I want to give our grandchildren the gift of solitude, the gift of knowing the joy of silence, and the chance to be alone and not feel uncomfortable. I want to give them transportation for the inner journey and water for their desert places. I want to make them restless with diversion and disenchanted with the artificial excesses of our culture. I want to give them a desire to strip life to its essential and the courage to embrace whatever they find there.
I would teach them to be seers, to notice subtleties in nature, in people, and in relationships. I long for them to grasp the meaning of things, to hear the sermons of the seasons, and the exhortations of the universe, the warnings of the wounded environment. I would teach them to listen. It would bring me joy to happen in on them one day and find them with their ears to the earth or humming the melody of the meadow or dancing to the music of the exploding symphony of spring.
Yes, I would teach them to dance! I would teach them to never so tie up their feet with the shackles of responsibility that they can’t whirl to the rhythm of the spheres. I would have them embrace the lonely, sweep children into their arms, give wings to the aged, and dance across the barriers of circumstance, buoyed by humor and imagination into the ecstasy of joy. I would teach them to dance!
I would teach our grandchildren to cry, to feel the pain that shatters the violated, to sense the emptiness of the deserted, to hear the plaintive call of the disoriented and lost, to understand the hopelessness of the powerless. I would teach them to cry – for what is locked away, for that which is broken, for those who never know Life, for what was not realized, for the least and the last to know freedom.
I would teach our grandchildren gratitude. I would have them know the gift of where they’ve been and who brought them to where they are. I would teach them to write each day a liturgy of praise to read to the setting sun. I would have them dwell upon the gift of what is, not wasting their energies on what could have been. I would have them know that twin of gratitude: contentment – contented to live and breathe, contented to love and be loved, contented to have shelter and sustenance, contented to know wonder, contented to be able to think and feel and see. To always call a halt to senseless striving, this I would teach our grandchildren.
I would teach our grandchildren integrity, to be truthful at any cost, to be bound by their word, to make honest judgments, even against themselves, to be just, to have pure motives. I would have them realize that they’re accountable individually to God alone and, then, to themselves. I would have them choose right even if it is not popular or understood, even by me.
I would teach our grandchildren to pray, knowing that in our relationship with God there is much to be said, and God is the one who must say it. I would have them know the difference between prayer and piety; I would make them aware that prayer often has no words but only and open, vulnerable accessibility to God’s love, mercy, grace, and justice. I would hope that they discover that prayer brings and is an awareness of our need, a knowledge without which there is no growth or becoming. I would have our children know through experience and example that there is nothing too insignificant to lay before God. Yet, in that openness, we often find Him lifting us above what we brought to Him making it insignificant compared to the revelation He brings to us as a result of our coming to Him.
I would not have our grandchildren think of prayer as a commercial enterprise, a sort of celestial clearing house for distributing earth’s material goods. Rather, I would have prayer teach them that what we so often think we seek is not on the list of what we need, yet God does not upbraid us for our seeking but delights in our coming to Him, even when we don’t understand. Mostly, I would have our grandchildren know how synonymous true prayer is with gratitude and contentment and have them discover the marvelous outlet prayer is for communicating this delight with God.
Lastly, I would teach our grandchildren to soar, to rise above the common, yet find delight in the commonplace, to fly over the distracting disturbances of life, yet see from this perspective ways to attack the knotty problems that thwart people’s growth and stymie their development. I would give them wings to dream and insight to see beyond the now, and have those wings develop strength from much use so that others may be born aloft as well when life becomes too weighty for them to bear. At last these wings, I know, will take our children high and away from our reach to places we have together dreamed of, and I will watch and cheer as they fade from my view into vistas grand and new, and I will be glad.
