Pray, Live and Love (Crafting My Heart in Words): “INVESTING” On Our Children

I belong to a Catholic Christian Community called Sowers Field Community. Formerly (10 to 20 years ago) its membership was only limited to college students and young people / professionals. Now it has extended its members to the members’ sons and daughters which now compose the children and the teens.

I have been “away” for some time in the community. When manong Boyet (Joseph Lamberte) called me up to handle the topic on leadership with the teens’ group, I readily gave it my “yes”. I love being with adolescents. I love so much the spirit of the young ones. Being with them is like “playing” – with words, ideas and how they feel about things. I get to “experiment” so many things with them through the “art” of questioning. In short I can be naughty and “kulit” when I ask questions.

I fashioned the module into three stages :

God. There was an assignment to bring any picture of God. They were asked to explain what they see about God in the picture and how they feel about it. They were also asked about what they know of God as a leader and who among the members of their own families they saw as model to leadership.

Family and Self. They were asked first and foremost to draw an ideal family including a symbol of themselves. Some of them have emotionally shared their experiences and how they look at their own families including its members.

Leadership. In this part, they were grouped according to ordinal position in the family such that all eldest go together, middle children and the youngest are grouped in the same manner. They share their own roles in the family and the call to leading regardless of whether they are the eldest, middle or the youngest. They need to lead and model good behaviour.

At first I was sort of “rigid’ with my programming stating a per hour activity. When I arrived there, I was so late thus I needed to adjust my time. I simply decided to be flexible and enjoy being with them. True enough I did.

I was so stunned with how they think and feel about things. I realize they have so much to share. Young people are so rich with realizations and insights that we really have to spend time to ask them despite that they dragged me sometimes since some were so inhibited with answering some questions. I guess some of them may not be used to my way of asking the questions yet I appreciate so much their effort of trying to hop into my world. And again they amaze me so much.

That was why I wished so much the parents were there to listen to their children talking. If was the parent I would have cried listening from my own son or daughter sharing how she feels and thinks about things. Some have shared unexpected insights given their age. I felt that if their parents were there, they would be very proud of them.

Yes it was such a wonderful experience and I thank the Lord for giving me the chance to be with young people despite having fever, sniffing my nose from time to time or catching my breath or wiping my sweat, or eating some crackers during the session.

Another thing that really enlarged my heart and almost led me to tears was when I led that “Angelus” prayer during lunch time in front of the kids – both the grade schoolers and the teens. It was tough. I realized I have not been praying the angelus for quite a long time. I almost got lost. What made me almost break into laughter during the prayer time was when saw some of the kids’ eyes on their food and some of them that I presume did not know the prayer looked like they have “locked jaw” as they looked at my eyes during prayer time (ooohhh so candid and sooo cute hahahah).

Kids are so lovely, adorable…so beautiful…so innocent and honest, You can even read them through their looks …their eyes. It did not matter whether they knew the prayer or not. They were just simply a reminder to me that God…OUR BEAUTIFUL GOD is so present in them.

As I quote manong boyet when I ambushed him to send me home, “why not INVEST ON OUR OWN CHILDREN”. Why not right? In this manner we bring them closer to God and really closer to the mission that He wants of us. One day we realize the same children will bring others to God too...