Nov 28, 2016 | trust
Affan Abdullah is a Muslim American. He doesn’t celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah. He feels, however, that we can find basic common ground and beliefs, no matter our faith or non-faith.* What is this common ground?
We offer each other holiday wishes, often along these lines:
- A wish that we all will live up to the values the holidays represent, not just talk about them.
- A wish that we will live into the spirit of the season, helping those who need it and sharing with others from whatever we have.
What is the spirit of Christmas?
For children old enough to recognize that difficulties, trouble and disappointments have entered their lives, Christmas offers hope. Tradition records that Jesus described humanity as filled with both the characteristics of God and with self-defeating tendencies. Christmas brings the hope that good will overcome the bad, and Jesus laid out his way of doing that.- The need for community and fellowship. Jan Sutton sees the weeks of festivities and reunions as a way to hold communities together. She points out that there is nothing religious about giving and generosity.*
- Spiritual intensity. Marianne Williamson, herself a non-Christian offer this: “One doesn’t have to be a Christian to appreciate the fact that Jesus is a magnificent spiritual force. Jesus gives to Christmas its spiritual intensity, hidden behind all the… sounds of the season.”
“Because no words are as powerful as our human lives.” (Scott Korb)
We can respect the powerful life of Jesus as a figure of peace and authentic justice….. Jesus as someone who fed the poor and comforted the grieving. Christians remind themselves of the good work Jesus began and of his call to do them to do likewise.
Tweetable: Christmas brings hope to children and all of us that the good will overcome the bad. Click to Tweet
Children need to know there are so many ways spirituality fosters community, not division and strife. Click to Tweet
*USA Today, 12/21/14
Oct 31, 2016 | Attachment
I met Tessa, 21, in a class I taught as part of her drug rehab. What she taught me confirms the benefit of spiritual roots beginning in childhood.
Tessa’s story
Tessa (not her real name) gave me permission to use this letter she wrote as part of her recovery. Notice how she writes about her drug use as a relationship that she could turn to for support, eventually replacing it with her relationship to her higher power.
My dearest friend,
I am writing you to inform you that we can no longer be in each other’s lives. I no longer need you.
At first I loved you because you helped me through some of the most difficult times in my life. You made me feel numb to my reality, like I could do anything. You gave me power. I felt invincible. But then I became dependent to you. I was the puppet and you were my master.
I thought that our relationship was okay for a long time because I was able to function like a normal person, living a double life. Until one day I lost all control of myself and allowed you to move completely into my life and take hold of the wheel that steers my future. I trusted you to get me through the road ahead.
But you deceived me. You drove me into a world of darkness, shame and guilt. You made me do things I would never do, but you were that voice inside my head that made me believe it was okay to break in to cars and houses, and to break the law. You made me a criminal. You no longer made me feel numb. Now all you did was cause me more and more pain, and because you became a huge part of me, I needed you like fish need water.
But now, today, I am strong enough to stand up for myself against you and say that I don’t need you in my life. That I am worthy to have a good life and that I can get through anything without you because I have a loving God. As long as I continue to walk by faith in Him, He will lead me on my path. He will be there to comfort me when life gets emotionally hard.
Tessa is now relying on her relationship with her higher power— God
— to help her when life becomes overwhelming. But consider this: What if she’d had that relationship all along? What if she had a sense of spirituality since childhood and a higher power who is willing to be known? Quite possibly she’d never have turned to heroin at all.
Why not do everything in our power to give children a chance to form some kind of relationship with God?
They can always abandon it later if they find they don’t need it. But if they do—God is there.
Tweetable: Strong spiritual roots in childhood may have spared this young woman from finding love in the wrong place. Click to Tweet
Oct 24, 2016 | Nurture
I teach Life Skills courses at drug treatment centers across L.A. County. Last night I sat across from a woman who asked, “What hope do my children have of avoiding addiction when both their father and I are addicts?” In the first of a two-part blog, I offer my perspective.
Can addiction be prevented?
As I’ve sat with addicts, both in and out of recovery, I’ve spent a lot of time wondering how we could prevent addiction in the first place, and what kinds of broader societal changes might help.
The solution is probably surprising to the general public.
The solution—while not surprising to anyone who has spent time in AA—is probably surprising to the general public: spirituality. You can’t do it on your own. You need to turn to a power greater than yourself.
Put more attention into spiritual development.
Unless we put more time and attention into supporting the spiritual development of young people, Americans will continue to see unhealthy solutions like prescription drug addiction becoming more and more normal for those overwhelmed by life.
Life without God or spirituality seems fine when things are going well.
But when difficulties come and people are at the end of their rope, having depleted their own resources, they will turn to something else. If it’s not a loving God, it may be prescription drugs or heroin.
Spirituality is often an off-limits topic.
Yet investing in the spiritual development of our children is our best hope for preventing— and recovering from— our recent epidemic of painkiller addiction.
Next week, I will share a story from one of my students that prompted me to write on this topic.
Tweetable:
- A surprising solution to the current epidemic of addiction to pain killers and street drugs like heroin. Click to Tweet
- A surprising source of hope for children of addicts/alcoholics. Click to Tweet
Sep 6, 2016 | Nurture
Is performing arts a passion for one of the kids in your life? Here’s an idea that may make sense to them as they continue to develop their spiritual life.
Be God’s understudy.
God’s understudy–learning, listening, practicing so we can stand in for God in the world around us. Say yes to continually learning your part and be ready at a moment’s notice to stand in for God.
What does that look like in daily life?
That might mean protecting someone being bullied at school, helping an elderly neighbor with yard work, or being careful to throw trash away rather than on the ground. It is living out two of the general moral rules we learn:
Amid the diversity and magnificence of nature, we have work to do, and that is to take care of the oceans, of plants and animals, and of people, as we have opportunity.
What similarities do you see to being a theatre understudy?
- Rehearsal does not exist. “You are responsible to know the role whether or not you get to do it on its feet. You have no other option than to live in the moment,” says Broadway understudy Bret Shuford.
- It feels a bit like skydiving. Shuford continues, “Especially the first performance you go on, it’s a rush like nothing you’ve ever experienced. The scariest part is taking the first leap, but remember a beautiful, loving, cast and crew will always be there support you. You will surprise some people at what you’re able to accomplish in the role, and you may even surprise yourself.”
- Imitation is the highest form of flattery–sort of. An understudy has to replicate what the original star is doing, to a degree. “You have to honor the performance of the actor you’re covering,” explains Merwin Foard, who has covered 30 actors in 16 Broadway shows. “You don’t want to mimic… but you want to bring your own version of [the role] to life.”
Challenging things, bad things, happen to the people around us.
Trouble and hardship are part of living. But faith means trusting that the God of heaven and earth loves us, walks with us, and sustains us through troubles. As God’s understudies, we hang in there with other people to make life more bearable, more livable and more joyful.
Tweetable: Our world could use more people who, like theatre understudies, stand in for God, in everyday life. Read more. Click to Tweet
Know any performing arts students who are spiritual? They may like the metaphor of being God’s understudy. Click to Tweet
Aug 29, 2016 | Direction
Young people raised with moral or religious principles and practices typically arrive at adolescence ready to find answers to a questions like “How do I know and experience and be ‘right’ with God? How should that look different for me than it does for my parents?”
After all, the faith they have now cannot be the faith they had when they were 4 or 8 or 10.
Nor will it be their faith when they’re 21 or 48 or 83. Faith is a force that will continue to develop and mature over the course of a lifetime, and sometimes it needs to change in order to continue to invigorate and sustain people as they enter different stages of their own development.
Show them how
So how– now in their teens– can you show the kids in your life how to experience and navigate a relationship with God? Here are some thoughts I have… feel free to adapt them for your own use.
- Explain “relationship” with God as an internal conversation that includes questions, doubts, heart longings/prayers. God is big enough to handle it all.
- Ask them questions… and really listen to their answers.
- Do NOT pretend you have it all together and do NOT pretend you know everything. They will know you are lying.
- Open up to share appropriately (less is more) when you’re going through something that life throws at you and how you experience God in that situation.
- Confirm that a relationship with God is a good idea, even when you don’t know all the answers. Open dialogue is good.
- Invite them to come along with you when you’re doing community service… or just doing something nice for others. Making a meal for someone who just had a baby is a tangible way of showing the love of God. Make that connection.
- Don’t major on the minors. When kids get sidetracked on minor points of doctrine and belief, try to call their attention back to the main points and general principles.
“But I’m not a religious person.”
if you don’t think of yourself as having spiritual awareness, ask trusted family friends whose spiritual life you respect to stand in for you. Meanwhile, communicate positive intent toward God and faith, much like divorced couples who have learned it is best for the children to speak positively of the other parent, though they personally feel quite differently.
The evidence confirms the value of faith to young people.
Studies of religiousness/spirituality have found a positive correlation with an adolescent sense of well-being, positive life attitudes, altruism, resiliency, school success, health and positive identity, as well as a negative correlation with alcohol and drug use, delinquency, depression, excessive risk-taking and early sexual activity.
Their questions are deeper than we think.
“A number of years ago I overheard my then teenage son discussing with his friends the origin of AIDS. Not how AIDS developed…. rather they were arguing why — a deep spiritual question. Was this disease a simple development of nature? A cosmic punishment? Or even a divine opportunity for compassion?
The conversation surprised me,” said Dr. Ken Doka. “I was confounded by the intensity of the debate. I should not have been. We often fail to acknowledge the intense spirituality that underlies adolescence. It’s a spiritual time of development, complete with idealism and questions of identity and meaning.
Tweetable: The faith adolescents have now cannot be the faith they had when they were 4 or 8 or 10. Here’s why. Click to Tweet
