Blog 838 – 12.09.2017

Things You Should Say To Children, Especially To Your Inner Child

I saw this wonderful picture and quote and want to share it with you and a few words of my own on how important it is what we say to children. I hope you will read over the entire list of suggested positive things to say to children and as you do consider all the negative form of these things that you might have heard from childhood and even said to your own children. I am not here to “beat anyone up” since we have all done way too much of that. Child abuse is a horrendous thing and we, all of us, have suffered from it and participated in it to one degree or another. That reminds me, as many things do, of a Bible verse, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God” and are therefore equally deserving of love and grace.

The whole lesson of the Jesus story is not about a debt being paid but about Love transcending a terrible misunderstanding. Adam was never meant to be perfect nor Eve nor any child ever born including Jesus. If you read the gospels banned from inclusion in the Bible by mere men you will see some very unflattering stories about Jesus as a child and as a man, as you do of all the other great prophets and messengers of God all the way down the line. Even the virgin birth thing and many of the “miracles” stretch the imagination. The lessons in the miracles are much like the myths of the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses not P.C. (Politically Correct) but very B.C. (Before Christ.) The New Testament cannon was all about building a new religion – Christianity, that actually had very little to do with Jesus and a lot more to do with judgment, with condemnation, and with guilt. Guilt religions all have one thing in common – there is always someone with his or her hand out to collect a toll before you can be forgiven, be made right with God, or go to paradise, heaven, or a pleasant retirement in a gated community somewhere nice, away from a hot burning lake of fire. If you believe that, you are also a ripe candidate for some of George Strait’s ocean front property in Arizona.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qsgVlOZKiBhQfq8zc652-XNG0mmt5Z_p

If you think that I am wandering too far afield from what we should be saying to children I am not. I remember a famous quote from a Jesuit priest, Jesuits were once a very strong evangelistic arm of the Roman Catholic Church, “Give me a child till he (or she) is twelve years old and I will make them a Catholic for life.” Many today might think that sounds like “brainwashing” and I am one of them. Berating children, making them feel “less than” and guilty for all the imaginary sins of mankind since Adam and even insisting stupidly that children are “born in sin and shapen in iniquity” (whatever that is really supposed to mean) is all a great big misunderstanding of the nature of God, of the nature of love, and of our own true nature inherited from our heavenly parent as did Adam that first child of God and every child born since.

Do you mean to say, David, that the religious folks have it all wrong? No, I do not, just the love part, the most important part, the God part that He has passed on to all Her children. The Apostle Paul, who is believed to have written a great deal of the New Testament wrote, “You, oh person, who judges another are guilty of the same offense.” That sure makes ring true the childhood taunt, “It takes one to know one” and I guess that might explain why a former State Supreme Court Justice from Alabama running for the U.S. Senate and accused of sexually harassing and even molesting underaged girls has many devout Christians supporting him in his bid. To quote Paul again, “Beloved these things ought not to be.” Child molesters, sexual and otherwise, are most often victims of the same abuse as children. To tell a child over and over again, “You are worthless, no good” is to make them feel a “victim” all of their life.

The Carpenters, Karen and Richard Carpenter, recorded a lovely song that says, “Bless the beasts and the children for in this world they have no voice, they have to choice.” To which I add, “But to believe what they are told.” All the more reason for today’s blog: Things You Should Say To Children, Especially Your Inner Child:

“You are loved, you are lovable, you are altogether lovely for you are a child of Love,” Truer words were never written, spoken, sung or heard.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White