Several months ago, I took a 10-day bus trip through the four corners in the United States. During that trip we stopped at a church known as a place of pilgrimage. The energy of the church was filled with the essence of the Divine Mother and although it warmed my heart to be there, what was even more intriguing to me was a smaller church that was completely dedicated to children.  It was synchronistic to see it because on the long bus ride to get there, I had been musing about why it is that we honor saints and sages, but rarely do we honor children. Rarely do we honor the blessing of innocence and the light within that innocence. Rarely do we consciously see the invitation in the eyes of a child to become more than what we currently are.

In fact, far from honoring the innocence of children, collectively humanity seems set on destroying this holy presence by any means possible. One of my favorite quotes from Nelson Mandela is “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”

Given that child trafficking and much worse has been going on for ages, it is clear that collectively we have failed miserably. Sure, our own children may be well fed, beautifully housed and have all the latest techno gadgets, but one has to ask themselves, whose idea of care is this? 

There is a significant difference between caring for our children, through the lens of what we have been conditioned to believe is good for them and what the soul knows that every child actually needs. Children need to be met in their brilliance, curiosity and innocence, not destroyed because of it. The trouble is that so few on this planet have been met in this way and thus are disconnected from their own souls. So, few love, honor and know themselves and thus have had no means of loving, honoring and knowing their children. Sure, we all do the best we can. That is well understood. The question is, can we do better?

Is it in honor of our children to simply pass onto them our own limitations or are we, as a humanity, ready to reach for something much more evolved. We can attempt to distance ourselves from the horrendous experiences that happen to children on this planet and pretend that we are better than that. Of course, everything has its degrees, however as we are waking up to what is going on, I believe that there is something that each and every one of us can do to ensure that children are increasingly honored from this day forward.

We start by honoring the child (children) within. We start by being kind, loving and compassionate to those aspects of ourselves that have not yet matured. We start by encouraging and supporting the parts of us that are curious, afraid or excited. We do our own inner work so that we do not pass on the limitations of our lineages to future generations of innocent ones. We take responsibility for how we feel and we let ourselves learn from our children instead of trying to turn them into smaller versions of ourselves.

We cannot say that we have no hand in the abuse of children, while we are beating ourselves and our inner children up day after day! There are all kinds of reasons why it is easier to stay as we are. It is uncomfortable to touch into those challenging places within ourselves. It induces grief when we realize that our own brilliance and innocence has been locked away for years, not seeing the light of day. It creates a bit of cognitive dissonance to realize that we have had to disassociate from the very aspects of ourselves that are full of promise in order to survive being human.

Margaret Mead said “There is no greater insight into the future than recognizing…when we save our children, we save ourselves” 

Through my lens, we can only support the next generation of children to the degree that we are willing to meet and thus “save” the children within us. Honor the innocence of children by starting from the inside out. Dedicate yourself to being present with what arises within you so that all those children that are trying to come out of the caves of your own psyche can be met with open arms, love, compassion and understanding. At first you will have to be very gentle as parts of you have been locked away for a very long time. 

I happen to have great faith in humanity and in our collective capacity to love. I know that in my own life, I do better when I know better. I suspect the same is true for most. I know that with each invitation from the younger aspects of ourselves, we can sink into blame, shame and guilt or we can love beyond what we thought we could. All those little ones within are waiting to be met, by the only one who can met them, YOU.

Innocence is a gift that we cannot afford to abandon any longer on this planet. It’s a grace that is best valued and cultivated, so that we can collectively begin to see this crazy world through brand new eyes and start again!