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Spirituality in Childhood By Rev. Charmaine Braatvedt Sunday 14 October, 2007 Mark 10: 13 – 16. 2 Timothy 1: 1 – 7 The story we told the Super Sunday Club children earlier in the service of the child Bernadette at Lourdes reminds, us that childhood spirituality needs to be taken seriously. Today we are focusing on children as part of our Youthtober celebrations. Many of you are parents or grandparents or Godparents who have a personal interest in children. As a church community all of us have a responsibility to understand and nurture the spirituality of the children who form part of our faith community and so I would like to explore 4 questions with you.
Recently someone tackled Murray and I while we were having coffee after church and challenged us to give a succinct definition of the word spirituality. We fumbled around and eventually came up with a definition we were more or less happy with, however what struck me was that the word is like a big beach umbrella encompassing a number of thoughts, ideas and understandings. In this sense, Spirituality is a word much like the word love in that it is used loosely to describe a number of things concerning the human condition. One often hears the phrase especially at funerals that so and so was not a church goer but was nonetheless a very spiritual person. The word is used to mean anything from referring to matters which concern the non-physical world, to being in touch with the ‘real you’ or being a really nice person! The dictionary is helpful in narrowing down the meaning of the word when it describes spirituality as being
So where do children fit into this understanding of spirituality? Historically adults have had a rather pessimistic expectation of children’s spirituality. Adults seem to have had a low expectation of the relationship children are able to have with God. On those occasions when children do articulate great spiritual insights we find ourselves judging their expressions as exceptional rather than normative. It is perplexing that this is our response, because as we have seen in the Gospel reading for today Jesus does not share this view. Jesus leaves us in no doubt that he believes that the spirituality of a child is at least as well grounded in Gospel truths as that of an adult and in fact he goes on to be even more provocative by saying that they are even more spiritually grounded than many adults are. “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it”. Verse 16 Our learning from Jesus’ affirmation of the children is that they are not only capable of their own spiritual experiences and knowing but in fact childhood is a natural sanctuary for the spiritual qualities for which adults must constantly struggle. From our own experience of children we can pick that these qualities would include
I believe that it is with all this in mind that Jesus makes the bold statement that the kingdom of God belongs to those who are like children in their spirituality. I am reminded here of a story which sums up what I mean. A little girl was asked why she went to the Lord’s Table for communion. She replied without a moment’s hesitation “to say hi to Jesus!” How naive and yet how profound! Prior to the 1980’s there was not much work done on childhood spirituality but since then much multidisciplinary research has been done in this area and the evidence emerging from this work shows that Jesus is right believe it or not, children very definitely have a highly refined spirituality. But in order to understand childhood spirituality we need to move from an intellectual framework of understanding, which is language based, to an empirically or experience based framework based on the observing children’s religious responses. Children do not always have the language to articulate their spirituality, but that does not mean they do not have an acute spirituality eg Simon fixing his bike. So we need to interpret and observe childhood spirituality on children’s own terms.
How then does the Epistle reading where Timothy’s mother and grandmother are commended for passing on to Timothy the Gospel of Christ fit into this picture? Clearly there is a profound way in which the church and the adult world can and must serve the spiritual needs of children. The question is: what is the best way to do this? How can we nurture the spirituality of our children without stifling it? Should we do more to make our services child friendly? Should we simplify the messages to make them more palatable? Should we keep them from church until they are old enough to enjoy what we do in church? Will all this help nurture their spirituality? Research suggests that when we approach childhood spirituality from this angle we are making a dreadful mistake. It is not what we do but rather the attitude we have and the understanding we have of childhood spirituality that makes the difference. Rebecca Nye who led this research with David Hay writes a stinging warning to churches: “Child friendly approaches to church are seldom motivated by considerations of the child’s capacity for meaningful spiritual experience , but rather are concessions to the Christian politics of inclusion or concessions to the assumption that children need entertainment; distraction and physical activity. Actually, hallmarks identified by current scholarship suggest that children’s spiritual potential is best evoked in intimate, sacred spaces during freely chosen creative thought and play. Silence or stillness, moods of deep joy, wonder and fascination with mystery greatly enhance their experience of the spiritual. This means that children may be least well served by much of what s on offer in so-called contemporary child-friendly church practices.” Another researcher in this area is Bakke who writes “More recently children’s ministers have begun to emulate contemporary media in order to attract children to their church’s programs. It would seem that the leadership now realizes that a wow filled programme for children is an effective way to entice parents to attend, often resulting in rapid church growth. All too often, this is an uncritical adoption of current cultural practices with children. It makes one wonder if seeking what is best for children has been abandoned for the sake of what children seem to want”. The truth is that Childhood spirituality is less about knowledge and more about knowing. It is less about accumulating information on doctrine and more about personal experiences and a way of being. Jesus teaches us in the Gospel reading for today the truth that children are more than creatures that will potentially become whole adults. Rather they are whole persons as children. As they should be valued for who they are not just for what they will become. They are more than mere bodies and brains that need to be educated; they are deeply spiritual, both in their daily lives as well as in those moments of connectedness to God. So, our task as parents and educators and as Church, is to keep the connection that already exists between the child and God, alive and strengthened. By the way, that would include our own personal childhood connection with God as well as the connections that the children around us have with God. Seen in this way there are a few traps we must be careful to avoid as we endeavour to familiarise our children with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 1. While Christian knowledge is an important and necessary framework within which faith grows, we have to be careful not to try to replace facilitating and acknowledging their experience of God with teaching them about God. Both are needed 2.Spiritual awareness cannot be taught. It is part of the biological inheritance that makes us human. We need perhaps to spend at least as much time helping children experience God as we do teaching them about God. By this I mean we need to evoke, to call forth that awareness from each individual child and help them reflect on this awareness in the light of what Christ has to offer them. As Christian parents, guardians and educators we need to ask ourselves how can I call forth my child’s spirituality and help to contextualise it in what I know about God and the love of Jesus? We need to hand on the faith of Jesus Christ to our children as Timothy’s mother and grandmother did but not just in terms of content but also in terms of experience. So we need to spend quality time with our children observing our children and listening to them. We must watch closely to see what evokes wonder and awe in them. We must listen carefully to their attempts to speak of things for which he or she may not yet have words and then when they ask, then it is time to teach. Children need to know God, to experience God, before or at least at the same time as learning about God. Narrative is a powerful way to teach young children. It is often better to simply tell the Biblical stories and to allow the wisdom that dwells in the story world to water the seeds of faith in our children rather than to preach doctrine at them. Most importantly though there are two guiding principles that should inform our attempts to nurture our children’s spirituality:
To do this we need to ensure that we give our children time. Many of us fall into the trap of making our children’s lives as busy as our own filling up their calendars with frenetic activities and no time for reflection. We need time and quality time at that if we are to explore spirituality with our children and we need to allow them to lead us even as we seek to nurture them. Finally our greatest gift to our children’s spirituality and indeed to our own as well is prayer.
”Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them for the kingdom of God belongs to such a these.” |
