Delight
I'm reading a book by Ronald Rolheiser titled Against an Infinite Horizon.
I read a couple things that really challenged me and convicted me as a parent so much that they are now part of my "philosophy of parenting."
When Jesus was baptized it says the Father said, "This is my son in whom I am fully pleased." One translation says, "In whom I delight." What if our primary role as parents is to follow the Heavenly Father's example and delight in our children?
Rolheiser says, "So much of our aching is the ache to be blessed. So mcuh of our sadness comes from the fact that nobody has ever taken delight and pleasure in us in a nonexploitive way."
I think the baptism of Christ is a model of good parenting. "I delight in you." Every child needs to hear that from every parent.
Adults are better at killing delight than creating it. "We tell our children to shut up and stop making so much noise when they are enthusiastic and full of life, and we generally feel delight and laughter of others as a threat to our dullness and deadened sense of delight. Shouts of laughter, joy, and delight tend to irritate us."
Rolheiser says, "After childhood, we rarely find it easy to delight in anything."
In 1330, the Bishop of Exeter issued a degree against giggling. He said it was "shameful to relate and horrible to hear." I would have been excommunicated more times than I can count. I think we need more giggling. We need to take ourselves less seriously. It is one more way we need to become like little children.
I think most of our problems are the result of children whose parents didn't delight in them! Rolheiser says, "To be unblessed is to be bleeding in a very deep place." I think lots of people suffer from internal bleeding.
Our need to be blessed is innate. We need verbal affirmation, but at a deeper level we need to seen. Rolheiser says, "At a primal level we see this need to be blessed by being seen acted out in every playground on earth."
Every child says, "Watch me." If that need isn't met they will spend the rest of their lives seeking what their parents didn't give them!
The good news is that God never takes his eyes off us! It is the ultimate affirmation.
I don't think a parent's world should revovle around children--it teaches them that they are the center of the universe. It engenders selfishness. But I think that has to be counterbalanced. Maybe we should go when children say come? Maybe we should watch when children say look?
Rolheiser says, "They need us to see them. In the end, more than they want our words, they want our gaze."
I love going into my kid's rooms at night and looking at them. We need to do it while they're awake too!
I read a couple things that really challenged me and convicted me as a parent so much that they are now part of my "philosophy of parenting."
When Jesus was baptized it says the Father said, "This is my son in whom I am fully pleased." One translation says, "In whom I delight." What if our primary role as parents is to follow the Heavenly Father's example and delight in our children?
Rolheiser says, "So much of our aching is the ache to be blessed. So mcuh of our sadness comes from the fact that nobody has ever taken delight and pleasure in us in a nonexploitive way."
I think the baptism of Christ is a model of good parenting. "I delight in you." Every child needs to hear that from every parent.
Adults are better at killing delight than creating it. "We tell our children to shut up and stop making so much noise when they are enthusiastic and full of life, and we generally feel delight and laughter of others as a threat to our dullness and deadened sense of delight. Shouts of laughter, joy, and delight tend to irritate us."
Rolheiser says, "After childhood, we rarely find it easy to delight in anything."
In 1330, the Bishop of Exeter issued a degree against giggling. He said it was "shameful to relate and horrible to hear." I would have been excommunicated more times than I can count. I think we need more giggling. We need to take ourselves less seriously. It is one more way we need to become like little children.
I think most of our problems are the result of children whose parents didn't delight in them! Rolheiser says, "To be unblessed is to be bleeding in a very deep place." I think lots of people suffer from internal bleeding.
Our need to be blessed is innate. We need verbal affirmation, but at a deeper level we need to seen. Rolheiser says, "At a primal level we see this need to be blessed by being seen acted out in every playground on earth."
Every child says, "Watch me." If that need isn't met they will spend the rest of their lives seeking what their parents didn't give them!
The good news is that God never takes his eyes off us! It is the ultimate affirmation.
I don't think a parent's world should revovle around children--it teaches them that they are the center of the universe. It engenders selfishness. But I think that has to be counterbalanced. Maybe we should go when children say come? Maybe we should watch when children say look?
Rolheiser says, "They need us to see them. In the end, more than they want our words, they want our gaze."
I love going into my kid's rooms at night and looking at them. We need to do it while they're awake too!
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