As the father of two young boys, questions about how to nurture an awareness of the Spirit in younger ones is something that has become more and more important for me over the last two years, as my own boys have grown in consciousness of the world around them.
I have been meaning for some time to recommend a November iPod broadcast on Speaking of Faith entitled The Spirituality of Parenting, as in listening to it I was struck by some of the excellent issues it raised for spiritually inclined parents and the insightful comments about the emergent faith of children. Here’s the synopsis:
“More and more people in our time are disconnected from religious institutions, at least for part of their lives. Others are religious and find themselves creating a family with a spouse from another tradition or no tradition at all. And the experience of parenting tends to raise spiritual questions anew. We sense that there is a spiritual aspect to our children’s natures and wonder how to support and nurture that. The spiritual life, our guest says, begins not in abstractions, but in concrete everyday experiences. And children need our questions as much as our answers.”
I particularly liked how the program fleshed out that last bit, about the importance of concrete everyday experiences and our questions in nurturing faith in children. Taking the advice of the guest, a Jewish Rabbi with a gift for speaking beyond the boundaries of her own tradition, I reflected on listening for God when walking with my eldest son the other evening and out popped all these questions about God. It was wonderful for me as a father to see just how much awareness was already growing in him.
This also feeds into an article I read two months ago (can’t recall where) that noted recent research indicating the spirituality of boys was most impacted by their fathers, not their mothers. Men, this is one nurturing task we cannot delegate to Mums. It’s not “girly stuff”, it’s “bloke stuff”. It’s initiation stuff.
Since I mention Speaking of Faith I would like to take the opportunity to recommend the weekly broadcast full stop. When I first came across it I expected the usual American Christian fundi rant. But I was in for a pleasant surprise. Though there does seem to be some Christian emphasis, it is of the distinctly more thoughtful variety (this week’s is on the new Monastics), and the programming goes way beyond that to explore all sorts of alternative spirituality issues (previous weeks covered Thich Nhat Hanh
If you liked listening to Rabbi Sandy Sasso you might like to check out some of her books at Amazon. Just follow this link.
Curious Christian 
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