“Let the children come to me. Don't try to stop them" – Jesus

My grandson Mats, almost three years old, teaches me much about life.

He knows the joy of simple things -- birds, cardboard boxes, planes, trams and all the colours and sounds of life that adults take for granted.

Mats is alive with energetic spontaneity. Mostly he seems deliriously happy. Perhaps he senses that his history, like every child's, began in the loving, creative mind and heart of God.

I hope he has the opportunity to find out much more about that celestial power. Whatever, he will surely make up his own mind about God.

As Kahlil Gibran said in The Prophet: "Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself. "You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies, but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow."

That's true, and thank God, but a parent is also the architect who designs rooms of the temple in which the child will live for the rest of his or her life.

I recently heard of a woman who complained of "Christian indoctrination" at her daughter's religious education classes and wanted the classes stopped. The woman said she wanted her child to be a "free-thinker", but perhaps only on her terms.

What is so frightening about religious education?. . . . . Read Full Text