Nurturing Children with Disabilities Initiative: Journeying with Children

Imagine entering a worship gathering populated by children and adults. Some are sitting on the floor or in chairs; others are standing to explore the space, perhaps overtaken by curiosity. Many of the children inch close to the front.

You see books and other items gathered on the floor, including a picture book open to a page full of colorful plants and animals held in the shape of a large hand: God has all creation in God’s hands. You hear the spoken words, “with stories, and letters, and poems, God says, live in my love.” Near the books, you see a pitcher filled with rainwater.

You may feel the water on your skin as Dr. Sue Rozeboom, Professor of Liturgical Theology at WTS, splashes it around as a reminder that with water God tells you that God loves you. Nearby is a bowl with pond water and two fish looking out at you. You see that God created and cares for the fish, too. There are grapes and bread on a plate next to a chalice, perhaps reminding you that your stomach is hungry. You hear, “with food and drink, God says, I will take care of you.”

A young girl is playing with wooden animal figures and a boat. Other children play with the figures, too, and pass them around. You also meet a screech owl that was once injured and now resides and receives care at the Outdoor Discovery Center (ODC). From the corner of your eye, you watch the girl sitting next to you eagerly wave a friendly hello to the owl. God says to you, “I love you. Live in my love. I will take care of you.”

This is a tiny glimpse into the worship space we experienced during our time together at the Nurturing Children with Disabilities (NCD) orientation at the Outdoor Discovery Center.

The NCD initiative, with the desire to platform the voices of children with disabilities, creates spaces for adult congregants to listen to the children in their midst and follow their lead. Through the eyes of children, we learn about worship and our relationship to the world God created. These spaces will bring people together for worship, primarily outdoors, in God’s creation and with God’s creatures. Adults will accompany children in multiple immersive experiences at the Outdoor Discovery Center and Renew Therapeutic Riding Center (Renew). Renew enhances the well-being of individuals through the physical, cognitive, and emotional benefits of therapeutic horsemanship. Together, we will also respond to and reflect on these experiences through art with Holland artist Joel Schoon-Tanis.

Through these immersive experiences, we will attend to how children engage with nature and perhaps encounter our own childlike wonder, which, as Sofia Cavalletti writes, “Is a very serious thing that, rather than leading us away from reality, can arise only from an attentive observation of reality.”¹

Worshipping in nature helps us practice wonder. It also offers an opportunity to renew our relationship with God’s creation, recognizing creation as a communion of subjects, rather than objects to be commodified.

And, as the psalmist shows us, we join our praise with creation’s ongoing praise to our creator (see Psalm 104).

Furthermore, God’s creation offers a space that naturally provides multiple modes of engagement, not reducing communication, knowledge, or worship to words, rationale, or tight categories of understanding. When we engage all our senses, we are led to a sense of wonder, awe, and thanksgiving consistent with the psalmist, who recognizes God’s present love and care for all of God’s creation. I hope we may sense an invitation to pray to be transformed and attentive to God’s voice and activity in the world, particularly in the lives of children as they interact with God’s creation.

As Marie Helene Delval writes in Psalms for Young Children, “God has the whole world in God’s hands: Let’s shout out loud with joy to God! Because God is a really big God, He can hold the world in his hands, the deep caves, the mountaintops, the blue seas–and you and me, too!”²

1 Sofia Cavalletti, The Religious Potential of the Child: Experiencing Scripture and Liturgy with Young Children, (Chicago IL: Liturgy Training Publications, 1992) 139.

2  Psalm 95, from Marie Hélène Delval, Psalms for Young Children. Illustrated by Arno, (Eerdmans, 2008).