Rebecca and I are just over two weeks away from the due date of our first child, and we have been overwhelmed by the generosity of First Presbyterian Church and other family and friends. Our nursery went from being an empty room to having a crib, a changing table, a glider, many packages of diapers, a closet full of clothes, and drawers full of toys. The shelves, once bare, are now lined with quite a few children's books. There are the classic Dr. Seuess stories, the Berenstein Bears, and a variety of nursery rhyme books. There are stories we did not know but presume we will know very well in the years ahead. Among the many books, we also received several children's story Bibles.
I have flipped through this story Bibles several times, examining the pictures, reading the words, whether in narrative form or verse, taking in the major stories of faith editors choose to include and puzzling over which ones they think we should wait until later to share with our children.
What an incredible opportunity and terrifying responsibility, that this child we bring into the world is depending on us to help him to grasp an understanding of God. These stories in these children's Bibles, the songs and lullabies we sing at the bedside, the prayers we teach and say, and the way we model our own faith, will communicate to this child who God is. Frankly, it's overwhelming to consider.
In his book Caring for God's People, Philip Culbterson explains how the psychological category of Object Relations Theory plays into our understanding of God. In short, Object Relations Theory is based on the relationship between the infant and the parent and how over time the infant grows to become a child, an adolescent, and an adult, moving from a focus on a relationship with one object (mother and father) to more objects to which the person attaches value. The objects, over time, come to represent the person, memory, place, or particular memory. If you have ever cleaned out a parent's home, you most likely have experienced "object relations" as you try to figure out what you can throw away and what to keep.
This use of objects to represent something else plays into our understanding of God as well. Because Object Relations Theory is based on relationships, our understanding of God comes into play, since it, too, is a relationship. Culbertson writes about this relationship between a person and God, "God loves us first, and we see that love reflected in a tangible manner in the faces of human beings around us."
This is to say that our concepts, our constructions of images of God, come from the way we are treated by others who say they know and love this God.
Culbertson goes on to say that our understanding of God can be seen in three parts.
- The Subject-God: This is the God of theologians and scholars, a God understood through reason and intellectual discourse, the God of the Creed.
- The Object-God: This is the God-image that is the result of our relationships with others throughout our lifetime who teach us and help us to understand God.
- The God Beyond: This is the God beyond our human capacity to understand, the God who reminds us that all our images of God are insufficient and finite, projections of our experience, the God who reminds us "my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways" (Isa. 55:8)
The object-God is formed through internalized images and feelings from relations with parents, siblings, and playmates, plus the socail, economic, and religious situation in which the family lives. It is also crafted by the instructions and other verbal messages about God that parents give their children.
"The child does not consciously create the image of God out of fantasy, but rather out of the concrete experiences of family prayer, stories, or questions asked of parents. The child's sense and image of God are thus, in a complex way, closely connected with the child's parents."
If we didn't take our baptismal vows to our children seriously, Culbertson really brings it to a head here. Those first three years of life will give an image of God to our children that they will continue to affirm, deconstruct, and understand anew throughout life. The stories we read, the prayers we offer, the service we model display for our children what it means to follow Jesus.
Consider your own life. Where did your first image of God come from? Who modeled the life of discipleship for you? What image of God have you carried with you, deconstructed, put aside, and met in new ways throughout your life?
How we raise our children in faith matters for their relationship with God begins at birth, and it grows every day.
No comments:
Post a Comment