It may seem a paradox to many that children

can be still and silent and enjoy it, but like

adults, children also yearn for the experience

of meeting God.

In some cultures, including our own,

respecting children as human individuals in

their own right is still a novel idea. The idea

that children may have deep spiritual

awareness before they are taught a religious

faith is only now starting to be acknowledged.

At times we underestimate children.

Christianity has displayed a curious attitude to

children. The notion of original sin, however

enlightened the interpretations of theologians,

has encouraged parents round the globe to

believe that their babies are somehow innately

and irredeemably tainted until they are

baptised. The catechism of the Catholic

Church reminds us that in all baptised

children or adults faith must continue to grow

after baptism. The sheer gratuitousness of the

Grace of Salvation is particularly manifest in

infant baptism. A contrasting tradition,

equally rooted in our culture, endows children

with a simplistic innocence not borne out by

psychological insights into child development.

Fatally tainted or naively pure and innocent,

neither image fosters the idea in adults that

children might have something worthwhile to

say for themselves about experiencing God,

something from which even adults might

learn. After just six weeks of meditating using

the method taught by John Main, a class of

twenty six pre-school children (age 5) was

asked; “What does meditation mean to you?”

Their responses were beautifully simple. The

children meditate everyday for five minutes in

a circle. The picture to the right shows the children meditating with their “prayer bear” and candle focus.

In my Diocese we have introduced Christian

Meditation to children in all grade levels in our

schools. The experience thus far has been very

 exciting. After the first six months of our “trial”

period all the teachers (fifteen of them) came

together to share their initial experiences.

One teacher who was teaching Grade One students

(6 years of age) told me the story of Jacob.

Jacob had been diagnosed with A.D.D,

Attention Deficit Disorder. Young Jacob was a

noisy, fidgety, over-active student. He just

couldn’t keep still in class. The teacher really

didn’t think Jacob could “do” meditation for

one minute let alone six minutes of which the

program was aiming for. Jacob tried very hard

however and he did try to sit still and silent.

After three weeks of slowly building up to six

minutes of silence the teacher noticed that

Jacob would sit on his hands when meditation

began. The teacher asked Jacob after one

of the meditation sessions why he was sitting on his

hands? The teacher tried not to make a

judgement about Jacob’s unusual method of

meditating but she was intrigued as to why he

would sit on his hands. Jacob’s response was

beautiful. “I am sitting on my hands because I

want to be still for Jesus.” I am not suggesting

a miracle happened but Jacob can sit for six

minutes, still and silent and he loves his

meditation times.