International Journal of Childrens Spirituality, Vol. 12, No. 1, April 2007, pp.

58

Foreword and Introduction to this Special Edition

Childhood and spiritual wisdom: constructing a critical conversation for the 21st century
Karen Marie Yust*
Union-PSCE, Richmond, Virginia, USA
kmyust@union-psce.edu Karen-MarieYust 0 100000April 2007 12 2007 & Francis Original Article 1364-436X (print)/1470-1030 International Journal 10.1080/13644360701265889 (online) CIJC_A_226499.sgm Taylor and Francis of Childrens Spirituality

The Sixth International Conference on Childrens Spirituality invited participants to frame a conversation about intergenerational wisdom and the modern construction of knowledge over five days of plenary and small-group interaction. Conference organizers believed that sustained, rigorous attention to how religious communities have traditionally interpreted ontological, epistemological, and ethical issues and how childhood and adolescent experiences contribute to, or challenge, these interpretations can significantly enrich and strengthen our understanding of the spiritual dimensions of young peoples lives and help to challenge and shape the families, schools, congregations, communities, and institutions that nurture them. Each conference participant contributed her or his perspective on the philosophical, theological, and religious conceptions of wisdom and knowledge that contribute to our diverse understandings of childhood and adolescence and our practices with real children and youth. Over the course of the conference, several clusters of ideas and issues emerged as central themes and concerns for future discussion. An overarching concern is that we need to explore the theoretical and practical tensions regarding what we qualify as a wisdom tradition and whether we want to place non-religious traditions on par with religious traditions. Is atheism a tradition that warrants inquiry? Should we consider various schools of philosophical thought in concert with evangelical Christian perspectives? Is any set of beliefs and practices embraced consistently by a group of people fair game for identification as a wisdom tradition? Can we, in fact, claim anything we want as a tradition, or are there certain common criteria that all wisdom traditions must share to earn that label and our

*3401 Brook Road, Richmond, VA, 23227, USA. Email. kmyust@union-psce.edu ISSN 1364-436X (print)/ISSN 1469-8455 (online)/07/01000504 2007 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/13644360701265889

6 K. M. Yust attention? There is much more we need to discover and explore about the nature and characteristics of tradition. Anthony Frendo characterized tradition as received wisdom. John Pridmore, highlighting the role of doctrine in tradition, suggested that tradition is, at least in part, a collection of stories that need to be continually retold, despite doctrinal attempts to provisionally distill truth from them. Michael McMurtary described a contemporary prayer room website that uses postmodern forms of the classical Christian practices of Examen and lectio divina as a means of passing on a tradition to a new generation. Each of these perspectives points to different characteristics by which we might define a wisdom tradition. As Annemie Dillon (this issue, p. 45), quoting Friedrich Schweitzer, reminded us, children have a right to religion as a means of helping them make meaning regarding their questions about life, death, and human relationships. But given the debate about what constitutes a wisdom tradition in contemporary societies, we might more accurately substitute the term tradition for religion in this rights statement, as a way to make room for non-religious meaningmaking systems of thought and practice indicative of our contemporary, multicultural world. A theme that emerged is that context matters. By context, I mean not only the given sociocultural and possibly religious culture in which we are embedded as teachers and students but also the pedagogical context that we both attempt to create and to which our and our students personal and familial stories contribute. Theologian David Ford talks about the community of heart, the assembly of positive and negative voices and influential role models within us that accompany us in all that we think and do (Ford, 1997). McMurtary drew on a concept of exterior and interior worlds in generative tension with one another to describe the influences of context on personal knowledge and wisdom. If we are serious about exploring the relationships between historic and intergenerational traditions and contemporary childrens spirituality, we need, as Frendo bluntly stated, the help of psychology and sociology to transpose traditional wisdom into a contemporary key. Perhaps we need to move from thinking about tradition as a noun, static and contained, and think instead of traditioning, a more active verbal form of being in a dynamic relationship with intergenerational beliefs and practices. Furthermore, children need to participate fully in this traditioning. Dillon asked us to consider that authentic participation in spiritual education requires children to have opportunities for taking part in (thinking) and having a voice that is heard (expressing themselves, p. 44). Another concern is that we cannot underestimate the tensions inherent in negotiating between practice (what is done) and content (information conveyed). These tensions raise the broader question of the role of reason and the intellect in spiritual knowledge and wisdom. Traditions and their scholars are often drawn more to study and intellectual reflection on spirituality than to personal engagement in spiritual practices. Diadochos of Photiki, a fourth century Greek Orthodox mystical scholar, highlights the dilemma posed for scholars by the question of reasons contribution to spiritual wisdom.

Childhood and spiritual wisdom

Our intellect often finds it hard to endure [spiritual attentiveness] because of the straitness and concentration which this involves; but it joyfully turns to theology [and philosophy] because of the broad and unhampered scope of divine speculation. Therefore, so as to keep the intellect from expressing itself too much in words or exalting itself unduly in its joy, we should spend most of our time in [spiritual practices such as] prayer, in singing and reading [sacred texts], yet without neglecting the speculations of wise [persons] whose faith has been revealed in their writing. In this way we shall prevent the intellect from confusing its own utterances with the utterances of grace, and stop it from being led astray by self-esteem and dispersed through over-elation and loquacity. (Diadoches of Photiki, 1979, p. 275)

This leads me to another issue: the problematic of a conception of faith in relation to religion and religious traditions. As Clive Erricker named several questions about faith, I could not help but recall the Hebrew story of Job. God asks Job, Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? (Job 38:2). When he can finally get a word in after Gods long litany of divine action in the world, Job replies, I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I do not know (Job 42:36). Is this not in keeping with the Kierkegaardian perspective Clive asked us to consider? We need to be asking whether faith is breathing life into us and the children with whom we live and work. We also need to recognize that faith is best nurtured by iconic practices of teaching and learning, in which the conversations, content, images, exercises, stories, and examples that we use all point beyond themselves and the selves of the participants to some other, more ineffable reality. The operative questions then become Can we teach in such a way that students discover the passion for spiritual life necessary for leaps of faith into that life? Can we be vulnerable enough as teachers to let them perform the same service for us? Especially, with regard to childrens spirituality, we cannot disregard the tension between developmental theories and our understandings of spiritually infused pedagogies. As Dillon cogently argued, we must reject the image of the child as a passive, yet-to-be-socialized not-yet-adult. If I might adapt Errickers proverb from the first night of the conference: Think of our children as inheritors of our received wisdom and help them at all ages and stages to develop the abilities each has for skillfully testing it and making personally sensible meaning from it. The last common theme from this conference I will note is our shared perception that we need to encourage teachers to identify and commit to a set of spiritual practicesa spiritual rule, or discipline of life and vocationthat intentionally shapes their ways of living day to day and their teaching in classrooms and congregations. Such a rule need not be dictated by particular religious expectations (although it could be), but it is necessitated and shaped by each teachers deliberate concern for ongoing spiritual formation and transformation through personal engagement in an embodied spiritual inquiry of her or his own choosing. These observations mark a point of departure for what needs to become a long intergenerational journey together exploring wisdom and the construction of knowledge. As we continue to explore the nature of tradition and traditioning and the functions of teaching and learning in relation to wisdom traditions, may the issues and

8 K. M. Yust concerns raised by this conference function as signposts directing us into zestful conversation and energetic practice for the spiritual well-being of all the worlds children. References
Diadoches of Photiki, (1979) On spiritual knowledge and discrimination: One hundred texts, in: G. E. H. Palmer, P. Sherrard, and K. Ware (Eds) The Philokalia (vol. 1) (London, Faber & Faber). Ford, D. F. (1997) The shape of living (Grand Rapids, MI, BakerBooks).