One day last July I walked into the transitional living home where I was co-facilitating a support group. To my delight, the baby we had all been waiting on, had arrived. I got to hold him, light as a feather. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of him and I whispered, “You are so precious.”
There’s something unmistakably spiritual about looking into the face of a newborn baby. The experience raises unfathomable questions that we’ll never fully know the answers to– questions of God, eternity and our place in the universe.
Doctors and researchers have examined how babies develop physically, marking milestones such as lifting their own heads, learning to crawl, learning to walk. Linguists and education experts have studied their intellectual development: object permanence, language processing, how they recognize different people. Parenting and behavioral specialists have researched how young children attach to caregivers, recognize social cues, and learn self-soothing skills. As a result, we’ve learned a lot about how babies and young children develop physically, emotionally, and intellectually.
Yet ultimately, caregivers know ways in which infancy and childhood can be seen through a spiritual lens but we don’t talk with each other about them. Why do you suppose that is?
My hope is that this blog will provide a unique window how a child’s spiritual needs are met and become a place to talk openly about it.