Faith, Family, & Focaccia

A faith and culture Mommy blog, because real life gets all mixed together like that.

Author Archives: Serena Gideon Rice


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The Wind on the Water

Princess Imagination has fallen in love with the Wind.

Consorting with the Wind

It was inevitable that she would have some type of emotional reaction to the movement of the air on this starkly beautiful Cycladic isle. It was inevitable because the wind here is an omnipresent character of the island. Its voice and touch are inescapable the moment you step outside, and they make themselves known with resounding booms and eddying curtains even in the refuge of our villa. It was inevitable also because Princess Imagination encounters each day as an opportunity for observation and interpretation of the world around her. She studies objects and forces that the rest of us take for granted, and she ascribes to them explanations, emotions, and sometimes even analytical reasoning.

And so, she encountered the powerful breath of the island of Tinos and she fell in love. I know this because, being myself a paramour of the wind, I can recognize the symptoms: stopping short, with eyes closed, to let the caress of the air explore her hair, her face, her form; breathing in deep gulps of its invigorating oxygen; wanting its voice to echo in her mind to blow away all transient thoughts and cares. On our second day here she extended to me a precious invitation: “Mommy, come and listen to the wind with me.” It was a golden moment out of time. We sat on the porch, a little apart at her instruction, and silently gloried in the song and breath of the island. She is only 5 years old, and so the moment was soon over. She was off to romp and explore (and squabble) with the Gigglemonster. But that golden moment has taken up residence in my awareness. In those few minutes I was drawn back into my long-time love affair with the wind, but more importantly I was drawn into a new spiritual understanding. As I soaked in the sound and feeling of the wind and watched my daughter’s enraptured face, without even thinking I began to pray for her. I prayed for her present, and her future, and the life she has to give to this world. I prayed for blessings, and for the grace to make the good choices that would fulfill all the promise in her. In that prayer I felt the wind enfolding me, and breathing in my petitions. Unbidden, a verse from the creation story in the first chapter of Genesis came to me. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (Genesis 1:2; New International Version)

I have heard or read this verse hundreds of times, but the image of the hovering Spirit suddenly awoke in me with incarnated significance. You see, the Hebrew word translated in English as Spirit is Ruach. It is used frequently in scripture to refer to God’s Spirit, but it also means wind or breath. As I sat in the embrace of a powerful wind, and prayed with all a mother’s longing for her child, I felt God’s longing for creation.

In the days since, as a have looked out my window at the whitecaps freckeling the surface of the waters, the image of God’s Spirit hovering over the waters keeps resurfacing. I can sense the powerful presence of God’s Ruach (Spirit/wind/breath) hovering over the unformed world and breathing it into existence. I feel such hope, and joy, and blessing. To bring all of creation out of a formless emptiness far surpasses a human mother’s effort in procreation, and yet I can glimpse the echo of God’s will to bless creation in my overwhelming burst of desire to see my daughter’s life blossom. I can also sense, remotely but poignantly, the pain of lost potential: the grieving for a child, a world, a universe that has missed out on a portion of its intended blessing — the price of choosing its own way. That is my greatest fear for my own children, which drives me to my knees in petition for their future as the wind moans its song of pain. Ruach is a feminine word, and it is used as a feminine name for God. In that moment of windswept prayer, I believe I encountered the mother’s heart of God. The wind spoke to me, and continues to speak in alternating gusts and breezes, of overpowering love, and of gentle nurturing. Then, just as I relax in the luxurious support of that living breath, the wind whips past me and nearly knocks me off my feet. God’s Spirit is love, but that love is not tame. I cannot control the wind, for I am a part of the creation. I am God’s great delight, but I also sometimes push against God’s will for me, just as I sometimes fight the wind. And so, the wind speaks back to me now the prayer that I prayed for my daughter: for her present, her future, the life she has to give to the world. Only it is not only my prayer for her. It is also the Spirit’s invitation for me: for my present, my future, the life I have to give to the world. It speaks of willed blessing and feared pain. I am a daughter as well as a mother. The Spirit that birthed me breathed into me life: the potential to choose my own way. God will not control me, just as I know that I must not try to control my own daughter. But God wills me the blessings that flow from living the life I was created to live. And so, my prayer is now not just for Princess Imagination that she will live the life she was created for. It is also for me.

Ruach, hear my prayer.

The wind blows the kids across the pool!

The wind loves Alaina's hair too, although it tangles it beyond belief!

Despite loving the wind, Princess Imagination doesn’t like hair in her mouth.

The wind blowing the water out of the pool.

The wind played havoc with our hair when we tried to take family photos


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Edifying Attire

I cooked dinner last night in my bikini.

Those of you who know me well understand just how strange that is. Even before Princess Imagination and the Gigglemonster reshaped my physique, I have never been what anyone would call an exhibitionist. For example, consider my wedding dress. I ordered an empire-waisted, spaghetti-strap gown with what I expected to be a very modest neckline. Unfortunately, the sales woman had taken some artistic liberties when she had pinned up the size 12 showroom dress on my then size 4 figure. When the real dress arrived I had a minor panic attack. It took my wonderful mother-in-law quite a while to convince me that a centimeter or two of cleavage was not inappropriate on a bride. Even at 23, when youth gave me something to flaunt, I was not so inclined.

Now in my mid-thirties, having born and nursed two children, I am even less inclined to don anything skimpy. I will wear swimwear at the pool, or the beach, but you can be sure I will put on a cover-up if I am not in the water or soaking up the limited sun my cancer-consciousness allows me. I’m just more comfortable fully clothed.

So what happened to my natural modesty last night? In part, I think it was the glorious lethargy that seems to have descended on my entire family the moment we disembarked on the beautiful Greek island of Tinos. The only thing that seems to move with any power in this little pocket of the Mediterranean is the enveloping wind, which alternates between caressing breezes and booming gusts that blow every thought of hurry or stress from my mind. When I returned to the villa from the pool last evening, it just seemed like more trouble than it was worth to walk downstairs to the bedroom and change clothes. Far easier just to hang my wet pareo on a chair on the patio on my way to the kitchen to start dicing chicken.

However, I do not believe that laziness can entirely account for my untraditional cooking attire. Rather, I think I am beginning to fall under the sway of Southern Europe’s casual attitude toward the human body. Bare skin is much more ubiquitous in Italy and Greece than it is in the US. Holding extended conversations in the nude is fairly commonplace in gym locker rooms (or so I hear from my expat friends who actually go to the gym). Italian parents often don’t start to worry about being nude in front of their opposite sex children until those children approach puberty. About half of the swim suits for girls up to the ages of 9 or 10 come with only bikini bottoms, and many girls who would be in training bras in the States are still topless at family beaches. Even the English school my 5-year-old daughter attends has all the children change clothes in the same room for their swim lessons. My American prejudices about modesty and decorum are definitely out-of-place in this context.

Of course, the Greco-Roman tradition of idealized beauty is part of all this casual immodesty. Physical perfection can best be demonstrated when un-shrouded, and the summer heat gives all of Milan’s models ample opportunity to display their perfection. Moreover, the modern adage that “sex sells” holds perhaps even more sway here in the Mediterranean. All you have to do is look at the window displays of any corner Farmacia in Milan to recognize that what passes for standard advertising in Italy would be pushing the borders of soft porn in the States. A few strategically placed rose petals do anything but conceal an impossibly airbrushed ideal to the women of Milan in an effort to sell us one particular cellulite cream (my fellow expats will know which one I mean).

Exposure to so much perfect, smooth skin hasn’t exactly moderated my self-consciousness, and I reserve the right to rail against the preponderance of perfect size 2, 40-something mothers in future blog posts. However, last night has given me some hope that my subconscious is also responding to all of the imperfect bodies on display in Southern Europe. Because imperfect bodies are not hidden here. The first time I saw a pair of 60-something grandmothers sunbathing in bikinis on a park bench I couldn’t help giggling. It just seemed so bizarre. But apparently this is not bizarre in the sun-worshipping culture of Italy. Despite a heritage of the Greco-Roman ideal and a present in the seemingly anorexic fashion world, in Italy you don’t have to be perfect to show your skin. If the summer heat makes gauzy fabrics ideal, then wear them; and don’t feel compelled to wear foundation garments that counteract their breezy benefit. If you enjoy the kiss of the sun on your stomach, then put on that bikini and bring on the solar smooches; cellulite and c-section scars be damned. Physical beauty might be celebrated here, but it is not mandated. Italians, and apparently Greeks as well, are not only more comfortable with skin than I am. They are also more comfortable in their own skin, whatever its texture.  I have a way to go before I can really claim to be Italianized in my approach to casual nudity, but at least my reaction to it is changing. What was initially shock is gradually moving toward a cautious respect. Mediterranean culture cannot claim a perfect relationship to the human body, but it does have much to teach me.