Christian Meditation with Children & Young People A Personal Introduction
Summer 2016
Christian Meditation in 1996 in my own parish and I sensed I was “Coming Home” to the prayer of Penny Sturrock silence I had experienced as a very young child. My commitment to the n this first newsletter I would like work of the WCCM deepened to introduce myself as the WCCM through a number of significant International Coordinator of retreats, conferences and workshops I Meditation with Children. My name have attended over the years is Penny (Penelope) Sturrock. David, beginning with the Way of Peace in my husband, and I have been married Belfast in 2000. I am a member of the for 43 years. We have 6 adult children WCCM School of Meditation Council and 8 grandchildren. I meditate with and the Meditatio Council. I am my grandchildren and I have learnt always happy to receive reports of much from them, especially that we what is happening in the work with are all “Born Contemplative”. children and I look forward to your I am a lawyer by training but I no emails: longer practise law. I discovered education@meditatio.co.uk ◊
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Inside A Personal Introduction
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Coming Home and Homecoming
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The Family Day
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Meditation in Schools
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“[People discovered God] when they were very very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love they hadn’t expected.” Rowan Willians, in response to a child's letter about the origins of God.
Coming Home and Homecoming by Penny Sturrock In memory of Bishop Michael Putney, born to eternal life 28 March 2014.
“Home, in the deepest sense of the word, is where we are at one with others, where we feel most ourselves, where we can be ourselves, where we know others and where we are known, where we are accepted and are accepting. I think that is really the whole meaning of meditation; it is the whole meaning of the Kingdom of God. It is the whole meaning of our life: to come home, to know really that we are already at home, to be at home with ourselves. You know how often and how deeply Father John spoke about meditation as the way in which we are first of all restored to ourselves, come back into touch with ourselves, so that we can move out beyond our narrow limitations to others and to God.” (Laurence Freeman OSB “Aspects of Love”)
One young Aboriginal boy in Australia summed this up when he said “Meditation is when I can just be me.” This ease with ourselves, being at home with erhaps the name of our website, ourselves, at one with ourselves is truly the Gift for cominghome.org.au, is a reminder to the adults Life that will change the world when the children we who explore it and contribute to it that children are are educating today see and act in the world from a already “home” – it is we adults who must reconnect contemplative way of being. How do we do this? We to it. share a time of Christian meditation with them, we meditate together and we Simply Begin Simply. ◊
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The Family Day An Experience of Awe and Wonder
“The capacity for wonder and a love of wisdom return with contemplative practice” (Laurence Freeman, The Goal of Life, pg. 64).
The caterpillar, interesting but not exactly lovely, humped along among the parsley leaves eating, always eating. Then one night it was gone and in its place a small green confinement hung by two silk threads on a parsley stem. I think it took nothing with it except faith, and patience. And then one morning it expressed itself into the most beautiful being. Black Swallowtail, Mary Oliver, RED BIRD (Boston Beacon Press, 2008),pg. 40
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hat has a caterpillar to do with Christian meditation? A Family Day is a gentle invitation to adults (as well as children) to “Slow down so we can see”. A day in a garden or rural setting, offers an opportunity for children, their teachers, parents and grandparents to stop and marvel at the wonders of nature, the mystery of life and to experience for themselves “life in the dimension of spirit, as a mystery rooted in the joy of being” (John Main, Monastery Without Walls, pg. 3). All that is needed are some shared “won der” activities, a pic nic and the marvel of a time of shared meditation, however short, with adults and children of all ages reminding us all the we were “Born Contemplative.” Encouraged by other successful “Family Days“ held in Australia and Brazil and elsewhere, Stéphanie Barcet of France (stephanie.barcet@orange.fr) writes “We gathered on 6 th February 2016 for meditation with 9 parents and 11 children aged from 5 to 12. It was the first time in France. We were 3 organizers, 2 for children and one for parents because the activities were often separated. We had time together also: each family made an artwork with papers and drawings to decorate their meditation corner. We meditated once together. Children were very happy and said they would like to go on.”
We are brought to wonder when we are faced with something which is beyond our capacity to comprehend, something which is a mystery and which leaves us speechless. We are in fact, whether we know
it or not, brought up short before the mystery whom we call God. Our contribution as adults is one of enabling the child or children in our care to be free and fearless, so that unexpectedly, rapturously, in some unforeseen moment of contact, they may be caught up in this mystery of God” Madeleine Simon Born Contemplative p.3637 ◊
"Wonder is prayer in embryo." Madeleine Simon, Born Contemplative
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Meditation in Schools
school staff at one time, to enable them to take it to the children themselves, at a time in the school day where it is most appropriate. As by Penny Sturrock a consequence, it is a whole school he February 2014 Instru activity, although year groups will mentum Laboris titled “Edu meditate for different time periods. cating Today and Tomorrow: A The rule of thumb is that each child Renewing Passion” stated: “The will eventually meditate for one young people we are educating minute per year of age, even though today will become the leaders of the the start point can be as little as one
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2050s. What will religion’s contribution be to educating younger generations to peace, development, fraternity in the universal human community? How are we going to educate them to faith and in faith? How will we establish the preliminary conditions to accept this gift, to educate them to gratitude, to a sense of awe, to asking themselves questions, to develop a sense of justice and consistency? How will we educate them to prayer?”1 In an online article about meditation in schools, Rosalind Stockley said, “Meditatio, the outreach arm of WCCM, adopted the practical principles (of the Townsville methodology – teaching the teachers) and developed a programme for introducing meditation to primary school children in the UK and other countries. This programme involves, as a general rule, introducing meditation to all the
minute in total. The most common time to pray in this way is after the lunch break, when children return to a classroom.... Sometimes the children who benefit the most are the children with special needs.”2
Marilyn Jones would agree. In an interview with her3, the very experienced Primary classroom teacher from Sydney, Australia who has been meditating with her classes for the last 9 years said, “Christian meditation helps develop a beautiful relationship between teacher and children, and between the children themselves. They become more aware of God's wonder in the world around us. Meditation empowers them in a complex world. We want children to be fully alive. We need to bring them from their minds into their hearts. Meditation is very gentle. It provides a ‘level praying field’ for the classroom and the many and varied abilities and needs of the children. It offers a unique invitation to each child to do what they are most hungry and able to do — to enter into the profound silence and stillness within themselves — in a way where no one is more or less able, more or less verbal or adept with the ‘correct’ answer or response. This way of prayer has no
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“Any teacher or parent knows the extraordinary direct holiness and goodness in a child. To teach, to raise children is a spiritual experience. However we may understand it, whatever kind of system we may be using, however we may professionalise it, the teaching or the raising of a child is a spiritual experience. It’s a value of universal currency, it transcends all cultures. And that is why teaching and parenthood are vocations of the highest order.” Laurence Freeman OSB
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have a gift to last the rest of their lives. Sowing the seed of meditation in the young child allows God do the favourites, there is no evaluation, no competition, no work of God and provides the foundation for paying comparison, no judgement and no ‘debriefing.’ The best attention, which is love.” ◊ advice I heard from one youngster is this: ‘We meditate, References: then we do maths.’” 1: Instrumentum Laboris, “Educating Today and Marilyn reminds us how children ask a peer or adult, Tomorrow: A Renewing Passion” February 2014
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“Can I play?” The child is shown how to play a game. “This is the same ‘playfulness’ they bring to meditation,” she says. The child asks, “Can I pray?” The child is shown how to meditate. “When they learn to meditate together they are learning something of immense benefit for their social relationships later in life. It's for all types of learners — especially the active.”
2: Rosalind Stockley, rozstockley@copsewood.org.uk. The full article was first published in http://shoreline editions.co.uk/ and segments are shared here with permission 3: Marilyn Jones (marilyn.jones5@bigpond.com). The cited interview is available at youtube.com/ watch?v=lcZJkcJtjcE
As Madeleine Simon4 put it, “Children are natural contemplatives so if we encourage them to be still and 4: Madeleine Simon, Born Contemplative open their hearts to the divine love within, they will
Meditation & Education is a guide for those who want to introduce primary school children to a daily meditation practice. Visit meditatiostore.com/children to obtain a copy.
Christian Meditation With Children and Young People Meditatio St Marks Myddelton Square London EC1 R 1 XX United Kingdom email: meditatio@wccm.org web: meditatio.co.uk
Meditatio is a cluster of programs, publications and events that brings the fruits and benefits of meditation to the wider world. It is the outreach of The World Community for Christian Meditation and seeks to bring universal spiritual wisdom and values to bear upon the pressing issues of a secular world. Christian Meditation With Children And Young People is a Meditatio publication. ©2016 The World Community for Christian Mediataion.