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Barbara Mahany writes, "Mothering was my crash course in love. Love of the sort I call Divine. Love in the way we yearn to be loved: Without end. Without question. Without giving in to exhaustion. Love with a big and boundless heart. Love with eyes and ears - and soul - wide open. Love even when it's not so easy." In Motherprayer, Mahany generously shares personal love letters on the mysteries and gifts of mothering, interspersed with family recipes and gentle essays, all offering beautiful lessons in how to love, and how to love well. In her bracingly honest style, she captures the ephemeral moments of motherhood - the hard, the glorious, the laughter, and the tears - and invites readers to pay attention, cradle our loved ones in prayer, and see the sacred lessons in loving.



About the Author

Barbara Mahany

Barbara Mahany is an author and freelance journalist in Chicago, who writes these days about stumbling on the sacred amid the cacophony of the modern-day domestic melee. She was a reporter and feature writer at the Chicago Tribune for nearly 30 years, and before that a pediatric oncology nurse at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Her first book, "Slowing Time: Seeing the Sacred Outside Your Kitchen Door," has been called "a field guide into the depths of your holiest hours;" Publishers Weekly named it one of their Top 10 religion books for Fall 2014. She has since written four other books, including "The Stillness of Winter: Sacred Blessings of the Season" (October 2020) , a compendium of meditations, essays, recipes, and prayers rooted in the depths of winter's months, from Abingdon Press. Her newest book, "The Book of Nature: The Astonishing Beauties of God's First Sacred Text," will be published in March 2023, from Broadleaf Books. It explores an ancient theology, the Book of Nature, a metaphorical construct flatly stating that God is revealed through all of creation. It's a book about seeing, and a book about reading. And It weaves threads from all religions, drawing especially from ancient Celtic and Jewish traditions where the natural world is the lins through which the sacred is perceived and illuminated.In her second book, "Motherprayer: Lessons in Loving" (April 2017) , Mahany turned her attention to the sacred mysteries of mothering. Publishers Weekly gave "Motherprayer" a starred review, writing: "[Mahany] beautifully captures how mothering - loving deeply day in and day out, even when stretched to emotional and physical limits - can itself be sacramental." And her third book, "The Blessings of Motherprayer: Sacred Whispers of Mothering" (April 2018) , is a distillation of "Motherprayer" and "Slowing Time," and weaves in new essays, meditations, and blessings, all unfolding across the year. Mahany is married to Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic, Blair Kamin, (formerly with the Chicago Tribune) , and together they've raised their two sons in both their Catholic and Jewish traditions and faiths. Their older son, Will, graduated from Yale Law School in May 2020, and their younger son, Teddy, is studying at Kenyon College.



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