Capacity for the Holy

Why are Christians failing to pass-on the Faith even to our own children?

The value of one generation sharing the story of God with the next is one of the highest in scripture.  But we don’t do this well. 

I think one of the reasons we often strike out here is that we fail to appreciate our children’s capacity for spiritual insight.   We dumb down spiritual mystery so dramatically that our stories lose their capacity to captivate. 

Of course kids are bored with the peas-and-carrots gospel we’ve spoon-fed them from cute, 4-ounce jars. 

They can handle so much more than this.  In fact, they’re starving for more.

Recently my 11-year-old daughter composed this poem.   Reading it was a wake-up call for this dad to hear the longing and recognize the capacity for the holy in children. 

Words

Words

So powerful

So strong

Set me free

To just be me

I stare at the

Blank Page

With determination

Wanting to prove

It wrong

Words flood

The page

The Emptiness

Is gone

I can tell the page

Tell God,

What I want

With no one to hold me back

Words