Reverence-Building in a Busy World

The other morning, my family was getting ready to check out a potential preschool for Bess for next year. I am ambivalent about the idea of sending her to school - on the one hand, I think that there are a lot of positives to be gained (not the least of which would be a little quiet time for Mommy), but on the other hand, I love the idea of keeping her home and offering her a varied, individualized learning experience.

We were getting ready in the morning, having breakfast, getting dressed, brushing hair and teeth. Bess sat on the couch, looked out the window, and called me over. "Look at the sunset, Mommy!" she said. It was an amazing scene, with the orange of the rising sun reflecting off the icy driveway and the leaf-less trees. "Let's sit and watch it together!"

As much as I wanted to, I couldn't. We had things to do, appointments to keep. I weighed the cost of letting the moment slip away against the obligation to honor other people's time once I've made an appointment to be somewhere. My ambivalence about school deepened.

How, I wondered, in a world where we are so burdened with obligations and time constraints, can we possibly cultivate reverence in our children? When all our days are filled with scheduled events and "have to be's", where do we fit in the moments to sit on the couch and watch the sun rise? Almost by definition, these reverence-building moments cannot be scheduled. They are simply moments of bliss and discovery, when we are struck by a beautiful sight, an interesting object, a fragrant flower or a captivating bird song and take the time to focus our full attention on the experience of the now. But the opportunities for this are rare when we are always focused on the later, as in where we have to go and do next.

I still don't have the answer. Mostly I lean towards home schooling, though this weekend when Bess seemed to have taken a solemn vow of non-cooperation all thoughts of keeping her home day in and day out were far from my mind. But either way, I still wonder how to find - well, MAKE, really - the moments we need to develop love.