Stories

Stories of children’s and adult’s experiences are one source for deepening the understanding of spirituality. Like collecting nourishing and beautiful fruit in an orchard, we collect stories and we invite you to share your story with us.

Currently we are looking at two broad areas:

1) we are interested in how children affect adult spirituality. We would love to hear about any experiences you have had with your children where they have really taught you something important or which has affected your personal growth or spiritual development in any way.

2) we are looking at children’s spiritual experiences as told by the child or captured in an intimate moment by an adult, or in our remembrances of our own childhood as an adult. Children have all sorts of remarkable experiences that we can call spiritual, they have moment of unity, access wisdom compassion, commune directly with others, ask profound questions, know in ways that sometimes seem remarkable and impossible. We would love to hear about your stories in either of these areas or anything else that you would like to share.

Here are a few short examples:

* Anna’s mother Mary recalls the day when she brought Anna’s newborn sister Elizabeth home from the hospital. Anna was five at the time. Mary remembers that Anna wanted to hold the baby. Anna held her little sister in her lap and stared ponderously into her ear. Anna looked up after several minutes and said to her mother, “Mommy, I’m seeing God’s face in this ear. It is the nicest thing I’ve ever seen.” Mary was overwhelmed by her daughter’s experience and broke down right there into tears. She says at that moment, she herself saw the face of God in that little ear as well, and has never, from then onward, looked at the world in the same way again.

* A parent of a five-year-old reports, “I used to think that religion was something that took place on Sunday or in the Bible. But after spending a year and a half with my baby girl, I have learned that you can encounter God just in breathing or eating a sandwich.”

* A teacher said, “When I drive home from work, I can feel the kids with me. During the day, I look out and see the way that they look at me while I’m reading a story or something. They feel so much. The feelings are right there. It’s all so real for them. I’m actually envious. In the car it’s like I’m looking at things the way they do. I really find it exhilarating. A part of me sort of comes out. It can really make you happy.”

* Dana says “At about seven years old I felt like I was dangled out into the void. It was not a peak experience like some others that I had as a child. This was so divorced from my everyday life and its bigger than all of it. It provided a whole new backdrop; I felt like I was out in nothing and yet it was everything. It was the strangest sensation ; emotionally it was like at any moment I could feel every emotion by focusing on it. If I just changed my awareness. like a dial or something I could enter it and yet I felt them all at the same time. It felt like this is everything and nothing and I remember being blown away by it as a child. It just overtook me and I had to just sit back and experience it and that was a little scary but it was also so amazing.

* Ellen says “School was difficult because I tended to be unconsciously focused on what people were feeling. So I could feel this tremendous empathy for someone was having a hard time and in the midst of feeling that empathy I would miss the math lesson. I remember in fifth grade my teacher. It really is that feeling of moving into the energy, feeling oneness. I would just commune with her I was sitting at my desk and she was sitting at the black board I would be kind of staring at her as all the other kids were and then I would go into this other dimension where I would commune with her and I would know what was going on inside of her and inside of her life. But of course I was missing the math lesson. I think I was the kid who would look out the window and feel oneness with all of life and be called spaced out.”

* At four, Denise father records this “quantum philosopher’s pronouncement. “I am air. I think everything is air like me; plants, rocks a and animals, buildings and everything. You can feel it when the wind blows. People have different flavored airs. God did not make us because he is air like we are. Everything is air, the hamster, the picture and everything. We are all the same thing.

* Michael describes that his son fell from a three story window in our house. This was our worst nightmare come true. We were in complete fear and panic as we rushed downstairs. As we arrived at the spot where he had fallen , he was sitting on the ground, still a little surprised but just fine. He was sort of looking around and asked where “those guys” were. what guys. The guys dressed in gold that caught me.’.

* Our friends dog, Adam, had just died. and Laura was really sad because she really loved this dog. She was crying a lot about him and I didn’t seem able to comfort her very well. We were driving in the car and Laura was talking a lot. I was tired and I asked her to please just lie down and rest and she did. After twenty minutes she sat up and said something wonderful happened. Adam came to her and told her that her upset was making it harder for him and that if she really wanted to help him she should send him love and light. And he said the reason that I’ve come to you is that when someone closer to you dies you’ll know what to do. And then in two weeks my brother’s wife had their first child and it was born with a terminal illness and Laura held this dying baby in the hospital and was not upset and crying but was working hard to send love and light to help him.