Carolyn Butler, the writer and producer of the BBC World Service radio program, “Little Angels”, spent several weeks talking with parents, and with teachers, the clergy, and children from many different faiths and those with none.
She concluded that children, whether or not they are brought up within a faith community, will always need to express their spirituality. “Like all human beings,” she told the Sentinel, “they, too, search for love, excitement, and meaning. And if they have no conventional religious experience, they’ll turn to whatever else is most exciting and most meaningful in their lives.
“For example, so many of us live in a consumer society,” she said. “We endlessly want to buy things in order to feel fulfilled, but we never are. This is a distortion of our real hunger, because spirituality is not about buying things but about giving up things and making sacrifices, and those disciplines are hard for us all. … Read more
This editorial, Spirituality in Children, by Kim Shippey was originally published in the Christian Science Sentinel. The full article can now be accessed on JHS-online.
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