Spirituality & Practice

By Zainab Umarfor KidSpirit's Storytelling and Narrative issue.

Almost as if it were part of the story itself, I can recall the day my mother told us the tale of Hazrat Musa like it happened just yesterday, instead of a decade ago.

It was a typical Lahori summer night, soundless except for the droning symphony of mosquitoes. My little brother and I tossed around restlessly in our beds, fanning our flushed faces. A power line near our home had been damaged, plunging our street into darkness, and the wind from the rechargeable fan our father had positioned near our bed made a feeble attempt at cutting through the thick-as-custard air. Hearing our muttered complaints and huffs of exasperation, our mother entered the room. She knew it was impossible for us to sleep in this heat, so she told us to be patient, and began telling us a story which transported us from the humid streets of Lahore to the searing dunes of ancient Egypt, where a child called Musa (Moses) was born.

At the time of Musa’s birth, Egypt was ruled by a terrible and tyrannical Pharaoh . . .

By Aditya Naik for KidSpirit's Creation and Destruction issue.

Can something be both creative and destructive?

You may never have thought about that question. Your spontaneous answer might be “of course not.” But I believe that anything can be both creative and destructive depending on the situation and how we look at it.

I am an Indian, and so I am blessed to have been born in a country of rich tradition and culture.

By Zach Young for KidSpirit's Ethics and Morality issue.

What are morals and where do they come from?

Is morality like the laws of physics, ironclad dicta from nature? Or is morality like language, where there is no “right answer” but different languages that different groups of people speak?

These are eternal questions with many answers. . . .

By Jack Miles for KidSpirit's Adventurous Spirit issue.

When I was called up to the center altar of my church by the members of “Drums No Guns,” I froze.

Who was I kidding? I often fidget by drumming pencils on desks or chopsticks on tables, but drumming in front of a few hundred people during a Palm Sunday service that’s webcast to potentially hundreds of others seemed more like a nightmare than reality. I had beat the drum during the procession, and maybe improvised a little, but in no way was I qualified to join the group. I tried to casually play it off and back away, but when I turned around to be absorbed by the crowd, I faced a wall of white robes, colored stoles, and beaming faces.

The priests were not going to let me back out of this one. . . .

By Vanita Sharma for KidSpirit's Resilience issue.

Landing on my high school’s junior varsity tennis team for the third time in a row was devastating.

After spending hours, even years, vying for a position on varsity while watching my sister rise up through the ranks and observing my peers compete in the official leagues, I was desperate to make the team. I am not usually superstitious, but I used to blow a wish on every eyelash that I found to help me get onto the team.

After getting rejected I wanted to quit. I stopped believing that I was good enough for any team . . .

By Kavya Shah for KidSpirit's Interfaith Connections issue.

The ability to question is a power that we all have.

Sometimes I find answers to my questions, but sometimes I don’t. When I was a small child, there were times when my parents told me that there are no answers to certain questions. However, I have learned that even after we know they may not have answers, all questions are worthwhile. They can help us to discover more about our religion, our family, and even ourselves. Therefore I am always on a quest to understand the unknown.

Some children might just forget about difficult questions, but I like to explore the depth of everything . . .

By Sofia Mesh for KidSpirit's Awesome Moments issue.

My life was a confusing labyrinth. I was always overwhelmed by the pressure to succeed and to reach the top because I had been brainwashed into thinking that would make me happy.

Since I was young, I had been taught I needed to achieve perfect grades, fill my schedule with after-school activities, and study until I was at the point of tears.

Tears meant I was working hard. If I didn't accomplish this, then what would others think of me?

By Celie Johnson for KidSpirit's Numbers and Symbols issue.

My spirituality revolves around the use of numbers and symbols, a cloud of reasoning and a bit of mysticism.

I believe in numbers and that brings me comfort. It comforts me to count the stars, understand why they exist, and how they came to be. It comforts me to think of adding and subtracting, equations and notations, that make sense of this crazy and complex world. However, I didn’t always feel this way.

I was raised Jewish, but my father is Christian ...

By Yani Li for KidSpirit's Simplicity and Complexity issue.

Let our worries wash away
the nuances of complexity
Like stars fallen from heaven’s seam,
swept into the darkness of a sorcerer’s dream

Look past the blurry film placed in front of our eyes ...

By Heer Cheema for KidSpirit's Unity and Division issue

They are restless, moving backward and forward, surrounded by a miasma of uncertainty and despair. Sleeping in airports, caught in transition, they have no homes, because bans and war-ravaged countries are their reality. They are a reflection of my past.

Pakistani history and literature is rife with this familiar tale of displacement. Saadat Hasan Manto, an Indo-Pakistani writer, in his 1955 short story titled “Toba Tek Singh,” reflects on the anguish and loss associated with the divisions on paper that wrought destruction on millions of lives during the Partition of the Subcontinent in 1947. His protagonist, Bishan Singh, lies lost in “no–man’s–land,” unable to return home as a result of these arbitrary borders. “No–Man’s–Land” is not only a region in conflict but, as Manto highlights, a state of distress and disconnect.

Bishan Singh’s dilemma is universal, shared not only by today’s refugees and diasporas, but also by my ancestors ...