I found this downloadable book online today at http://childspirituality.org/experience.pdf by Donald Ratcliff. He has some very helpful things to say to parents about their role in helping direct the spiritual growth of their children. I thought I would post his closing remarks as I found them very convicting. Blessing to all you moms and dads as you try to live God's call in front of your children.
Luminous Numinous Parenting
G. K. Chesterton is quoted as concluding about schools, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.” Chesterton’s words may, indeed, summarize much of what this book has been about. Encouraging the spiritual development and experience of the child is far from easy and at times is not very convenient. Most of us prefer the easier alternative when we are given options. But our children’s
current faith, and the preparation for their later faith as well as eternal destiny, should be important considerations, perhaps even the highest priority in our lives and theirs. The ideal is that we surrender most of the concern for self and sacrifice time, money, and energy for the spiritual welfare of our children. But of course, to provide them with what they need spiritually, we need to be spiritual healthy as well, and that requires a careful balancing of our emotional and spiritual welfare with that of our children. It is a balance that sounds obvious, but can be difficult to achieve in real life. We should seek to be luminous parents. The dictionary describes luminous as to a steady light, a light that is diffused but also bright, enlightening, and inspiring. In my study of child development, over and over again the researchers spoke of the importance of parents being consistent, dependable, reliable. To be the best possible spiritual influence for our children, we need to seek that ideal of being a steady light. The light need not be dazzling to be effective. Sometimes it is in the background, it is diffused, as we live out life with our child, and then comes to the forefront when needed, at “the teachable moment” when the child asks a question or shares a spiritual experience. It includes the latent influence of regular routines, including faith related practices in the home and comments during everyday experiences that highlight the work of God in our lives or the beauty of God’s creation. But it is bright in the sense that there is no hedging on the importance of spiritual experiences and living out the Christian life consistently, regardless of the cost. As parents we should enlighten and inspire our children, both in the special times where the focus in on Christian beliefs and experience, and in mundane life day by day.
Balancing the constant light of being luminous is the need to emphasize and live out the numinous in our lives. The numinous, you will recall, is the sense of the Holy, the mysterious, the “otherness” of the spiritual realm. Even though we may try to package God in convenient ways in our attempts to understand His ways, He is always beyond us. Our understandings are partial, and life gives us experiences where we do not understand what God is doing or why He does some things. We need to share with our children that mystery, the sense of the holiness of God, that makes us tremble in awe and wonder at His greatness. They probably experience that otherness of God already, and they need to know we experience it as well. To try to be numinous parents, we should walk in the Spirit. The Greek word for “Spirit” in the Bible is pneuma, so we might say we shall be “pneumenous” parents. We rely upon the Holy Spirit for direction and redirection. We stay sensitive to His leadings, both when we read scripture and when we spend time alone in prayer and meditation before God. The Holy Spirit provides a way for us to share at the deepest levels with our child, because she too can partake of the Source of the numinous, live in the numinous, and thrive in the numinous. Even if the luminous attempts fall short of what we wish it could be, we can still connect in the numinous of the Spirit. Of course the luminous numinous does not just relate to spiritual development and experience. Luminous numinous parenting can infuse other areas of life with our child as well—from the dinner table, to attending a ballgame, to disciplinary approaches. We seek to illumine our child, and we may be illumined in the process. We walk in the numinous of God, whether we sense His mysterious otherness or not, and we affirm God’s numinous in our children. Teaching, being taught, and the presence and leading of the Holy Spirit in our lives and those of our children--that should be what parenting is all about.
Luminous Numinous Parenting
G. K. Chesterton is quoted as concluding about schools, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.” Chesterton’s words may, indeed, summarize much of what this book has been about. Encouraging the spiritual development and experience of the child is far from easy and at times is not very convenient. Most of us prefer the easier alternative when we are given options. But our children’s
current faith, and the preparation for their later faith as well as eternal destiny, should be important considerations, perhaps even the highest priority in our lives and theirs. The ideal is that we surrender most of the concern for self and sacrifice time, money, and energy for the spiritual welfare of our children. But of course, to provide them with what they need spiritually, we need to be spiritual healthy as well, and that requires a careful balancing of our emotional and spiritual welfare with that of our children. It is a balance that sounds obvious, but can be difficult to achieve in real life. We should seek to be luminous parents. The dictionary describes luminous as to a steady light, a light that is diffused but also bright, enlightening, and inspiring. In my study of child development, over and over again the researchers spoke of the importance of parents being consistent, dependable, reliable. To be the best possible spiritual influence for our children, we need to seek that ideal of being a steady light. The light need not be dazzling to be effective. Sometimes it is in the background, it is diffused, as we live out life with our child, and then comes to the forefront when needed, at “the teachable moment” when the child asks a question or shares a spiritual experience. It includes the latent influence of regular routines, including faith related practices in the home and comments during everyday experiences that highlight the work of God in our lives or the beauty of God’s creation. But it is bright in the sense that there is no hedging on the importance of spiritual experiences and living out the Christian life consistently, regardless of the cost. As parents we should enlighten and inspire our children, both in the special times where the focus in on Christian beliefs and experience, and in mundane life day by day.
Balancing the constant light of being luminous is the need to emphasize and live out the numinous in our lives. The numinous, you will recall, is the sense of the Holy, the mysterious, the “otherness” of the spiritual realm. Even though we may try to package God in convenient ways in our attempts to understand His ways, He is always beyond us. Our understandings are partial, and life gives us experiences where we do not understand what God is doing or why He does some things. We need to share with our children that mystery, the sense of the holiness of God, that makes us tremble in awe and wonder at His greatness. They probably experience that otherness of God already, and they need to know we experience it as well. To try to be numinous parents, we should walk in the Spirit. The Greek word for “Spirit” in the Bible is pneuma, so we might say we shall be “pneumenous” parents. We rely upon the Holy Spirit for direction and redirection. We stay sensitive to His leadings, both when we read scripture and when we spend time alone in prayer and meditation before God. The Holy Spirit provides a way for us to share at the deepest levels with our child, because she too can partake of the Source of the numinous, live in the numinous, and thrive in the numinous. Even if the luminous attempts fall short of what we wish it could be, we can still connect in the numinous of the Spirit. Of course the luminous numinous does not just relate to spiritual development and experience. Luminous numinous parenting can infuse other areas of life with our child as well—from the dinner table, to attending a ballgame, to disciplinary approaches. We seek to illumine our child, and we may be illumined in the process. We walk in the numinous of God, whether we sense His mysterious otherness or not, and we affirm God’s numinous in our children. Teaching, being taught, and the presence and leading of the Holy Spirit in our lives and those of our children--that should be what parenting is all about.
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