in local urban classrooms. My daughter slept, my husband smiled and sighed. The sisters fawned over the resting presence of our little girl. I moved back and forth in my mind between Maggie's life here as a child, and an imagined space in proximity to the newly acquainted with Brendan going to Belgium. Oh, where would she be twenty years from now? Where might any of us be? How would we be "living Jesus," as the Vis sisters say?

What a room of people! What an experience of faith and community and love and hope! What a way to be fed!

As I close this reflection out, I'm grateful for the sisters' presence at 16th and Fremont (and 17th and Girard) in North Minneapolis. I'm mindful of how lucky my child is to even sit in the same space with these women, their friends, and to have a mom and dad who find such sustenance in visiting them.

Perhaps Marguerite will be called to be a nun someday? Perhaps she'll follow suit in some way as her namesake, Visitation Sister: St. Marguerite Marie Alacoque? Or maybe, she'll find her way in some fashion as her parents, living Salesian spirituality in their own subtle and intentional manners in the lay world? Regardless, Maggie is blessed, as we all are, to be in any proximity to this sacred monastic space called The Visitation Monastery in North Minneapolis.

LIVE + JESUS!

Melissa Borgmann-Kiemde
Visitation Companion

Breastfeeding Blues: Love and Letting Go

Note: The following contains anatomy-specific-discussion and descriptions of breastfeeding. Perhaps not for all readers.
***

My breasts are in mourning. Actually, almost my whole body is. After weeks of intense discernment regarding my daughter's "milk acquisition skills" I have decided to let go of this desire, this plan to breastfeed; it's a decision that has been nothing short of excruciating to make. I have milk. I have nipples. I have a beloved and brilliant baby girl. But somehow, we cannot make all of these blessed things work together to create a space of nourishment and mutual satisfaction. In fact, it's almost been the opposite: frustration, tears, seeming torture; ultimately resulting in a release of this expectation of myself (and the world?) to feed my child from my body.

Oh. Blessed be.

I sit to type this, and she cries. She knows the sorrow as well.

It's a tradeoff we have to make. Sanity, calm, a bit of the known, vs. insanity, anxiety, and a complete rollercoaster ride of daily, hourly emotions. In the end, it's not that hard to choose this route, but Good God, have the past 28 days been DIFFICULT!

My milk didn't come in initially. Not unlike many women who have c-sections, I waited six days after Marguerite's birth before I found myself with any fluids that might resemble substantial nourishment coming from my breasts. In those first days after her birth, we waited. I admit: I doubted a bit. I watched as my little girl lost more than ten percent of her body weight. I feared. We both cried. (Me, probably a lot more than she.) My husband stood by, as calmly and positively as possible, with his commitment to us both. The blessing and brilliance of Maggie's first week with us was that her dad might be a main provider of nutrition via this "SNS" method: whereby a small tube was taped to his finger, and our little girl sucked formula from the tip of his middle digit. (This was in lieu of a bottle, which we were trying to avoid for the sheer fact of "nipple confusion.")

But alas! Another detail that gave us a challenge, besides my lack-luster-milk-producing-breasts, was the fact that I had relatively flat nipples. Introduced by the lactation expert in the hospital as a solution to said "flat nipples" was a brilliant invention known as a "nipple shield." Cone-shaped silicone with a wide brim around the protruding false nipple, it was something I came to refer to as a "Mexican hat." All that lead up to its use, I affectionately referred to as the "Mexican Hat dance." Oh, blessed be!

The nipple shield was nothing short of a gift and curse to my nursing experience. I constantly wondered if my daughter would authentically latch on this man-made device. After a week of the SNS method, delivered solely by Daddy Francois, we resorted to introducing a bottle, as Baby Marguerite was still not quite getting the taste or sense of the silicone nipple without any milk coming through it. For nourishment's sake, sanity's sake, our collective well-being, a home-health care worker and lactation specialist advised on day 6 of Maggie's life to introduce a bottle to her. "Play around with bottle nipples," she said, "and continue to provide the breast to her as an option."

We followed the lactation consultant's advice, encouraged that our brilliant baby took quickly to a third form of nutrition via a "Nuk" nippled bottle, and hopeful that my milk would eventually sustain her via the old fashioned delivery method.

But enter CONFUSION! Enter frustration! Enter torture! As my "duct work" took its time, never fully flooding my breasts with the "milk and honey" promise land that I had believed would be undeniable for her. While Marguerite slowly gained her birth weight back by formula and pumped breast milk, we attempted to follow our lactation consultant's advice at each feeding.
Eight to fourteen times a day during the next two weeks, I would:

1. Acknowledge my baby girl's hunger cues.
2. Express milk from my nipple.
2. Introduce my bare nipple.
3. If baby didn't latch to bare nipple, I would introduce nipple-sheilded nipple.
4. If she still didn't latch, I would introduce Nuk-Nipple bottle with milk. I would get her to start sucking.
5. After a short period of satisfying suckling, I would remove the nuk-nippled bottle from her mouth, holding the silicone nipple shield carefully in place, and slip this into her mouth for her to continue suckling. (In the meantime: I'd pray that she remained calm, didn't scream, didn't feel like I was constantly tricking her or that I was destroying my chances to ever truly get my baby girl to trust me.)
6. If she still didn't latch, then I'd just give her the bottle and feed her until she was satisfied. (Register time here for these six steps: Anywhere from twenty five minutes to an hour and half.)
7. Then I would pump if she hadn't fed directly from me, so I would have something for her next meal, and continue to produce milk for when she did latch to my nipple shield and or hopefully, eventually, nipple. (Because she was going to latch eventually, right?!)


It just got to be too much. One in every seven feedings, the "Mexican Hat dance switcheroo" worked, and Maggie latched onto the nipple shield. When this happened, all was right in the world. World peace was possible. Maggie and I came up with solutions to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. We had dreams about the West Bank and Gaza Strip that included white doves and fully honored people of all nations and races and religions and creeds. We were happy and calm and felt aligned with all that was right in the Universe.

When it didn't work, we both cried. I felt worse, like I was a failed mom and teacher, and that I was slowly, but surely, destroying any and all trust that I might have built with my new born daughter, as I tricked her with these inconsistent, alternating methods of possible milk acquisition.

The hope and promise of latching could have killed me. I'm telling you, it was so amazing when it did occur! Marguerite's brilliant little face nuzzled next to my skin, her red lips pursed around my own body part, and her tiny cheeks and throat working to reveal her slurping and swallowing. She was being fed! I was at the source of her satisfaction! We were doing as God and Nature intended!

But when it didn't work, every six of seven attempts, there were voices re-enforcing the tiny failed fact of my body and ability learned during labor: not all things I hope for and desire naturally are possible. (As my cervix had failed to ever dilate so that I might deliver my daughter from my body vaginally, perhaps my ability to breast feed was going the same way?) Undoing these voices of doubt takes a lot of work! Especially when reason and data proves that your hope may be false. As a woman of faith, I work in these small margins of possibility; I longed with all of my being to continue trying to breastfeed! However as a woman of practicality -- and a deep need for sleep -- I had to weigh reality and options for my daughter and I to move forward both as happy humans.

In the end, it was weighing Marguerite's need to master three different nipple skills that completed my discernment around breastfeeding: In order to feel successful and for this endeavor to be sustainable, Ms. Maggie would need to be able to move from latching on a Nuk nipple every time to a nipple-shielded nipple to my bare nipple. The sheer fact that I couldn't get a 100% success on a shift to the nipple shield from the bottle, was staggering. Facing my daughter's screams and outpouring rage and frustration as she watched me pull a working bottle from her mouth to insert a siliconed nipple, on 90% of these attempts, was enough to secure my decision. Yes, I wanted to breast feed -- but did she?

In the quietest of spaces, when I took this and other prayerful, beseeching questions to God, I heard one thing resoundingly:
There are many ways to nourish your daughter Melissa. Your food will not be literal, but something that shall sustain her in another life-long way.

I must trust this. Maggie and I join the ranks of children and their moms who provide nourishment via bottles. We are choosing happiness, finding it as we experience calm and hope in the spaces of other possible tasks and goals we will eventually conquer.

She is being fed. I am in love and finding lessons in letting go.

Marguerite Marie Kiemde's Welcome to the World

Friends, Loved Ones:
On Saturday, May 22, 2010, at 2:05pm, Francois, Gabby and I welcomed Marguerite Marie Kiemde to our family. The following are photos from her first few weeks with us. We share these with incredible joy for her arrival and presence among our burgeoning clan. Our hearts burst daily with love for this little one. We feel so lucky to welcome her, and to have such a community of faith and support to likewise embrace us all. Merci! Merci beaucoup!
Enjoy the photos! Post a comment! Stay tuned for more!
In love and creation contemplation,
Melissa Borgmann-Kiemde

She's here!
Introducing Maggie to her Grandma Borgmann, who shares the same blessed birthday:
May 22nd!

Meeting Grandpa and Grandma Borgmann
Marguerite would not be here without the support of Doula Colette DeHarpporte

HELLO WORLD!

With Auntie Jody Tigges

Olga Nichols arriving to feed us and swoon over Baby K

Cousins Izzy and Sylvia make Mag's acquaintance

Doll introductions are in order!

The Borgmann-Johnson-Kiemde's convene over Memorial Day weekend

Auntie Toni comes for a squeeze

Introducing Geert to Marguerite. "Touch nicely." lol

Melissa and Marguerite...Who looks sleepy? :-)

Sr. Jill Underdahl makes our girl's acquaintance

Auntie Ann in the house!

Sister Joy on food detail for Mom and Dad. We love the dishes!

Word.

A favorite position for these two loves in my life!

What I see when I look down...

Patio Club Pal, Cynthia stops by...

bringing her daugher Iris, born just six weeks before Maggie...
They are sure to be pals! :-)

Our first family outing to church: The Visitation Sister's 400th Anniversary Mass
(Photo courtesy of Brian Mogren)

Introducing Marguerite Marie to Vis Sister (and Melissa's longtime spiritual director):
Sr. Mary Margaret!