“Critically, morality is only one generation deep, so unless we want our children to live in a bleak world, we must replenish the stock of spiritual capital we inherited from our parents and grandparents. In theory, at least, churches are allies in this effort.” That’s one of Gary Hamel’s quotes in his WSJ Blog.
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Yesterday I wrote about things that the church can do to become more relevant. Fifty percent of the responsibility for a thriving, loving and happy faith community goes on the church and the other 50% (or more) should be on our shoulders. We are the church.
My spiritual capital came from several sources: from my parents serving as great examples of what it meant to live happy, loving Christian lives, by attending my Catholic church EVERY WEEK (without exception) and on holy days of obligation, by attending Catholic School from first through 8th grade and from attending religious education classes until I was confirmed.
Where did your spiritual capital come from? Are you still living out the behaviors and rituals that built your strong foundation? Are you passing on your spiritual capital to your children?
These days, we seem to have many solid reasons not to attend our mosque, temple, synagogue or church on a regular, consistent basis.
One reason is that parents are trying to juggle many activities for their children: sporting practices, sporting games, music lessons, recitals, school, school events, etc..
When I was a kid, organized sports began when I was about 12 years old. Today, parents are bringing their children to sporting events starting at about age 4. Many of the games and practices are conducted over the weekend. Should I attend worship or should I bring my child to practice or the game? I know that it’s a weekly dilemma.
As I’m writing this, I’m thinking that when you commit to a team sport or to music lessons for your child, the coach or teacher usually hands out a list of dates and “expectations” of each child. Things like practice dates, game dates, picture dates, codes of conduct and recital dates are all on the list. We as parents tend to immediately go to the calendar, Blackberry or iPhone and enter those “important” dates on the calendar.
What would happen if there were something very important already in that time slot?
In addition to trying to juggle all of the above activities, many families are doing the juggling as single parents. I can’t imagine trying to do everything that my wife and I try to do as a family and for our kids alone.
I grew up in a family that had one breadwinner (my Dad) and a stay at home Mom. I didn’t realize how fortunate I was then to have a Mom at home when I got home from school to prepare afternoon snacks for me and my friends and to keep my siblings and me on “on track” with school, work, doctor’s visits, homework, religious education or confirmation classes.
Today, it is the norm to have both parents working. Frequently it is required just to make financial ends meet.
To make things even more interesting, most of us have given-in to the reality of working longer hours at our jobs because the economic climate has been so difficult, many of us are working and living in fear of losing our jobs. It’s exhausting trying to keep up with everything!
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
2 Corinthians 12:9
Whenever we allocate more time to one activity, it always causes us to spend less time on something else. We should get in the habit of making major changes to our values and routines by “intent” instead of unintentionally.
I truly understand that time is our most precious asset. Because that’s the case, it’s critical that we design our calendars around the activities that we deem to be most critical. By doing this we and our family members will be spending our time focusing on the right activities.
These decisions on which activities are most important strongly relate to our values.
“You, Lord, give perfect peace to those who keep their purpose firm and put their trust in you.”
Isaiah 26:3
Would you like to play a game? Put the following list in order (most important to least important):
Dining out, watching television, working, playing on the internet, Children’s Education, watching or attending sporting events, your exercise (physical health) , attending weekly worship (Church, Temple Synagogue, Mosque), your children’s exercise (physical health), socializing with friends, prayer, music lessons for your children, spiritual life (God), playing golf.
Was the exercise easy for you? It’s called creating a priority of values. I’ll encourage you to go through the exercise again but the next time, create a list which includes all of the activities where you are currently spending your time and see if it would be in your best interest to make some adjustments.
I believe that the most important gift that I can give to my children is a very solid spiritual foundation. Spiritual capital is the gift that will be with them every day of their lives. Their faith in God and their faith families will assist them through school, sports, dating, work, layoffs, marriage, deaths, children, grandchildren, sickness and with every challenge that comes their way.
“For this very reason make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.”
2 Peter 1:5-8
When a computer is disconnected from its’ source of power – an electrical outlet – for too long, it becomes a useless piece of metal, plastic and silicon. The inside of my shiny metallic Mac still contains 2.26GHz of processing power, it still contains a tremendous amount of potential space on my disk to create information and has 2GB of memory to store data before it’s written to the hard disk. All of that potential power is still inside the case but, it cannot be used without a connection to its’ source of power.
So is connecting to our source of power – God – as easy as plugging a computer into an outlet? I would say that it’s pretty close. You know that feeling you get when you plug an appliance into an outlet that you’re not sure works and you see the light come on the appliance to let you know that you’re connected? That same thing happens when you plug into God. Light bulbs start illuminating but, they’re in our minds. The feelings of serenity and love bring a smile to our faces. I frequently get a tingly feeling that goes up and down my spine and down my limbs when I feel a special connection to my Source.
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