Happy Easter to everyone on the Buzz!

I am in serious need of putting some of the stress relief tips from last week to work - things are CRAZY around here. My husband got a great job offer, so we're excited about that... but we've got to move fast - we've got about 5 weeks to pack, move, find a new place to live, sell our house, and finish up this semester of work and school! ACK!

In any case, I think a number of you might agree that another form of stress relief can be found through spirituality. I am not Christian, but I know that today is the most important holiday in the Christian faith. So it seems a fitting time to introduce this week's topic:

How do you share spirituality with your children?

As the E is still just a wee one, we are just getting started with this, but to us, sharing spirituality means fostering a love of nature and feeling connected to the earth. When we get settled in a new community, I would like to find a church to attend that fits our family values - I think being a part of a church community will be really valuable for her (and all of us as a family!).

So, how about you? I'm really looking forward to reading what you all have to share.

I think spirituality is about fostering a love of yourself, your family, you community and the world around you.

We don't go to church - although we went for awhile when the kids were younger but Liam was colic and wouldn't stop crying so I ended up just standing in a hallway bouncing him around and everyone could hear him.

I talk to my boys about God and who I believe God is. But I also have them do volunteer work (we set up a food drop off on my porch every year for neighbours to drop off food donations and then we bring them to the food bank). Adam is raising money for cancer (there's a blog about it on my blog - you can read it here http://motherhoodtheultimatesurvivor.blogspot.com/2008/03/raising-money-for-cancer.html)

And I also make sure we have a strong sense of family and community and that they know that they can and should rely on other people. Our neighbourhood is fantastic and we all help each other out - one mother had surgery last month - we brought food, we babysit each others kids, if one of us is running late, someone else will pick up her kids from school. In about two hours, we're going out for an easter egg hunt that I do every year - over 700 plastic eggs :)

We spend alot of time going on hikes and talking about nature. We plant a vegetable garden every year so that they can see that we need to give back to the earth because the earth gives so much to us.

I'm sure I could go on and on and on....but that's what spirituality means to us :)

I try the Insert Spirituality Here approach. In other words, where ever the opportunity presents itself. As my underlings were searching the yard for their Easter Bounty, Captain Underpants (almost 7) started getting 'cranky' about his haul (3/4 of the plastic eggs). Wolvertween (12 1/2) ASKED HIM "Do you even know what Easter is about?" He says "Uh-huh" She told him how Christ died on the cross on Good Friday and how Easter is the day he rose from the dead. Blank look. I say "Jesus let them nail him to a cross and kill him so that you could go to Heaven." "Me?" All of a sudden the Crucifixion was a person thing, even if just for a fleeting moment.

My thinking is similar to Piper's. We used to be very church-oriented. The problem with church's is that they are filled with people. People tend to be grossly imperfect. After being deeply wounded by some of these people, we have become more family oriented. Spirituality is taught through daily practical living in our home. We are Christians, so we teach Christian values as the opportunities arise in everyday life. We also attend church, but not so religiously (pun intended). Our faith is about having a personal relationship with God, therefore it is unique to each individual. We instruct and guide and (hopefully) lead by example. The rest will be up to them.

Ditto to Piper.

I consider myself to be a very spiritual person, and a religious one as well, but I know that they are separate qualities. For me, one of the ways I express my spirituality is through my religion, but it surely isn't the only way. I try to live, day by day, by the things that I profess to believe as truth. Those things encompass everything from my beliefs about the nature of God, to my beliefs about this world and the people in it and how they should be treated.

As a family, we raise our children in a church, and we are active in not only Sunday worship services, almost without fail, but also mid-week activities and other volunteer opportunities and service. To me, though, the most important spiritual teaching occurs within the home. I teach my children what I believe to be true, and I encourage them to find out for themselves if they too believe as I do. We pray regularly as a family, and we encourage individual personal prayer. We read scriptures as a family each day, and each of us reads individually as well. We serve as a family and as individuals. And I try to pay attention to evidence of God's love in my life and to point it out to my children. I try to use the things that we have been taught as tools for solving problems and learning from mistakes.

Spirituality is a journey. I believe that we are spiritual beings having a mortal experience, and I appreciate the spiritual "head start" that was given to me through my upbringing. I hope to plant deeply those things in my children and then rest peacefully that though they will make mistakes along the way, they will always know where to turn for help. I want them to each have a personal relationship with their Father in Heaven. I actually believe that that is my greatest role in their lives as their mother, and I consider it my greatest privilege.

Spirituality and Religious are pretty different for me. (I am a Christian...in case anyone wanted to know ha)

Anyways, I plan to bring Lorelei up in a Christian home. Catholic, at that. HOWEVER...she WILL learn about other religions and all sorts of things. Then, when she's older...she can make her own decisions. No point in being "Christian" or anything else if you only have the label, right? You have to BE that label or it doesn't matter. So I want her to know what she believes and to think for herself.

Currently, she goes to church with us. Sometimes its catholic, and sometimes its a Baptist church (her dad and my mom are Baptist). Anyways, we pray over her, she gets blessed at church (Catholic mass/Eucharist)...and...that's about it so far. I do sing to her about God and different things. But, she's 11.5 mos. old. :)