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Children have a unique spirituality all their own. It’s a spirituality of discovery, wonder and amazement, full of questions and no boundaries. Developmentally, they tend to think concretely very early on in simplistic terms. There is a bridge between the natural and supernatural, the latter which many adults have ceased to believe in or wonder about. Later, as their reasoning develops, children question and come up with unique and wonderful ideas and interpretations.
The questions continue as they receive enculturation, training in their faith traditions and practices leading to things like baptism, first communion, confirmation, bat or bar mitzvah, and other coming of age ceremonies.
In a 2nd grade class, children laboriously wrote letters to the pastor with questions about God. A bright boy said he wanted to know why God did not answer prayer and how he could allow bad things to happen. 'Where was he anyway?' This was pretty deep for a child and it made the pastor laugh that entire books have been written in deep theological speak about this very subject. Who can truly answer these questions? A little girl named 'Grace' adopted from China said she thought perhaps God was sad. When asked why, she said, 'Because of the way the people behave and how they act like they don't even care.' One could come from any faith tradition-or not and find this touching.
Sometimes children juxtapose images from popular media with their own mental representations of God. This isn't restricted to kids. (Mel Gibson's Jesus takes his punishment and abuse much like Braveheart.) In one of the miracle stories where Jesus and the disciples are in a boat and a storm arises, kindergartners drew fierce and furious storm scenes with vivid crayon colors and harsh scribbles. The teacher explained that sometimes 'storm' is an analogy for hard times in life and asked the kids to name examples of storms. They said: 'My dad lost his job'. 'My cat died'. 'Grandma is very sick. She has cancer.' Asked to paste their boats in the pictures, one animated boy picked up his drawing with a flourish, the boat upside down on the bottom of a hellish scene, 'He'll never get out of this alive, not even if he's a Power Ranger or Superman!' The teacher came back later with a pocket full of radiant little Christ figures, arms outstretched to calm the storm and pasted one on each picture in a symbolic representation that we are never alone or without a spiritual life-line.
The bereaved father of two young boys who had suddenly died in a car accident sat with his pastor processing what had happened, and special memories of his sons. His wife produced their notebooks from a discipleship class. The very programmed lesson plan had asked, 'How do you tell an unbeliever about God?' The young son had carefully written: 'Well, first, I would make him my friend. Then I would share my toys with him. If he was hungre we would get sum food to eat.' For the child, it was really all very simple. No elaborate doctrines, but relationship, sharing and caring. A friend was visiting her dying mother in the nursing home who had had a stroke, with her 4-year old in tow. This was a difficult time and she wondered awkwardly what to say and how to respond as her eyes filled with tears. The child simply climbed onto the bed, flung her arms around the neck of the elderly woman, kissed the grandmother and said, 'Its going to be okay little granny. God is here already and he loves you.'
Increasingly, children are learning meditation practices and how to still their minds, which improves concentration, enhances learning and calms them. Prayer for children is very similar to asking Santa Claus for something. Beyond ‘please’, it’s good to learn to say, ‘thank-you’. It is important for them to understand that prayer, like intent has greater meaning. That it is our wish to be in alignment with what is the best outcome in a situation, not necessarily a selfish request. That prayer helps us to acknowledge a sense of the numinous or awesome presence which surrounds us always, in which we find safety and refuge. That we can acknowledge we are always loved. It is always a good thing to give voice to our experience, to put words to what we are thinking and feeling with deliberation that we might find resolution. For a child it might go like this: ‘I'm so scared about the bully at my school.’ ‘Please help me on my test tomorrow.’ ‘Help my dog get better soon.’ ‘Thank you for this great day.’ ’God bless mommy and daddy . . . (long list) followed usually by a stalling technique, ‘Can I have a drink of water?’ . . . ‘But I'm not sleepy . .’ We would all do well to try this very natural, simple approach and get over the long and pompous stuff.
In it’s 5th year of the Tools for Schools Program, one local congregation, All Saints Lutheran in Worthington is teaming up this year with Beth Tikvah Jewish Reformed temple to fill and donate 1000 back packs to Ironton, an economically challenged SE Ohio community in Lawrence County by August 8th. To contribute and/or for more information see: http://www.saintsonhigh.org/
Meditation for this post:
"The fewer the words, the better the prayer." Martin Luther
copyright, 2009, Patricia A. Rodemann
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