Last Sunday I was speaking about people feeling guilty because their adult children were rarely going to church or not going at all. My suggestion was to stop thinking about your past errors \u2013 regardless whether they were real or just imagined \u2013 and supporting them here and now. Obviously we cannot change the past, but we can and should determine our present and future time, as far as it is within our power. However surprisingly many people seems to forget this and they spend their precious and ever shortening time in tireless, but ineffective pondering on the past.<\/p>\n
In today\u2019s gospel a father approaches Jesus, asking him to come and heal his agonisingly ill daughter. The man is a local VIP \u2013 a synagogue official. His request to Jesus is the sign of his desperation, as many people of local power and authority rejected Jesus as a dangerous, rebellious self-made people\u2019s leader. The officials were looking for any occasion or excuse to mock or underestimate Jesus\u2019 teachings and ideas.\u00a0 When he is invited by Pharisees, the reason is not their hospitality, but they are testing him. A synagogue official asking Jesus to come along to his house might be another ambush or a man that has run out of other options, risking his reputation to save his daughter\u2019s live.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a Polish proverb: \u2018small children \u2013 small problems; big children \u2013 big problems\u2019<\/em>. The relevance of this say is not limited to Poland only. It\u2019s an experience of all parents around the world that filthy nappies, night crying and eating toys turn out to be nothing compared to a moody teenager, risking experiments with tobacco, alcohol, drugs and sex. And the next stage is when your children start their own families, with inevitable misunderstandings, arguments and conflicts between the couple. After twenty odd years it must be hard to stop interfering with your own children\u2019s lives as if they were still little boys and girls.<\/p>\n As an older generation we have an astonishing ability to speak and to give advice at every time we are not asked for it. Many of us have not learnt how to listen to the younger generation. Too often we don\u2019t create any space and time for our adult children to share their lives without being preached at or judged. I\u2019ve met a relatively young man who contacts his parents out of sense of duty. He just listens to them pretending to be interested, but in fact waiting to leave. After many attempts he stopped trying to speak about his life feeling ignored and not listened to. Is he an isolated case? I doubt it.<\/p>\n You can support your adult children first and foremost by giving them a feeling of safety, by your careful listening and understanding. I\u2019m sure you feel you know better what is good for their lives. We always know how to solve their problems. But perhaps it is a good idea to make this prayer your own: \u2018It\u2019s a pity not to utilize the great resources of wisdom that I have, but you Lord know that I would keep a few friends until the end of my life\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last Sunday I was speaking about people feeling guilty because their adult children were rarely going to church or not going at all. My suggestion was to stop thinking about your past errors \u2013 regardless whether they were real or just imagined \u2013 and supporting them here and now. Obviously we cannot change the past, but we can and should determine our present and future time, as far as it is within our power. However surprisingly many people seems to forget this and they spend their precious and ever shortening time in tireless, but ineffective pondering on the past. In today\u2019s gospel a father approaches Jesus, asking him to come and heal his agonisingly ill daughter. The man is a local VIP \u2013 a synagogue official. His request to Jesus is the sign of his desperation, as many people of local power and authority rejected Jesus as a dangerous, rebellious self-made people\u2019s leader. The officials were looking for any occasion or excuse to mock or underestimate Jesus\u2019 teachings and ideas.\u00a0 When he is invited by Pharisees, the reason is not their hospitality, but they are testing him. A synagogue official asking Jesus to come along to his house might be another ambush or a man that has run out of other options, risking his reputation to save his daughter\u2019s live. There\u2019s a Polish proverb: \u2018small children \u2013 small problems; big children \u2013 big problems\u2019. The relevance of this say is not limited to Poland only. It\u2019s an experience of all parents around the world that filthy nappies, night crying and eating toys turn out to be nothing compared to a moody teenager, risking experiments with tobacco, alcohol, drugs and sex. And the next stage is when your children start their own families, with inevitable misunderstandings, arguments and conflicts between the couple. After twenty odd years it must be hard to stop interfering with your own children\u2019s lives as if they were still little boys and girls. As an older generation we have an astonishing ability to speak and to give advice at every time we are not asked for it. Many of us have not learnt how to listen to the younger generation. Too often we don\u2019t create any space and time for our adult children to share their lives without being preached at or judged. I\u2019ve met a relatively young man who contacts his parents out of sense of duty. He just listens to them pretending to be interested, but in fact waiting to leave. After many attempts he stopped trying to speak about his life feeling ignored and not listened to. Is he an isolated case? I doubt it. You can support your adult children first and foremost by giving them a feeling of safety, by your careful listening and understanding. I\u2019m sure you feel you know better what is good for their lives. We always know how to solve their problems. But perhaps it is a good idea to make this prayer your own: \u2018It\u2019s a pity not to utilize the great resources of wisdom that I have, but you Lord know that I would keep a few friends until the end of my life\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon","category-year-b"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}