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I know a lot of people who are doing their best, married to men or women of a different faith, to raise their children to belong to both. I'm not sure how you can simultaneously believe that Jesus was the messiah and that he wasn't, or that Allah is and isn't God, but the only thing worse, it seems to me, is believing, as many kids today do, in "nothing." When I ask some of the kids I know what they "are" and they say "nothing," I'm always a little horrified. More than a little. They get Christmas presents, but they don't celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday. They just do the secular part. They get the presents, but not the gift.
The gift is knowing who you are. That is what I have tried, sometimes awkwardly and inartfully, to give to my children. It is what my parents, for all their failings, gave to me. The gift is faith in something larger. And it's not something you can find under a Christmas tree if all you're really looking for is a present.
6 comments:
Wow- that is beautiful.
Very beautiful ... the gift of faith can only be given by God ... and, of course God can't give the gift until the intended recipient accepts it!
She reads well, and this is an excellent point.
"They get Christmas presents, but they don't celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday. They just do the secular part. They get the presents, but not the gift."
That's what our Christmases were like as kids. A lot of families raise their kids this way, and it is sad.
Glad you all enjoyed the article.
Garten, I also grew up like that, with secular Christmases. The only part about Jesus that I remember is that my mother would teach me to sing "Away in the Manger" each year.
Thanks, Jan. That was amazing. It is the Gift that counts, the presents leave one rather empty.
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