CULTIVATING SPIRITUALITY WHEN AND WHERE IT IS NEEDED MOST: CHILDREN, PARENTS, HOMES, AND FAMILIES

Abstract

Given all the life-threatening problems in the world and prospects for the future, there could be no better time to focus attention on cultivating spirituality when and where it is needed most, namely in the lives of children, parents, homes, and families. We cannot expect to experience more peace, harmony, happiness, and stability in the world and our lives – as well as less violence, conflict, animosity, war, and aggression – without according a much higher priority to how children are brought into the world, grow up, the many experiences they have in their homes with their parents and families, their encounters with spirituality when they are young, and the education and training they need to prepare them properly for living in the world of the present and the future. Helping children to develop “strong roots” and “healthy wings” is the key to this. The strong roots are required to enable children to deal with all the necessities, practicalities, realities, problems, and challenges they will encounter at this crucial stage in their lives as well as throughout life; and the healthy wings are needed to enable them to fly high and far as well as to realize their full potential. A great deal of attention should be paid by parents and families to children’s experiences in the arts, humanities, ethics, the sciences, the natural environment, and heritage of history at this time, as well as learning systems, methods, and techniques developed by such scholars as Shinichi Suzuki, Rudolph Steiner, Maria Montessori. John Dewey, Jean Piaget, Paulo Freire, and Confucius, as well as to character education. This is also a perfect time to expose children to the spiritual and exemplary lives of Albert Schweitzer, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, and many other people, as well as to broaden and deepen their expose to the holistic character of culture and the many diverse cultures in the world through the rich array of technological, digital, visual, verbal, and virtual devices that now exist and are available in the world. While spirituality requires going deep into “the self,” its ideal travelling companion - compassion - requires making strong connections with “the other” and the world at large. Working in combination, these two powerful forces and capabilities possess the potential to change the world and change it for the better for all people and all countries, the world as a whole, and the human family in the years and decades ahead.