Will our children have faith and make the right choices?

Two of the “treasures” my parents passed on were 1925 high school yearbooks. My mother’s was from Carthage (Mo.) High School and my father’s was from Cameron (Mo.) High School. I enjoyed the sections where each senior wrote about his or her plans for the future.

Most of the seniors planned to immediately get married, buy a farm and “have lots of kids.” My mother and some of the girls, at both schools, had taken a special eight-week course and were awarded a Missouri teaching license and looked forward to their first class of students.

A few, including both my parents, were going to college. Then there were a few of the girls, including my mother, that also wanted to become flappers. They had joined the women’s suffrage movement as freshmen and were anxious to vote.

My parents frequently “stepped outside the box” and were advocates of those that society had not yet given a voice. They dedicated their lives to educating deaf children and adults.

They were devout Episcopalians that did not miss going to church and interpreting the worship services for the deaf. My brothers and I knew that Saturday night was reserved for preparing to go to church. My mother washed and ironed our church clothes. My father polished our church shoes. Each of us was given a one-dollar allowance, in change. Mother kept out 10 cents, our tithe, and gave it to us just in time to put it in the collection plate. Both parents spent time asking us about our intended prayers the next morning.

In Sunday school, we memorized the Ten Commandments, Psalm 23, selected Bible verses, the Lord’s Prayer and the Catechism. Our parents made sure we did our church homework.

On many occasions, adults with children have approached me to let me know that the reason they don’t come to church is because they were forced to go by their parents and they want their children to make their own decisions. I always reply that my parents made me go to church also, and I am so thankful they did. When I grew up, I had choices to make also, and I had a lot of information and a community to help me day-byday develop a moral and ethical foundation. I had a community that was there when life happened, when I was wounded, and when I had questions or doubts.

John Westerhoff wondered in his 1960s book, “Will Our Children Have Faith?” as church attendance drops, and there are no traffic jams on Sunday mornings, and we convince ourselves a good Christmas and Easter attendance is a positive sign, radical absences during the summer months are called people just taking a break, the church will continue to be irrelevant for many people.

Maybe I didn’t get the memo, but do the “new” Ten Commandments really say, “Thou shalt keep holy sabbath tee times?” Is that an alternate truth?

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