Spiritual trust: Understand that you really can make a difference

Jul 7, 2014 | trust

If we work on the assumption that spirituality already exists inside every child, the impact we have on children even in the earliest stages of their development makes such a difference.

Many years ago I was told the story of a baby.

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This baby was born to a mother addicted to crack cocaine.The little boy was born with an intense craving for the drug, and quickly went into withdrawal. He was inconsolable, crying and arching his back in pain. His mother was not available to him, as she was going through her own withdrawal.

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A group of friends decided to take turns holding that little baby in two hour shifts around the clock. Even as he cried and felt pain, arms were always around him. Even when it looked to those holding him that their arms were having no soothing effect, they still held him. After what seemed like an eternity, all the drugs were out of his system and he was at peace… lying in the loving arms of his caregiver.

What difference do you imagine that made to the baby boy?

What did he learn about God even through unfair circumstances? How did his experiences shape him– even experiences he wouldn’t later be able to remember?

[Originally posted in January 2014.]

 

Teach children the words they really need to know

Apr 21, 2014 | Uncategorized

I have been interviewing adults about their childhood spiritual experiences for four years now, and here’s one important observation I’ve made: As children, they didn’t have the vocabulary to express how they were processing spirituality and God. As adults, they look back and try to put words to their experiences and thoughts, but when they were children they had difficulty. Consider this quote from one man I interviewed:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA“I remember I was four or five years old and feeding white ducks bread crumbs from the top of a playground slide. It seemed very wonderful to me for some reason and I dreamed about it and I can still see myself doing it. My thoughts couldn’t have been very abstract or sophisticated or articulated in any vocabulary I had at the time, but I felt I was in the presence of something greater than myself, in a world beyond the surface world where I was tossing down food onto the white ducks and feeling very whole, free, peaceful.”

That it, isn’t it? Children can’t articulate in the vocabulary they have at the time.

We can help children build a spiritual vocabulary, using the same methods we did when we taught them basic vocabulary words. When they learned animal names, we had picture books of animals, “Where’s the bird? What does the bird say?” And when we went outdoors, “See the bird? Hear the bird?“

32216_3319children's litUse children’s literature in the same way. It’s packed with stories about the human spirit developing and prevailing.  When you read to children, emphasize and repeat age-appropriate spiritual vocabulary words such as right, wrong, conscience, character, wise, forgive, as these concepts come up in the book. Use these vocabulary words in normal everyday conversations. As children get older, you can move on to words like mindful, ethics, purpose, presence, worship, spirit, soul, self and reason.

When they know words like these, they’ll be equipped with a vocabulary to express themselves as they begin to work out the complexities of life.  With no need to bottle it up inside, they will talk freely and listen to others, thus understanding how normal and widespread is the spiritual dimension of life.

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