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Abstract
To study children’s spirituality at the beginning of the twenty-first century provides a prime opportunity for exploring the personal, social and global interconnections in the understanding and practice of spirituality. Countless definitions of spirituality have been suggested, yet it has also been said that spirituality escapes definition altogether. I suggest an open-ended description which can be applied to childhood where the fabric of human life first emerges, is nurtured into further growth and shaped towards its adult expression. Based on this experience and research, I will first reflect on the spiritual potential of childhood, its awakening and development, before discussing what I mean by the fullness of life in a time of almost cataclysmic change. These ideas are explored within a wider context than spirituality in either early childhood or young adolescence, yet they relate closely to the development of the spiritual potential of children and young people.
Notes
1. The large handbook by Waaijman (Citation2002), does not even carry a single reference to childhood or children’s spirituality. The same applies to The Study of Spirituality (Jones, Wainwright, and Yarnold Citation1986) and the excellent academic overview Minding the Spirit. The Study of Christian Spirituality (Dreyer and Burrows Citation2005). Many other publications could be mentioned. Compare this with the excellent, very informative study The Spiritual Dimension of Childhood (Adams, Hyde and Woolley Citation2008) which provides much evidence for the pioneering work on children’s spirituality undertaken today.
2. See King (Citation2009). I have drawn on this book in several parts of this essay.
3. See especially Chap 5 ‘Spirituality within Life’s Dance’.
4. See the early study of Postman (Citation1994).
5. See the Unicef Bulletin CHILD matters, summer 2011.
6. See note 1 above.
7. Teilhard de Chardin uses this expression in his writings.
8. See especially the chapter by Heather Eaton, ‘An Ecological Imaginary. Evolution and Religion in an Ecological Era’, 7–22, from which the quotations are taken; ibid., 12.
9. Ibid., 16.
10. Ibid., 17.
11. This is more fully discussed in my article ‘Earthing spiritual literacy: How to link spiritual development and education to new Earth consciousness?’ Journal of Beliefs and Values 31/3 (Dec 2010) 245–260.
12. This is the subtitle of Stuart Kauffman’s book At Home in the Universe. The Search for Laws of Self-Organzation and Complexity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. See also his book, Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion. New York: Basic Books, 2008.
13. Quoted from Stuart Kauffman, ‘The Reenchantment of Humanity: The Implications of “No Entailing Laws”’; unpublished paper and notes from a lecture given at the Conference on ‘Spirituality, Emergent Creativity, and Reconciliation’, St. Paul’s University, Ottawa, May 23–26, 2012.
14. For an extensive discussion of this statement see King (Citation1988, chap. 4).
15. See the essays in the two volumes by Teilhard de Chardin (Citation1969, Citation1970). See also King (Citation2004).
16. This theory of salutogenesis is described in Aaron Antonovsky’s books Health, Stress, and Coping. San Francisco, London: Jossey Bass, 1979 and Unraveling the Mystery of Health. How People Manage Stress and Stay Well. San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1987. It is linked to the use of an Orientation to Life Questionnaire and the creation of a coherence scale.
17. Ibid., p. 236.
18. Ibid., 240 f.
19. Quoted at the beginning of her book, 7, this passage is a slightly reworked translation of the final passage of an essay on ‘The Evolution of Chastity’ written by Teilhard in February 1934. See Teilhard de Chardin (Citation1975, 86 f).
20. Highly to be recommended is the 56 minutes’ film Journey of the Universe. The Epic Story of Cosmic, Earth, and Human Transformation (2011) produced by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, and accompanied by a book with teaching materials.