Two Steps Backward; One Step Forward

“The shoemaker’s children have no shoes.” That was my Italian grandmother’s politically correct way of suggesting that what she judged to be the aberrant attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors of someone were the result of “bad” parenting, not their own responsibility. Other folks mean much the same thing when they say, “The apple did not fall far from the tree.”

I’m mindful of parents’ effects on their children because my three adult children never cease to amaze me. In many respects their attitudes, beliefs and behaviors look remarkably similar to my own. Would that I was able, or willing, to see more of my wife’s attributes in them. Her character is much more balanced, sensitive and whole than mine.

I’m mindful of this because I spend a whole lot of time with other people’s children, from pre-schoolers to college students. These parents seem quite content to permit me to do a great deal of informing and forming their children’s attitudes, beliefs and behaviors concerning faith and religion. On most days, and in most ways, I do a decent job. Would that I’d paid as much formal attention to help shape and strengthen my own children’s faith formation.

Don’t get me wrong. Mine are great kids. You’d really enjoy their company. No doubt they make great friends. I find, however, their moral decision making, as well as their ethical practices to be customary and usual – within normal limits, as a physician might say about blood chemistry results.

It’s difficult to admit this, but I’m not certain how certain my children are that God wants them, as well as the rest of us, to live inside a story that poses significant differences to our culture’s story. Neither am I aware how much my children are aware that God’s vision for each of us and for our world(s) is “otherwise” to that of our contemporary society’s.

Obviously, much of this might be resolved if I asked each one straight up. That would require more courage than I’ve been able to muster so far.

On occasion I have asked them if they have prayed about some issue, or if they’ve taken a particular problem to God. I seem, always, to stumble through that line of questioning. They, too, seem to stumble through their responses. Those moments seem only to reinforce my own doubts about transmitting the faith: “Did I ever really teach them to pray?”

I’ve heard folks console their own shortcomings in this regard with words like these, “Faith has to be caught before it can be taught.” True, or not, these sentiments don’t comfort me.

Guess I’ll look to spend some quality time with each of them. Maybe holding them hostage over a restaurant dinner is a time and place to broach the topic. More likely, stepping back from my own anxiety and self-centeredness, simply sharing with them the sore tenderness that’s on my heart will touch a healing place within their souls.

That step forward could take us onto the kind of path where God said these words to Moses, “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”