To grow good people
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| What will bloom? Photo by Susanna Marsiglia on Unsplash |
The night before Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I informed my eldest that in the morning, we'd be going to see a play, written for kids, called "His Truth is Marching On."
With his sweet, innocent face framed by his towel post-bath, my son tilted his head and asked, "Is it funny?"
"Um, well ... um, probably not, because King worked on a lot of serious topics and—"
He cut me off. "Well, it's for kids, so I think it'll probably be funny," he said with great authority.
"We'll see, honey," was all I said. "We'll see."
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I've been a parent for 7+ years, and I'll be honest: My deepest fear is that I will fail at teaching my children how to be kind, loving people.
I didn't worry as much about this when they were little and our broader societal and governmental context felt more stable and predictable. But my fear has intensified under the current administration as I consider how every official, every officer, every agent involved in carrying out its anti-Gospel agenda was once a child, and I wonder how they were raised and what they were taught before they arrived at this moment in time.
I still believe (though shakily) that people are fundamentally good, as borne out, for example, in the intense community care (example via Elizabeth Berget) happening in Minneapolis right now and in the growing shift in national sentiment against the abhorrent actions of ICE throughout the country. Strangely, however, that belief is a large part of what's intensified my fear, because surely the parents, guardians, and elders who raised our current leaders were not all rotten, just as I believe I'm not totally rotten ... yet see what we hath wrought.
As a result, every time in the past few weeks that I referee a fight between my kids or fend off swinging fists or see an innocuous toy turned into a weapon, it doesn't matter how expected or age appropriate the action is; my mind races forward two decades to a militarized hellscape where my children roam armed and feral through war-torn streets, not following their conscience, not enabling care, and not leaving the world a little better than they found it.
Yes, this vision is melodramatic. I feel unhinged even writing it. But unhinged though it may be, I share it to demonstrate why I am more compelled than ever to make sure my children understand—in a way that won't destabilize or upset them but rather fortify and encourage them—why Mommy and Daddy vote and donate and volunteer and invite neighbors over for meals.
That's why I committed us and our eldest to a local MLK Day service event, as it seemed an excellent and timely opportunity to showcase people in action on behalf of their community. As my son and I watched hundreds of people stream from the auditorium after the event's opening remarks, I knelt eye level with him to add context:
"Look how many families and kids are here, just like us!"
"People got these blue t-shirts to show they're volunteers who want to help."
"Each person here cares about something. The environment, animals, libraries. Maybe they want everybody to have enough food, or everybody to have a safe place to live. What do you care about?"
By the time we made it inside the theater, I'd already cried twice, as I'm wont to do whenever fellow humans demonstrate their capacity for care and hope. We sat in the third row (my son's choice) and stared straight up at the performers. The 30-minute play (which, as I'd suspected, was not funny) focused on how our local history intersected with the March on Washington. Our church was mentioned in the script. Best of all, my child listened to the whole thing with only one (ungranted) request for a snack, and afterward we participated in a scrapbooking activity on the stage to reflect on and capture what MLK Day means to us.
In the spirit of transparency, I will share that my son's first act was to cut out a green, glittery dinosaur for his own personal enjoyment. But as my husband worked on drawing a dove—a representation of peace—for his own scrapbook page, my son inched closer, closer, until he too wanted a dove of his own, sitting on a branch with green leaves surrounding it.
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Yesterday, on the seventy-billionth snow day of the week, with my patience depleted and equilibrium gone, I brought the kids over to my in-laws' house for lunch. As we sat eating and chatting, I brought up the fact that before the storm, our public school system has offered up free bagged lunches to any family who needed them ahead of the storm, just come and get 'em.
This got us on a discussion about food banks and how they help make sure that food gets to the people who need it most. My older son piped up: "Earlier this year when I was picking tomatoes in the school garden with Ms. K., she said that a food bank was going to come pick up all the food and share it with others!"
Then my younger son said to his grandparents: "And did you know we do that at church too? We dropped off food in the little building next to the church ..." (as he went on to describe our parish's Thanksgiving Day food drive in great logistical detail).
I was floored. Up to that point, they hadn't given me much indication that they understood our family commitment to feeding people, much less cared about it. But here they were connecting the dots and sharing how they had participated. My ember of hope that had been reignited earlier by prophetic witness from Minnesota (this example via Laura Kelly Fanucci) and strengthened by our local service participation blazed a bit brighter, fighting back the fear that could consume me if I let it.
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The dove my oldest designed at the MLK Day of Service activity ended up coming home with us, as did the glittery green dinosaur. Both items are floating around our house now, popping up on shelves or in paper piles, surprising me with a reminder of the peace (and pizzazz!) that's possible when we commit to it.
I recognize I have only so much control over who my children become as adults and as humans. But I'll be damned if I'm not going to give the endeavor my absolute all in order to help them cultivate the wisdom that they are part of a vast, interconnected web of souls held together with capital-l Love, and to help them live that wisdom through tangible, generous action.
Prayer #417: To My Children As They Fight For No Reason and Fray My Every Last Nerve
How in your life will you encounter Christ?
And how in my life will I help introduce you?
How in your life will you move as part of the Body of Christ?
And how in my life will I help enjoin you to join it?
How in your life will you promote the peace of Christ?
And how in my life will I help model it for you?
May the Universal Love I want you to intimately know help us answer these questions together.
Amen.
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Seeking to embiggen your own loving-kindness in the world? Check out the chapter titled "Compassion: How Can I Make My Heart Bigger?" in my book, Amen? Questions for a God I Hope Exists, for prayerful and poetic inspiration.