Sunday, May 14, 2000
Rev. Annie Holmes
The lasting gifts we can give our children, is roots and wings.
Annie: Dodie Smith says: "Family, that dear octopus from whose tentacles
we
never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to."
Lori: Ernestine Schuman says: "What is home? Four walls to keep out the
wind.
Floors to keep out the cold. Yes, but home is more than that. It is the laugh
of a baby, the song of a mother, the strength of a father. Warmth of loving
hearts, light from happy eyes, kindness, loyalty, comradeship. Home is
first
school and first church for young ones, where they learn what is right, what
is good, and what is kind. Where they go for comfort when they are hurt or
sick. Where joy is shared and sorrow is eased. Where fathers and mothers are
respected and loved. Where children are wanted. Where the simplest food is
good enough for kings because it is earned. Where money is not so important
as loving-kindness. Where the teakettle sings from happiness. That is home.
God bless it.
Annie: Betsy, my little Betsy, is six years old. I can hardly imagine
it.
Surely it is a dream, it must be a dream. She cannot be going off to
school,
it's too soon, I'm not ready to let her go out into the world.
Lori: Boy, oh boy. I've been waiting for this day for a long
time. My
older brother Nick goes to school, my older sister Chris goes to school, now
me, I'm going to school. I'm going to school. I have my lunch box
and
everything. Boy oh boy this is going to fun.
A: Now Betsy, Betsy, look at me.
L: Whaaaat....
A: Look both ways before crossing the streets. Don't talk to anyone you don't
already know. Stay near the crossing guard.
L: I will Momma.
A: Don't put your lunch box down anywhere along the way. Stay close to
Nick
and Chris.
L: I will Momma.
A: Maybe Chris should call me when you all get to school. I would feel so
much better if I knew you got there safely.
L: But Momma, the school is only two blocks away.
Annie: Children need guidance, direction, care, constant supervision.
Raising children is a life-time process taking financial, psychological,
sociological skills and training.
Lori: A mother is not a person to lean on but a person to make leaning
unnecessary.
Annie: Every generation revolts against its mothers and makes friends with
its grandmothers!
Lori: The way I see it, I have no choice. My children get home from
school
before I can get home from work. I have a good job, I like my job, at
work
they like me. I need this job. I simply hope and pray each night,
that I
come home later than the kids, that they are safe and sound, and that
everything will be all right.
Annie: My Jimmy walks home alone from school almost every night.
Sometimes
one of his friends will take the long way around and walk with him. But
we
live outside of town. He's a good kid, but he loses track of time and I
begin to worry. I know he is 10 years old. But one day he walked
into
another part of town because he just wasn't paying attention. He plays
games
in his head. He picks up sticks and pretends he is a Knight fighting for
his
honor. He sometimes even picks me dandelions. I can never stay
angry for
very long. But I am always worried and apprehensive.
Lori: Henry Ward Beecher: "The mother's heart is the child's
schoolroom."
Annie: Plato: "Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the
spirit of reverence."
Lori: My Sarah plays with three other girls from our block.
Sometimes they
say things that bother and upset me. They are so loud and bold and they
seem
to take chances, like staying alone over night in one of their houses while
their parents are away. I don't want Sarah to stay alone all night in one
of
their homes without supervision. But she starts to holler and cry if I
say
no -because she's the only one who can't. I'm so torn as to how far to
let
my 12 year old go. This is so difficult.
Annie: My own father beat me, hard and often. I try as a new
mother to
remember what it was like to feel like a daughter. But I feel the
responsibility so keenly of being a mother. It's not that he's a bad kid,
or
that I'm a mean mother. It's just that, at the first sign of misbehavior,
my
first reaction is to raise my arm. So far I have caught myself each time
and
tired to do as my husband has said, take his hand away from the breakable
object or give him something else to play with. But my first reaction is
still to hit. Maybe I do need the therapy like Mike says. I surely
want to
do what's right by my little guy.
Lori: "Home is the one place in all this world where
hearts are sure of
each other. It is the place of confidence. It is the place where we tear off
that mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to
wear in self-defense, and where we pour out the unreserved communications of
full and confiding hearts. It is the spot where expressions of tenderness
gush out without any sensation of awkwardness and without any dread of
ridicule.
Annie: What families have in common the world around is that they are the
place where people learn who they are and how to be that way.
Lori: No, you cannot have the car tonight.
Annie: Aw. Ma, the kids are counting on me to drive.
L: How many times have I told you, put your school clothes away.
A: Aw Ma, I'm too busy. I'm watching TV.
L: Happy Birthday, honey, you are 16 years old.
A: Aw, Ma, I'm too old for birthday parties.
L: Well, honey I think if you broke the window, you need to pay for it.
Don't worry we'll work something out together.
A; Aw, Ma, thanks. I was so worried.
L: Sweetie, I'm so proud of you, you made it, a graduation.
A: Aw, Ma I know, thank you. But, stop hugging me, you're messing my
hair.
Lori: Kids, I tell you, they grow up so fast. I was reading a
wonderful
book the other day, where it was talking about being a good parent. The
author was saying the trick is to keep in touch with your own childhood, the
feelings, the emotions, the energy, the needs, the pains, and the joys.
Remembering helps us, as parents, be sympathetic and get mindful of the needs
of our children. The book was saying it was all a matter of balance.
Annie: I saw a kid in Walgreens yesterday who had more piercings than a pin
cushion. What is with kids these days?
Lori: This is typical conversation with my teenager in my
house, "Hi
honey, did you have a nice day?" "Yea."
"How was school," "OK." "Do you
have any homework?" "No." "What are you going
to do now?" "Nothing."
Annie: Well, the way I see it, you hold your children in your arms one day
and their gurggling up at you, and the very next day they are dancing around
the room on their own two legs, laughing and asking for their allowance in
one and the same breath. I reach out to touch their smiling cheek and
they
are only a picture looking at me from the stairway wall. Their laughter
an
echo.
Lori: I thought Mommmmmm, was a conjuction joining all sentences. I remember
my Mom telling me, kids will only return to you after they are 25. But
when
you're child is 14, 25 seems an awful long time to wait, until - until you
can have a normal relationship with them again.
Annie: Well, I'm 14 and I tell you it's not so easy being a kid today
either. My parents worry all the time. They are always staring at
me with
those sad, worried, "Are you into drugs yet, dear?" eyes. I
work hard at
school, I follow their curfews, I swim on the team, I play an instrument. I'm
a good kid. But noooooooo, they are always so worried. I know it's
a tough
world. I have been living in it for the last 14 years. I need
space, I need
room, I need freedom. I wish at times they would just leave me alone.
Lori: Hey, you think you've got it tough. My parents still insist on
driving
me to school and I'm 15! They say, "We trust you honey, it's all the
other
people in the world we don't trust." Oh sure, like they can protect
me. I
wish they would let go more, I need some breathing room. Next thing
they'll
make me get a drug test, like they did with my older brother. Parents
think
they have it hard, well it's no picnic being a kid.
Annie: My wife and I used to go out to eat all the time before the baby came.
It's true we don't have as much money as we used to have. But, a
funny
thing happened. As the baby turned two years old, he turned out to be so
much fun to be around. Often we just stay at home and laugh and have fun
with him.
Lori: Sometimes, I am making supper and the kids are playing with their
father in the other room. I have some soft music on and I hear them
laughing
together. I feel a tender peace come over me. A kind of peace I
never felt
before and never thought I could feel.
Annie: I'm 12, I don't want a new bike, I want to wear make-up.
L: I'm 10, I want a new bike, I don't want them to fix that old swing - set
in the backyard.
A: I'm 8, I want to take drum lessons, and I want a swing-set in my backyard.
L: I'm 6, and I want a new bike, a new sand box and a swing-set and a new
baby brother.
A: I'm 4, I wish my baby brother would go back to the hospital, or back in my
Mommy's tummy. And, I hate to swing. It makes me throw up.
Lori: It is said, in some spiritual circles, that we pick our parents, we
pick them before we are to born and we also pick where it is to be that we
are to be born. It is said by some that at one point we remembered why it
was we picked the parents, the place, the time we were to be on this
earth.
I wonder...
Annie: It is said, by some, that all of life is a crap shoot. We are
pawns
of God, or a fate that moves us willy-nilly. There is no rhyme or reason
to
why we are here, or where we are going. Our job is not to reason why,
ours
it but to do or die. I wonder...
Lori: My sister is one year older than me. We are as close as two peas in
a
pod.
Annie: I have a half-brother who is so like me, people can't believe we're
not twins.
L: I hate my brother, he has always been so mean.
A: I haven't seen my sister in at least 15 years. I can't even remember
now
why we haven't gotten together in so long.
L: My family is always there for me.
A: I couldn't wait to grow up and move away. If I never see any of them
again, it will be too soon.
Lori: "What the majority of American children needs is to stop being
pampered, stop being indulged, stop being chauffeured, stop being catered to.
In the final analysis, it is not what you do for your children, but what
you
have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human
beings." Ann Landers
Annie: "There is just one way to bring up a child in the way they should
go,
and that is to travel that way yourself." Abraham Lincoln
Lori: "Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous.
It is to
decide forever to have your heart walking outside your body."
Elizabeth Stone
Annie: "Children have never been very good at listening to their elders,
but
they have never failed to imitate them." James Baldwin
Lori: "The time and the quality of the time that their parents devote to
them
indicate to children the degree to which they are valued by their
parents...When children know that they are valued, when they truly feel
valued, in the deepest parts of themselves, then they feel valuable. This
knowledge is worth more than any gold." M. Scott Peck
Annie: "Whoever inquires about our childhood wants to know something about
our soul." Erika Burkhart
Lori: "Words are more powerful than perhaps anyone suspects, and once
deeply
engraved in a child's mind, they are not easily eradicated." May
Sarton.
Annie: We hug them, we scold them.
L: We love them, we hold them.
A: We teach them, we preach to them.
L: We hang on - we learn to let go.
A: We worry, we celebrate.
L: We feed them, we are often late...
A: To pick them up, to anticipate their needs.
L: We pray they are safe.
A: Why? Because either we experienced that way of raising kids.
L: or from deep inside of ourselves there is another knowing, an instinct,
that shows us how to love.
A: How to give them roots and wings.
L: How to let go, how to hang on.
A: It is a miracle.
L: It is a miracle any of us, children or parents survive.
A: It is a miracle.
L: Yes, a wondrous miracle.
A: It may take a village to raise a child,
L: But it also takes a whole church community to teach a child...
A: tolerance, patience, a love of people and ideas that are different.
L: It takes a whole church community to teach a child...
A: To cherish people's of other faith systems. To seek out new
experiences,
to open their arms to all people, regardless of faith, color, creed, sexual
orientation.
L: It takes a whole church community to teach a child...
A: Everyone has a voice and a vote in our church. Men, women and those
youth
who have gone through a "Coming of Age" curriculum, each have a
voice.
L: We are a church that maintains a democratic process in
striving for religious truth, in the organizational decisions we make.
A: It takes a whole church community to teach a child...
L: That there are many wonderful ways of living out one's life; straight,
gay, bisexual, trangendered. Honest and true to oneself, children from
our
church community will hear these words spoken with dignity and honor.
A: Children from this church will see first hand to be who you are is a
blessing and a gift.
Lori: In our church children are seen and heard.
Annie: In this church community youth have a voice and power to help inform
them of their worth here as members.
L: In this church community children are seen and heard.
A: It takes the whole church community to teach a child.
Lori: If children live with criticism,
Annie: They learn to condemn.
L: If children live with hostility,
A: They learn to fight.
L: If children live with ridicule,
Both: They learn to be shy.
A: If children live with shame,
L: They learn to feel guilty.
A: If children live with.
Both: encouragement,
L: They learn confidence.
A: If children live with tolerance,
L: They learn to be patient.
Both: If children live with praise,
A: They learn to appreciate.
L: If children live with honesty
A: They
L: live
A with
Both: Approval
L: If children live with fairness,
A: They learn justice.
L: They learn justice.
A: They learn justice.
L: If children
A: If children
L: If only our children lived with friendliness,
Both: They learn this world is a wonderful place in which to live.
Lori: Children are the bone of our bones
Annie: The flesh of our flesh.
Lori: Every night a child is born is a holy night.
Annie: Every child is the Christ child among us.
L: They are our future
A: And yet often they suffer because of their parent's past.
L: Parents need to listen more.
A: Children need to speak more.
L: All of us need to renew our dedication to the protection, care and
education of children.
A: So they live lives of dignity.
L: So they have security in themselves.
A: Children are the bone of our bones
L: They are the flesh of our flesh.
A: We root them in what we believe is important.
L: Then, we must let them fly away from us.
Both: Life is a flame that is always burning itself out, but it catches fire
again every time a child is born.