Becoming Wise is supported by the Fetzer Institute.

I've had hundreds of big conversations, and my conversation partners share wisdom I carry with me wherever I go.

Sandy Eisenberg, Sasso is a rabbi, a mother, and a grandmother. And speaking

with her formed me as a parent. This is becoming wise. I'm Kr about what advice you give parents who come to you.

And the basic question being, you know, how do I nurture this aspect of my child's being that I may not

understand myself? How do I give them experiences of the sacred? What do you say? Well, I say a

variety of things. I think it's important if we're going to nurture the spiritual lives of our

children that we have to nurture our own spiritual

lives.

So we have to take time in our lives to reflect, perhaps be part of a community that talks

about issues of spirituality, to read.

We do the same thing.

When we're first parents, we're kind of clueless about what we're supposed to do.

We read books about how to feed them. We read tons of books, how to feed them, you know, how to bring them up, how to get them to sleep, how to potty train them.

We ought to also engage in educating ourselves about our own spiritual lives because it's very difficult

to share with children what you're thinking if you haven't been thinking about these issues.

So I think first we need to nurture our own spiritual lives.

And most of what we do in terms of nurturing our children's spirituality really happens when no one else is looking, meaning it's not all planned for. It's kind of what happens every day. I mean, what do you do when you see a homeless person on the street? How do you respond when, you know, an animal gets run over on the road,

a squirrel, for example? How do we act with other people? All these are messages to our children

about what really matters in life, what's precious, what's more important than earning a living

and going through our daily routine.

You know, I think society does a very good job in teaching us how to be consumers and a very

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