Listen to the Children

Like many others I participated in a number of Christmas gatherings and parties in this holiday season. I heard very little of a religious nature during these gatherings. The god of professional football was worshipped, we expanded our bellies, and the like. I saw a good deal of drinking and that style of merriment. I heard delightful stories and some dirty and juvenile and just plain stupid. Politics for the most part were ignored except for a few “damned government” type of comments. And I saw lots of children playing, crying, delighted, sad, but for the most part joyous and inspiring.

I think it was in the children and their interactions and the adult interaction with the children that have me the most joy and taught me the most wisdom this season. The children were vessels of gratitude and had more to teach than most of their elders.

I have to admit I have a hard time maintaining feelings of gratitude during the season of Christmas; more difficult now that I am not actively leading worship celebrations of gratitude for a newborn king. The secular christmas seems to hold sway over the sacred and that is depressing; thus my joy in listening to the children.

The University of California Berkeley is to commence a $3.1 million research study on the power of gratitude. Now I can almost hear the complaining of grumpy adults on the waste of such a great amount of money, not doubt coming from “our” tax dollars (it is coming from the John Templeton Foundation and I think it is even more than that figure all told). Nevertheless there Greater Good Science Center studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of the well-being and how we foster a more thriving, resilient, and compassionate society. In is in essence a study of counting your blessings. Some will complain that should be totally obvious and this study is a waste of money. But if you look around at folk and in particular in the political scene, this study as others like it is badly needed.

Marilyn Price-Mitchel, PhD in Psychology Today talks about 5 ways to bring gratitude into homes and classrooms. These are the points she makes: 1. Foster imagination instead of multitasking let children explore in depth where their thought take them. 2. Look at a child with new eyes. They change each and every day, we need to pay attention to those changes and treasure them. 3. Cultivate gratefulness – teach children to appreciate people and cultures different than their own. They will also note when you condemn and denigrate others. But lift up your ancestral stories. 4. Listen – pay attention to children’s stories and observe what makes them happy, sad, afraid, lonely or excited. Pay attention to what is going on inside them. 5. Allow yourself to be a receiver – don’t worry so much about what they can achieve in the future but cradle the blessings they give you right now and express your thanks to them for these gifts of their presence in your lives.

I had a bit of this thinking going on in one of my recent articles “Thank you for crapping in your diaper and screaming at me.” I’ve been trying to be more grateful in my life recently. It should not be a hard thing to do, but it is.

But counting blessings is a good beginning and money spent to enable our society to be more grateful is money very well spent.