So I only know Rev. Cynthia Kane of Lexington, Kentucky because I sat next to her during the Service of the Living Tradition at a General Assembly. I also know it was because we were both “walking,” (in the days when fellowshipped ministers were allowed to walk!) but I’m just menopausally challenged enough not to remember if it was for preliminary or final fellowship. But Rev. Cynthia wrote a column for her church blog recently about whether or not our UU children come to church (and for that matter, whether or not their parents do!) that should be posted on the bulletin boards of every UU church in the United States, especially in places like New York City, where people have way too much to do and plan way too much for their children to do. If you haven’t already read it, click here for a tough/tender dose of reality, and thanks to Shelby and The Interdependent Web for the heads-up!
As both minister and mother, I can sympathize with the multiple demands on our children, as well as the state of exhaustion in which they live/move/have their being. After all, I live with two world-class whiners on the subject of church, ages 11 and 14. There are weeks when I get nothing but static from our sons, who complain that Sunday ought to be the one day they can sleep in peace. I’m also privileged to be the targeted recipient of the “you’re only making me go to church because YOU have to go to church” conversation, reserved for ministers, DREs and other religious professionals.
But I’ve made it clear to A. and D. that they have to go to church anyway, even if I don’t go. (Imagine how appalled they’ve been during my sabbatical, when their birthright UU father herds them out the door while I watch “Meet the Press!”) As I once told them a while back, “you don’t want to go to school either, but you still have to go to school. There are things you have to learn in school, and things you have to learn in church, and it’s our job to make sure you learn in both places.”
Of course, much sighing and eye-rolling ensues (it is so hard not to laugh sometimes!) along with how boring church is and how they aren’t really learning anything. But there are two events I remember when I consider this, one about each of my sons. Recently, Bob and the kids (hereafter known as “the guys”) went to a church-sponsored dinner without me that had been planned before I went on sabbatical. I had something else to do anyway, but I got home before they did. The guys arrived home with a doggie bag for me, and stories of the evening’s fun. At one point, A., my lanky 14-year-old, stretched out on the living room floor looking happy as he relived the night’s events. “I just love all the people at our church,” he said. “They are all so cool.”
The other story concerns my little one, at a church game night. D. is consumed with that old Milton Bradley game, “The Game of Life,” and he’d joined with several congregants in playing it that night. In fact, it was D.’s job to pass out all the little playing pieces. At one point, one of the players landed on a square that demanded they get married, and D., reaching over to get one of the pink and blue pieces that indicate marriage, paused and asked the player: “Are you marrying a boy or a girl?”
These two stories are the reasons we listen to the boys complain about church, and make them come anyway. Even when they think it is boring to be there, they are learning the value of multigenerational community, they are learning to be kind and open and accepting and fair. Our two sons are wonderful human beings, and church is one of the reasons they are that way. It takes a UU congregation to help raise our children–but first, they have to be there.
