is an experience of sensing more than seeing. Making sense of faith is one of the most important journeys of a child. It is one of my most important journeys.
The season is wrapped in the mystery of the faith. We are sitting on the couch discussing whether parents or Santa ensure there are presents under the tree? We are reading books about Pippin, The Christmas Pig and wondering what gifts we have to bring. There are lullabies at dinner; it is love. Yet…
Faith in the Darkness
The world is dark. There is truly that which is sorrowful, cruel, and unjust. Aleppo sits just 532km from Bethlehem. Seven-year-olds are tweeting about the atrocities, as we sing Christmas hymns in our pews.
How can we make sense of faith in this context? Is there faith? What does it mean?
I’m still wandering around, experiencing the darkness. Politics feel savage, my community vulnerable, and my wounds still raw. I’m not sure I believe in the truisms of my childhood, yet I want my child to believe.
Recently, I read in the NYTimes about Sara Seager, M.I.T. astrophysicist, who is looking for another Earth in the multiverse. Her theoretical research is using the light, both what is and isn’t there, to see into the darkness. It “treats light almost like music, something that can be sensed more accurately than it can be seen.” She has a “way of seeing something by looking for what’s not there.”
That’s what faith feels like to me, a voyage into the darkness, searching for what is and isn’t there, what is and isn’t real. It is sensing, more than verifying; it is the light around the shadow, more than the fact in my mind.
As I sit in the darkness, at my kitchen table, I catch the faintest aroma of cinnamon off my all-new WalMart pinecones. While you could see this as consumerism gone awry, I am only guided by the goodness. It is the flavour of hope. The pinecones on my table offer something fragrant. A small, simple gift from the center. A fragrant offering in the darkness.
Faith in the Light
Then, unexpected friends take us out for a luxurious dinner, a lavish gesture of generosity. My 20-year old, part boy and part man, hangs ornaments on the tree with a calming maturity. The snow falls with a silent redemption, turning all that is grey into pure white. The world softens and so do I.
I remember we can walk in love. Love is light. Even in the darkness, we believe in the light. Belief, hope, and faith collide in a new small sparkle.
Faith for Our Children
What does this faith journey have to do with our children? Well, they won’t accept easy answers. Our sure and simple theologies may not be palatable for long. Yet, children need to believe in something.
What is that something? How can we begin to understand it?
In my book, Learn Forward, I offer the following definition of faith as a starting point for discussion:
Comfort.
A wholehearted trust in the restoration of all things.
A whispered invitation of hopefulness.
A beckoning to the dance of life.
And, there is forgiveness, people all around me walking in light, the transformation of old stories into new realities as evidenced by my own life! There is a fragrant offering impressed on my soul. I long to be a fragrant offering too! For my children…
You see, children will take our lead. They’ll be nourished by our example. They’ll sense our authenticity, in both the questions and the confidence.
How will you nourish the children’s journey of faith this season? How will you nourish your own?
For the sake of the children,
Karine