Caryl Menkhus, a recorded minister of NWYM, has pastored at Reedwood Friends and Camas Friends. She is a consultant for Godly Play, and was recently married to Jeff Creswell after being widowed for 20 years.
I add the signature Quaker quote from George Fox to the end of every e-mail I send out: “Walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every one” because I think it matters so much and because it embodies so well what I understand to be the way of Friends. Mike Huber reminded our meeting last Sunday that it doesn’t say, “Walk suspiciously over the world, answering that of inadequacy in everyone.”
My own calling has been to help churches, schools, and adults realize how we live out this admonition from George (and God) as we journey with children through a program called Godly Play. At its heart, Godly Play, like Quakers, believes that God is very present and active in the hearts of children and that they have a deep and profound spirituality. Do we walk cheerfully with our children-; answering, expecting, looking for, and responding to that of God in them? Education has come to increasingly mean a transfer of knowledge, and Christian education has followed that example to mean a transfer of Christian knowledge. I propose that as Friends we believe in and practice a radically different way of being with our children. It is not so much about the transfer of information about God as it is, like our meetings for worship, to provide a place where our children can learn how to listen for and respond to that of God within themselves. And all we can really do for our children is to practice it ourselves.
And while this is about children and their spirituality, it is as much about mature, adult spirituality. Jesus said that if we (adults) want to enter the kingdom of God—just even get our toes in the door—we need to figure out what it means to be a child. He then said very little if anything about what that means. I propose that we need to be with children in that respectful way, believing that they already know so much and seeing what they have to teach us. Maybe that’s what it really means to be born again—to come back to a second naivete.
Jesus also said that the way we welcome God—the way we say yes to God—is to welcome children. Is that not a deep desire within us—to truly welcome God in ourselves and in this world? Do we really believe as Jesus said that whoever welcomes a child welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me? How are we welcoming children? How are we looking to them to teach us about how to enter the kingdom of God?
I believe the church has big work to do in this arena. I wonder if in 50 or 100 years we might look back on children’s spirituality the same way we look back now on the journey that women have had to make. I believe that children have a very important role to play in the spiritual life and health of our meetings. We would do well to ask ourselves regularly if our teaching of children (which we do with such good and noble intentions) is truly from a place of cheerfully answering that of God in them. They are not tomorrow’s leaders, they are today’s children.
Let me suggest that you take a minute and think about characteristics or descriptions of children. Name several. Now consider that possibly those descriptors could very well be the descriptors of mature, adult spirituality. What do you think of this quote: “Biologically, adults produce children, but spiritually children produce adults”?
Maybe the query we are looking at could be seen in a different light: “Are your children teaching you the way of Friends?”
Children are delightfully loud, enthusiastic, and active. Do we really need to teach them about silence? Won’t they grow into it soon enough? That was my only problem with bringing my kids to Quaker meetings, the idea that they should learn silence. They may have 90 years to be quiet. Why focus on silence in their early years where the joyful noise comes so easily?