nurturing

Liuan Huska 11-16-2022
An illustration of a woman with a bird perched on her outstretched hand as she looks at her phone.

Alexey Yaremenko / iStock

WHEN I STEPPED off our back porch that June morning, some kerfuffle of squawks, feathers, and paws stopped me. There was Tom, our all-gray feral cat, slinking about. Then I made out some red streaks above — cardinals. I noticed Tom had something in his mouth. I cringed. Legs? Wings? Tail? Head? It was a baby bird. Its parents were hot on Tom’s trail.

Some sense of moral — my husband would say unnecessary — responsibility got hold of me. In that moment, I decided I was not going to let the cat I had brought into this backyard eat that bird, no matter how many birds he’d already nabbed. I yelled and chased Tom. And after I shamed the cat into dropping his prey under the trampoline, my 8-year-old son, Oliver, rescued the fledgling.

Photo courtesy of Odyssey Networks

Mourners remember the shooting at Sandy Hook. Photo courtesy of Odyssey Networks

After learning about Jesse Lewis, a six-year-old who died in the Sandy Hook shooting a year ago this Dec. 14th, I’m thinking about scratching out the name Jacob in Psalm 146 and writing in Jesse.

Psalm 146, verse 5 says, “Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD their God.” I’m wondering if scratching out Jacob and writing in Jesse, at least in these upcoming weeks, might be a way of praying to transform anger and resentment into love and forgiveness. 

Jesse was a pretty amazing six-year old who loved adventures, mud, a golden yellow bear, and his big brother. His mom says he was “full of courage and strength,” so much so, that in the midst of the unfolding tragedy Jesse stood still and told his classmates to “Run!” In so doing, he lost his life. 

Scarlett Lewis, Jesse’s mom, returned home after the unthinkable tragedy only to find something wonderful Jesse had scratched onto the kitchen chalkboard: "Norturing, helin, love."  His mom knew immediately these were Jesse’s last words to her: Nurturing, healing, love. In her book, Nurturing Healing Love: A Mother’s Journey of Hope & Forgiveness, Scarlett tells the story of her journey to forgiveness and hope as a legacy beyond anger and resentment. She begins, of course, with Jesse’s story.

Catherine Maresca 7-01-2012

We who nurture the life of children could be compared to gardeners, conscientiously serving the God-given stages of the growing plant. We seek to support its development as a seedling, a young plant, and a fruit-bearing or mature plant.

However, Christian educators of young children often begin to water, weed, and prune without first observing children to grasp the stages of their relationship with God. God has planned human and spiritual growth just as well as God has prepared plant growth.

Catholic scholar Sofia Cavalletti and her collaborators Gianna Gobbi and others around the world and in many denominations have carefully observed the stages of newborn to 12 year-old children’s relationship with God, and they have developed an approach to religious formation, called the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, that serves those stages well. The encounter with God over the years includes coming to know God who is love, God who is personal, and God who is just and merciful, as these and other aspects of God match the developmental strengths of the growing child.

Here is that development and its implications in very broad strokes:

  • Ages 0 to 6. Young children are in a relationship of love with God. This begins with life. This time is one of joy. For the young child, Christianity is not about doing good, but about being in love with Jesus. We serve this period with parables such as the good shepherd, the found sheep, the mustard seed, the pearl of great price, and the leaven, as well as the narratives of the birth of Christ, the Last Supper, and the women at the tomb. The signs of God’s presence through water, bread, and wine are also introduced according to the practice of each congregation.