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Honouring the Children
Rev. Brian J. Kiely, Unitarian Church of Edmonton,
April 29, 2007
Opening Words
Welcome to earth, my Child!
We time-worn folk renew
Ourselves at your enchanted spring,
As though we all begin
Again in you.
C. Day Lewis
Sermon
Today is the Mystery Buddy Find Out Celebration following the service. For those of you who don’t know about this annual program, it’s a way of having adults and children get to know each other. Each winter people volunteer to be buddies. They are anonymously paired with children they may or may not know. To keep the secret they are assigned names of famous Unitarians. One being ‘Senior’, the other being “Junior’. For example, for the last six weeks, I have been known as….well that would be telling, wouldn’t it?
For about six weeks they exchange notes, letters, clues about identity, things they like and don’t like, all handled by the Postmaster. Today is the day when we find out who our buddies are.
Many of our congregations use this program in some form. Sometimes lasting friendships are born, sometimes it’s enough that a few more little people and big people know each other’s names on Sunday morning.
When I served a congregation in B.C. one of the artists in the congregation, an older woman, was paired with a 6 year old girl who loved to draw. They hit it off so well, that the friendship continued long after the program ended, with the little girl visiting often and the two of them doing art projects together. When the woman contracted a fatal illness, her now 12 year old Mystery Buddy was a frequent visitor at the Palliative Care Unit. At the memorial service, the child’s eloquent eulogy easily surpassed the words of the minister that day.
One of the things I have learned over the years is the power that non-parental adults have to set examples for children. I recall a particular day when I was six or seven. My childless Uncle Jim and his wife came to visit our country place in upstate New York. One afternoon that weekend, I led him on a walk down to the lake, about half a mile of windy gravel road under whispering pines past mossy beds. I remember the sunlight dancing off his brown brogues, polished to a high shine.
What I recall the most is that he spoke to me like an adult, that is to say, respectfully. He asked questions and listened with interest to my answers. My parents often did the same thing, but if you have been a parent, or perhaps can remember your childhood, you know parents don’t count THAT WAY. Children tend to expand their horizons by finding respect and approval outside the family. Their youth makes them vulnerable to bad influence, and that gives non-parental adults a great responsibility.
I expect that the clarity of my memory is because that was probably the first time an adult had ever treated me like that. I doubt that the memory stayed with Uncle Jim for very long. Perhaps, being childless, he saw the walk as an imposition, or as a gift for my parents who may have needed a break from me. I’ll never know what it meant to him, and perhaps that doesn’t matter so much. All I know is that 45 years later, the memory remains alive and fresh for me.
I am sure that each one of us has some recollections about an adult who touched us in that positive way, a relative, a friend’s parent, a teacher, a coach. I want to suggest that each one of us has the opportunity to play that role in the life of some young person. And it often doesn’t take much. Though I would see him once or twice a year at family gatherings, that was the only half hour I ever had alone with Uncle Jim. But it mattered a great deal. I came out of myself a little that day. I began to sense that I had a place in the world other than ‘child’.
Of course, there are those who take advantage of a child’s trust for their own sick needs and desires, and that is horrific. Positive examples can support an evolving young life for decades. Inappropriate acts can do irreparable harm or place life long burdens on a young person.
It all comes down to our first Unitarian Universalist Principle. We are called to respect the inherent worth and dignity of every person…even, and perhaps most especially, the littlest persons. We have all heard the now hackneyed phrase, “It takes a village to raise a child,” but its tortured overuse does not make it any less true. Parents need our help as they try to raise their children into strong and healthy adults.
Like my Uncle Jim, we need to be aware that children of a certain age are hungry for the recognition and approval of non-parental adults, even if they don’t show it or ask for it directly. And it needs to be a recognition of them as individuals, and not just as their parent’s children. One of the great joys coming from my few efforts at denominational youth work has been watching teenagers bloom under the supportive and caring work of their adult leaders. These leaders help the young folks come to good decisions without imposing their will – except in legal or safety matters. The teens have a say in everything that affects them, and in most cases get to make the decision. If not, they get a very clear explanation why the decision cannot be theirs. Given that respect, they tend to make solid decisions most of the time. And then they return the respect to the leaders.
Every one of us, whether parent or not, whether related by blood or not, have a responsibility to the younger generation. Why? Because they look to us for the examples they will follow in life, both good and bad examples.
One of the things I like about being a Unitarian minister is the way our Service of Naming and Dedication for children makes that responsibility clear. Here are some excerpts from our service planning guide on our website:
Coming as it does close to the beginning of a new life, the Unitarian ceremony of naming and dedication parallels similar observances to be found in most forms of religion. For many people, the most familiar of these will be the traditional Christian practice of baptism or christening.
These terms have sometimes been loosely applied to the Unitarian ceremony as well. Such ceremonies have usually expressed thanksgiving for the newborn, and recognition of the child by name. But there are significant differences between Unitarian observances and those that have developed in some other religious contexts.
Unitarians have never accepted the idea that children are “born in sin”, or that the newborn comes into our care in any state other than that of purity. Nor is there any suggestion, in a Unitarian ceremony, that the child is being committed to accepted specific beliefs, or becoming a member of a particular religious organization…
The ceremony of naming and dedication … stands as a symbol of the child’s relationship to a nurturing community, expressing itself in wider and wider circles of inclusiveness.
There is the small circle of the family from which the parents bring the child. There is the circle of the church, a community which in its dedication to exploring and practicing the highest values provides the context for the naming ceremony. These and other such circles are microcosms of the human community as a whole. Within this setting the child is recognized by the name through which he or she is acknowledged a unique human personality. At the same time, those who participate in the ceremony pledge their efforts towards assisting the highest and fullest development of that personality (and, in a broader sense, that of all children).
In the ceremony itself we read these words:
The ceremony in which we now share expresses the feelings and needs of today; yet, it is also ancient and timeless. In all parts of the world and from the most distant days of which history bears record, parents have brought their children at an early age to a place of worship, sharing their own thanksgiving and dedication with the wider community.
This is a public celebration, shared by parents, friends and all who have assembled here, to mark the fact that all of us have a responsibility for the care and nurture of all children. It is our task to work for a world of peace and justice in which they may have the freedom to grow and find fulfillment. It is our task to share with them our ideals, our reverences, our hopes, and to help them develop their own. It is our task to learn from them the zest and wonder in life with which all children come into this world, and which we too often lose in later life.
So how does that play out for us? How do we share those ideals and reverences and hopes? Well, first we have to get to know the young folks, not just their names, but what matters to them. The more they find us willing to listen, the more likely they will be able to hear our hopes and dreams as well.
I think we have left behind the Victorian dictum about children being seen and not heard. The respect I am talking about is not the forced and empty respect generated by fear and discipline. It is rather the respect of mutual acknowledgement. How do you get a young person to stop listening to you? Start telling them what to do…or not to do….Come to think of it, that strategy tends to turn off old people too. No one likes being told what to do, except, perhaps when escaping a burning building. We all want a hand in deciding our own fates.
Of course we can’t place too much decision-making authority on children too soon, but childrearing advocates like Alfie Cohn are starting to encourage parents to let children make small decisions affecting their days…what to wear, how to play, what to eat for dinner and so on. Why? to encourage and engender self-confidence and self-respect. A thoughtful ‘yes’ offers more avenues for growth than an automatic and authoritative ‘no!’
And those of us who aren’t parents can help in simple ways. We can watch the sometimes boisterous and odd behaviour of neighborhood kids as evolutionary exercises and not just frowningly dismiss it is bratty misbehaviour. We can say hello to young people we know, especially around the church, even if they don’t acknowledge us. We can be Mystery Buddies, or on me time visitors to a children’s class, or more regular teachers and assistants.
We like to claim this church of ours as a welcoming place. In the last two years, many of us have been overjoyed to see parents of young families coming and feeling welcome here. And this week, the Board took a great step forward hiring Michelle Van Der Molen as our Director of Religious Education, Now there is someone who knows how to make a child feel special. But hiring her is not the end of our responsibility. Each child belongs in this community. Each of us must try to help them feel welcome.
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