Child Like Faith

Something that has always bothered me is the lack of importance we place on introductory places - notably ushers and sunday school teachers.

I'm not going to get into ushers today.

Sunday School teachers are a lot of well meaning and lovely (mostly women) people. And we let nearly anyone be a Sunday School teacher. And this amounts to mostly babysitters with craft projects. We spend very little time, and honestly, many of these teachers won't invest much more time than they have to, and often do not fully grasp the mutuality of experience they are undertaking by sitting with children in these developmental spaces.

A diversity trainer once told me that we were doing the most difficult sort of brain surgery - poking about in people's unconscious and trying to initiate a paradigm shift. I think that this is the same thing that we are about on Sunday mornings - a time when, in their heart of hearts, I think most people are thinking of in terms of child care - aka, a bit of quiet so I can hear the sermon.

I am ok with Godly Play. I am not totally against it, but I do whole heartedly approve of the level of teacher qualification that it started out with. Anymore, we are inclined to just set people free with the lesson and the toys. What I do not approve of, is the bringing of Godly Play into the liturgy. Not because I don't think we could all use a little less of the pastor rattling on, but because we have a terrible tendency to conflate the literal-concrete-interpretive stage of childhood development, with being Child like towards God. How very tedious for a being who was looking for companionship - for a being that limited itself in order to make space for something else to have independent existence. As nearly any stay at home parent will tell you - the desire for a little adult conversation will lead to desperation - there were days I'd talk to anyone in order to interact with someone who was post puberty - I  made a lot of homeless friends, they were the only people not working and had time for me.

I realize I fall far to the edge of reflected faith - it's led me right out the other door of most religious experiences. I get lonely for want of people to talk to about what I am reading or thinking or doing. And I get tired of the metaphor, and the same old interpretation of the metaphor. For a multitude of reasons, the cycle is experiencing a break - or I am just in a place the I have few role models and friends for. I suppose I should spend some more time with the ones that I do have.

What interests me in the book I am currently reading is that we are aligning faith formation with stages of development, and I hope that at some point he talks about what happens or what to do, when a perfectly adapted adult is trapped with a toddlers view of faith. Maybe you do spend time with Godly Play, but it seems that most people are content with this, and they go to church, or do something else, equally supportive of their childish understandings. Maybe people have always been this way, and it is just wishful thinking on my part that the world be otherwise.