September, 2007

Dear Friends in Christ,

How do we raise our kids?

What do parents strive for in home life? I think they want their kids to be emotionally healthy. They want them to be able to live independent lives. They want them to have healthy relationships. They want them to be aware enough of their own emotional stuff, to be functioning healthy adults out on their own someday. I trust, for instance, that if children had psychological problems their parents would do their level best to find help for them.

Do we parents, when our kids are younger, keep them from climbing trees and playing next to swollen flood channels? When they’re older do we keep them off the streets at night? Are we careful about who they hang around with? We’re convinced that they need to develop socially, … but with supervision.

Do we try to make them eat the right things, get exercise, … go to bed on time? Do parents care about their children’s physical development? Certainly.

Do we care if our kids get an education? What does school prepare our children for? We hope that through education their intellectual abilities are developed to the point where they can think their way through problems, thereby avoiding the grief of major mistakes in life. We hope their development helps them find life-long fulfilling careers. We hope their intellect is nurtured to the point that they can feel successful in life out in the world. I think all parents hope for these things for their children. Judging from the importance placed on education (and excelling at it) by the modern suburban parent, it would seem that way.

If humans truly are an interwoven combination of mind body and spirit. What do parents strive for as it relates to spiritual development? Do they feel responsible for such things? Some parents say, “Don’t expose them to things now that will stifle their religious freedom later. Let them make up their minds when they get older.” My experience as it relates to that, is that when kids receive no spiritual instruction as children, they are actually unable to make up their minds as adults. Why? Because they have no basis for comparison. When you ask someone if they prefer classical music to hip-hop, if they’ve never been exposed to classical music, they will always take the hip-hop. How many parents would like it if their children were never exposed to classical music?

Why is it that we don’t think Sunday School and God’s Gang are important enough to make our kids attend? I hope it isn’t because there are no grades for Sunday School (grades that can compare to the other kids’ grades).

The truth is that there is a grade for Sunday School. The grade is received when the child is an adult, so it’s hard to compare with the other kids’ grades. The grade is on the ACG Scale (Adult Coping Grade Scale). Adult life changes everything. We’re out on our own trying to build a life … and the setbacks just happen. No matter how much we protect our children when they’re young, the setbacks are going to come when they are adults. What gives them the strength to cope with this stuff? Emotional strength? Yes! Intellectual capability to think and solve problems? Absolutely! Physical well being? Yes, again!

These are all good adult coping mechanisms. But there are times when the worldly stuff doesn’t work any more. There are times when it seems as if all our worldly resources have run out and the stress and pressure are so bad they’re just … out of this world! Everything is caving in around us and we feel as if there is not one earthly place to go. This is when the spiritual strength you nurtured in your kids either … makes the grade … or it doesn’t. They will either have the coping skills given to them by their relationship with God … or they won’t.

We want our kids to get good grades. What kind of grades are we satisfied with as parents? Maybe it doesn’t appear if we’re being graded, but there will be a time when we are.

Sunday School is beginning soon. Registration is on September 9^th. Sunday School then begins on 16^th. This year Sunday School starts at 10:00 A.M. so we don’t have the “it takes too much time” excuse any more. There is Sunday School available for kids from age 2 to 18, so we can’t say our child has no class to attend.

All kids won’t be in church until 10:45 when we pass the peace, so even you can have a quiet worship experience. And … the kids won’t learn to hate church because they have to be so still and quiet for so long.

I pray that all the parents at St. Francis look way into the future when deciding whether or not the kids need to be in Sunday School.

In Christ’s service,

Fr. Steve