getting uncomfortable (chalice lighting)

Last Sunday, I was privileged to serve as worship associate which pulled me out of my comfort zone.  Part of the responsibilities included writing a personal reflection to share as chalice lighting.  This meant sharing a little of who I am with a community I don't know well.  This is a challenge for me, but one I'm happy I accepted.  Here is my reflection...

Paulo Freire, an educator, asserted that children are not empty vessels in which adults can pour in information.  Rather, they hold within them innate knowledge and life experience which helps them understand even the most complex concepts. I learned of his liberation pedagogy as a graduate student.  Little did I know that this single text would become one of the most powerful influences on my role as parent. To let my children discover the world from within themselves, shaping their learning from my own life experience, my own knowledge, and my own questions.

So, too, has been our experience in shaping their spiritual lives - sharing our thoughts, ideas, and beliefs not as fact but as guide.  More importantly, staying open to their questions, their ideas.  Whether it's Jacob's affinity for polytheism and the gods ability to hold force over nature, Ella's assertion that there is one God, neither male nor female, encompassing  both genders as co-creators of this Universe, or Meghan's mastery of the intangible gifts taught in RE - love, forgiveness, friendship.  Ask her sometime to share what these elusive concepts mean.  You'll certainly walk away with more depth in your own understanding.

Their sense of spirituality may sometimes challenge mine.  But they are open, eager, curious, questioning, and can, at the drop of a dime, move their attention and emotional energy clear away from the heaviness of this conversation to something more present.  Something right here, right now.  I think this may be the greatest lesson in spirituality taught to me by my children.  To be very present... with them...with life.  To get myself unstuck from distance brought on by the intensity of thoughts and ideas floating in my head and to...simply ...be.

We light this chalice to honor the child-like questioning and curiosity in each of us, to welcome this enthusiasm and energy into our own spiritual lives, and to acknowledge the innate knowing found in us all.