02/07/2024 0 Comments
From the Vicar: Nurturing our Children, Nurturing Ourselves
From the Vicar: Nurturing our Children, Nurturing Ourselves
# From The... - Letters to the Congregation
From the Vicar: Nurturing our Children, Nurturing Ourselves
Dear Ones of St. Columba's,
I have had a wonderful time these past few weeks digging in to my Child Theology and Children's Spirituality books, re-reading through my grad school bibliographies and research on children and childhood. In seminary I had two areas of special emphasis and study - and one of them was Child Theology. Child Theology was, at that time, a relatively new area of inquiry for theologians, following trends at play in sociology, history, and even philosophy that turned academic minds toward the experiences of children. Children are fascinating for lots of reasons, not the least of which is that every adult human has a lived experience of childhood. And yet - children are unique. They are the only population of human beings whose agency in the world is largely controlled by others. Children are the only people it is still legal to hit, and whose rights are often subsumed by the rights of the adults who care for them. The history of children in our world, and of childhood as a category, are sometimes difficult to recover and examine, because children cannot write their own stories and have very little control over their own lives.
And yet Jesus in both Matthew and Mark is depicted as cherishing children and telling his disciples and friends that in order to enter the kingdom of heaven we must become like little children. This is the idea at the center of Child Theology - what if we put children at the center of our circle? What if we looked for ways to center their experiences of God, sought first to nurture their pre-exisiting capacities for wonder, faith, trust, and love and then let ourselves be changed by them? What would be different about our worship, service, relationships and learning if we sought to include children as full members and contributors among us?
Now, friends, this doesn't mean replacing our bishop's committee with third graders or stopping worship for an extended donut time, as some of our youth may advocate. (I mean, once COVID is done we can have the discussion....) But it does mean we approach our children not as problems to solve, or as pre-adults whose worth will manifest when they grow up, or even as perfect angels who can do no wrong in the world. This means we see our children as human - fully fallible and fully wonderful, with unique and important contributions to make, and in need (as we all are) of spiritual nourishment that meets them where they are.
And here's the thing I have learned as I have tried, failed, and gotten better at this approach - when I nourish children, I am also nourished. It turns out the child I once was is still a part of me. The wonder and magic she perceived in the world, the fears that haunted her, the questions about God both simple and profound that she pondered - all of this still lives in me, alongside all the ways I have grown up. When we nurture the children in front of us at St. C's, I believe we are also loving and nurturing the children inside of us, the little ones that all of us may someday become when we enter the Kingdom of God.
with care and gratitude,
Alissa
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