Standing on the edge of a soccer field this past week (as most of you also were!), a mother I don't know very well said, "We are going to visit a church this Sunday, and probably visit a few more during the summer so we can pick a church.  We never thought we'd take the kids to a church.  We really don't have a good feeling about religion from our own backgrounds, and we have never talked to them about God.  But our daughter (5 years old) has started asking questions and talking about God all the time."

I thought, "Wow!  If that family walks through the door of St. James this Sunday, or brings their young children downstairs for Church School, will we be ready? Will we have stories and good news to tell? Will we have caring adults who are excited to share their faith and their questions, and who will let this little girl share hers with them? Will we have ears to hear and eyes to see the ways her heart is yearning for God

Children's spirituality is a great gift. I often think that children do not need to be taught about God so much as encouraged to continue to grow in the relationship they already have with the Holy One.  Children experience awe when they see flowers, giant puddles, and even worms, and they know that feeling as God's presence.  Children feel love from parents, grandparents, and teachers, and when they do, all we have to do is remind them that all love comes from God?or just as often, they remind us!

One of my favorite books is Guide My Feet, Prayers and Meditations for Our Children by Marian Wright Edelman (the civil rights lawyer and founder of the Children's Defense Fund, who with her spouse, raised three children in an interfaith (Christian/Jewish) home.) This week I will say a brief prayer from her book, thinking about that little girl and her family, and about the deep spiritual well that resides in each one of our children from the moment they first come to us:

"O God, Make us worthy of the children You have entrusted to our care.  Amen."

Peace, Jen