CCQ #109: What motivates you to get to church on the weekend?
Many thanks to the parents who gifted us with the presence of their children during our summer program that just wrapped up last week. We hope the kids had two-weeks filled with joy, grace and love...and lots of learning about our faith!
My daughter Vivienne, age 7, made a new best friend, Drea, during our summer program and on the commute in on the last day she said “I’m so said I won’t see Drea anymore.” I don’t’ know about you, but sometimes the only thing that gets me motivated to go to church on the weekends is the friends I see here. Sometimes I just need to be around people who share my values and my desire to understand better and draw nearer to God. People who help me, through their friendship, to stay close to God and to hold tight to the hope found there. Friends who encourage me when I’m feeling down or lost and remind me to just keep “showing up” and be still before God and believe, like me, that only good can come from this spiritual practice. These friendships are a well from which I drink on Sundays, often arriving quite parched; refreshment is found both at Mass and after Mass chatting with my friends. So, why would it be any different for our kids? They like seeing their friends and sometimes that is the only thing that makes them want to come to church (and the donuts...never forget the power of the donut). There are worse motivations. Friendship is just God with skin on; the incarnation giving us a hug when we need one.
Mass and/or Playdate in the Atrium
So, an invitation, particularly for our summer families to help keep our children, and ourselves, in touch over the school year - consider making our weekly weekend Masses Sat at 5PM and Sun at 9 and 11AM a priority on your stacked calendar and/or setting up a playdate in the Atrium. There is a binder in each atrium with all our lessons (so far), written out word for word, so basically its reading a lesson to your child as she/he shows you how to work with the materials (or the “works” as they are called). Just call our office to let us know the day and time of your playdate so we can be sure the atrium is cooled/heated to a comfortable temperature for your playdate. And yes, the children are allowed to water and care for our plants in our atria….
Church PTA
I’m looking for a few interested individuals to work with me on establishing a Parent Association, like the PTA, for our families here at CTR. This team would plan mid-year gatherings for our summer families, perhaps bring in a speaker and host one or two parent “topic” nights, or maybe even collectively write an editorial for the paper pushing back just a little bit towards sports teams/competitive dance, etc. who are encroaching a bit on our family life—not in a hostile manner but rather just to start the conversation on the importance of protecting family time. Just some possible ideas. Contact me, Lisa Brown, at dre@ctredeemer.org if you are interested. Wishing your family peace and lots of down-time during these last few weeks of summer!
Here is a little poem that touched me, especially as a parent, during these lush days of summer:
“The Peace Of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
No comments:
Post a Comment