Spiritual Care for Children and Adults
Book Reviews: Sept 2009

FOR ADULTS

In the Midst of Chaos:
Caring for Children as Spiritual Practice
by Bonnie Miller-McLemore
(Jossey-Bass, 2007)

Krista Tippett’s public radio show, Speaking of Faith, has a wonderful web resource on the Spirituality of Parenting, a topic she has covered many times on her program. She says, “Raising children is a great spiritual challenge that many of live with day to day, but we so rarely call it that.” Parenting raises our own spiritual questions anew. We sense that there is a spiritual aspect in our children’s natures. And we realize with children that faith begins not in abstractions “but in concrete everyday experiences.”

Few books show explore these themes as eloquently as In the Midst of Chaos: Caring for Children as Spiritual Practice (Jossey-Bass, 2007) by Bonnie Miller-McLemore, a Protestant theologian at Vanderbilt University. Written as she prepares for the first of her three teenage boys to head to college, the book argues that most adults, because they have children, must ultimately come to grips with a spirituality that is not expressed through silence, solitude, and study but interruptions, messes, confusion, and also, frequently, joy. McLemore talks about “sanctifying the ordinary,” and she shows how the mundane stuff of family life, such as children’s play, sending a child to college, moving to a new house, and assigning chores, are spiritual practices or have spiritual and moral dimensions that shape both parents and kids. It is a rich practical theology, but easy to read since it is filled with personal and practical examples of the kind of spiritual life that Christianity insists upon—a fleshy, embodied—incarnate—life that is shared and passed on not just at the altar tables in church but also the chaotic dinner table at home.

FOR CHILDREN

God Created
by Mark Francisco Bozzuti-Jones
Illustrated by Jui Ishida
(Augsburg Fortress, 2003)

The motion-filled and lush paintings that illustrate this children’s picture book perfectly match the simple rhythmic words, bringing alive the ancient Genesis creation story. Bozzuti-Jones juxtaposes the water and the animals with specific human emotions and relationships to describe the vast diversity of what God has created. One phrase, “God created all these and much, more,” echoes to the end, allowing children to join in with the multi-cultural children on the pages eventually affirming that “God created you!”