Preventing Erosion

I am continually amazed at the common sense of children. Yesterday, in a discussion about wants and needs with the children at Daily Bread Cooking Camp, one soon-to-be fifth grader rolled her eyes and said, "It's like a mansion. Everybody wants one but nobody needs one." Out of the mouths of babes. . .

There was also a decision at camp about who got to go first for a specific activity. I turned it over to the kids who had lively discussions within their groups of four and ultimately chose, without tears or counselor intervention, who would go and who would wait. They could do this because they trusted they would get their turn.

I sometimes made my kids choose their own punishments. My girls were almost always harder on themselves than I would have been. They didn't like having to choose their own consequences, but when faced with the challenge usually judged themselves quite fairly.

At some point human beings learn to rationalize. Once that happens, the innate fairness, trust, and honesty that kids have starts to erode. Erosion is a character issue. It's also a "natural" issue. Consider soil erosion; left unprotected soil will wash away in the rains or blow away in the winds. Two things can slow or stop the erosion: strengthening the soil's "hold" and creating barriers to the eroding factors. If we want to keep soil from blowing or washing away we plant vegetation like ground cover or grasses so the roots will help hold the soil in place and build windbreaks like trees or fences that will keep the wind from blowing away the soil you want to protect.

Those same methods, creating a root system and building windbreaks, can work to protect character. Building a root system is having a strong community for your children: a community with common values, woven together by culture, memory, and connections. For my family our church has served this purpose well. Some people live surrounded by family and have their own built in root system. Any community will work, as long as your community is authentically rooted, and not merely superficial.

The institutions around our kids serve as the windbreaks: the churches, schools, sports clubs, camps, and musical groups can all help to prevent character erosion. If these institutions value fairness, are trustworthy, and not punitive, your child's innate systems will be protected. If there is favoritism or exclusiveness, your child's innate values may begin to erode. How are your kid's windbreaks performing?

I don't want to romanticize children into fantasy creatures. There are values beyond fairness that are not innate and need to be taught, but like the protective vegetation that ultimately dies and further nourishes the very soil it protected, and the tree that drops its leaves, which also serve to nourish and protect, and even the snow that covers or the rain that soaks - all of these things change the soil for the better. Your anti-erosion systems will do more than protect your child's character; they will nourish it, and help your child grow in the face of challenge or hardship. The communities and institutions will even create the situations where your child's character can be further formed.

We all have communities and institutions in our lives. Are they helping you protect and nurture your child's character?

The Serving Season

Serving food, serving drinks, serving the hungry in soup kitchens, and serving our neighbors are regular hallmarks of the "extreme season." All around the church and community people are lining up volunteers and asking for donations of money,  gift cards, time, and patience. At home, this may begin to take a toll if your heart is bigger than your available hours or dollars. I remember a lot of years where I was just plain mad all through the holidays because I felt like a failure on every front - everyone needed more from me than I had to give. I used to think this was because I was a single parent on a tight budget but I have since learned that almost everyone feels this way at some point during the holidays. Here are a few things I figured out along the way:

• Start by deciding how much money you will give ahead of time and then, as a family, DECIDE where you'll give it. Some families pick one thing and stick with it year after year but others like to mix it up and give to a lot of places. Your family members may not all agree so you may have to divide the budgeted funds between several causes. That discussion will be almost as rewarding as the giving. Depending on the ages and temperaments of your children there may be spirited debates over the merits of buying dog food for the animal shelter or toys for children whose parents are in prison. People may get passionate but that's OK - it's for a good cause!
• Choose ONE actual hands on service project. Giving money is very helpful to recipients but less valuable to your children who really won't fully grasp the giving of money until they have earned some themselves. If your children are very small, substitute for a Meals-On-Wheels driver and take them along. Take older kids to wrap gifts at Blue Santa, help an elderly neighbor put up a tree or some lights, or serve dinner  at a soup kitchen. Wherever you serve, serve together.
• Find a way to participate at church. Welcome guests, make cookies for the choir members who will sing multiple services on Christmas Eve, help carry all those poinsettias into the church - or offer to deliver them to shut-ins after the Christmas Day services. Check to see if someone could use a ride to church. Sing in the choir or play in the orchestra. Even offer to stay and lock up the building after the last service! Take some of your baking to a family who has had health issues or recently lost a loved one. Serving at church helps reinforce for your kids that it's really all about THE BABY.
• Don't do things you, or your family, resent. If traveling to see relatives is more chore than joy - stay home! Go another time when you can enjoy it more.  Hate sending Christmas cards but want to stay in touch? Send a New Year's letter or a valentine or write a generic letter that can be sent with birthday cards.

I think it's easy to feel like you're in a rubber raft about to go over a waterfall as the holidays approach but try not to lose sight of the countless blessings in your life and the baby in the manger.  Holding those things at the center can help you float a little more gently down the holiday river.

Doing Faith

Last week I wrote about how practice is necessary for learning.  This week I want to talk about doing FAITH.  I'm guessing that you who are reading this want children to have faith, and want children to mature into faithful adults.  In the Lutheran tradition, at a child's baptism, we promise to take on the following responsibilities:

• to live with them among God's faithful people
• to bring them to the word of God and the holy supper
• to teach them the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments,
• and to nurture them in faith and prayer.

Regardless of your tradition or situation you need to demonstrate to your child what a faithful person looks like.  Where better to demonstrate this than in the community of faith we call the church.  The simplest element of faith “practice” is just showing up.  Show up on Sunday morning and you will be among God’s faithful people.  Even when you aren’t feeling faithful!

Help the children participate: fold hands, say amen, stand up, and sit down. Follow the words with your finger for beginning readers. Sit where they can see what’s going on.  Point out acolytes helping lead the worship. Let them put the envelope in the plate. 

 

The word of God and the Lord’s Supper will be present every week.  Again, the first step is showing up.  Before long your child will want to participate in the meal with you.  One of my children indicated this by demanding “snack.” She felt left out in a place where she knew she belonged.  She was already one of God’s faithful people.

Most churches provide religious education where your child will learn the great stories of the Bible and the Ten Commandments.  They will also be nurtured in their faith by faithful teachers and practice faith together with friends who are learning beside them.

As I said at the start, doing faith requires practice.  There are two things that can best be practiced by parents and children together.  The first is faith itself.  Daily trusting, and testifying to your trust in God, helps your child learn to trust as well.  If you worry aloud, your child learns to worry. Practice trusting and your child will too. 

 

The second is prayer.   Pray with and for your child.  Pray over important events or decisions in your family life.  Pray your thanks for answered prayers, blessings, and life itself. Pray for the people you know, and in the face of public tragedy.  Empower your children by giving them something to do when they encounter situations they are powerless to control or repair.

When your child leaves home she becomes responsible for managing her own faith life.  Knowing how to participate in a faith community and its practices will serve her well when she faces the world without the protection of the home and family she’s always known.  Going to church, if it has been a regular practice in her life, becomes a way of going home.  It can be an extension of family, allowing her to find a family wherever she is. Trust and prayer go where she goes.

My daughter’s band director said (frequently!) that practice makes permanent.  If that is true, then practicing faith with your children is one of the most important items on your to-do list today.  Enjoy!

Generation to generation

This morning I was treated to an exercise class for seniors and people who are generally out of shape (read ME) and the leader introduced a concept of intergenerational “movement” which appealed to me a great deal. She brought back a memory: Long ago, when I was in high school, I was taught to do the polka by my date’s father, while his mother taught him. This was kind of an amazing experience since I had never been to any kind of dance where there were people who weren’t my peers. Later, as my date and I tried out our newly acquired skills, I was enthralled to watch his parents, who had probably been dancing together at least 25 years, tear up the dance floor. That long ago date’s mother passed away last year and this was the first memory of her that came to me when I heard the news.

Another memory in the same thread: In my freshman year of college I was totally engrossed in the college experience when a professor asked if anyone in the class babysat. Chronically in need of cash, and a very experienced babysitter, I raised my hand. After an evening with his small children I became achingly aware of the absence of children on the campus. I realized that it truly was a place apart, and on some level I don’t think I really wanted to be there anymore.

One other thought: My eldest daughter is in her 4th year of seminary. Except for the year away at internship, she has been an integral part of a family who lives close to her school. While she is technically their employee, they treat her as part of their family.  This relationship has been tremendously enriching to her, and, I would wager, to them as well. In the course of her duties she has met four generations of that family and they have met her, and her husband.

We are built for community. In families it may be blood, or it may be love that binds us together. In the church it is water that makes us family. In the nation, it is history that binds us one to the other. We belong, whether we choose to participate or not.

Family is a powerful binding, but it’s not always practical or even healthy to live near one another. Community IS family – only bigger. And real communities and real families are intergenerational. I believe that everyone needs to know people of more than two generations (their own and their parents.) My children didn’t grow up near either set of grandparents but through telephone and e-mail and summer vacations they still know the love so generously given. And, when they come to visit me, they have many surrogate grandparents who are interested in their lives, in their stories. This is community. This is family.

It’s a win-win to make an effort to reach out to other generations and include them in our lives. Let’s listen to their stories and tell them ours. And, in the words of Steven Stills, (from about the time I learned to polka) “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with!”