Childhood Awaits Every Person

By Chris Walton

“I didn’t know it was like this,” exclaimed an eight-year-old. This book reveals the depth and extent of childhood yearning for the natural world and their enjoyment and wonder of it. Learn to appreciate this desire and discover the child within yourself so you too can discover your own inner child’s love and care for the planet. Addressing the climate crisis begins with the discovery of our own inner child and that deep yearning, wonder and enjoyment of nature.

You will also delight in the story which ends with the plea: “Please, please can the world not crush this child, his gentle, profound, and astonishing soul. So remember – trees are part of love, and the land is always there, under the concrete. And if there arises in Suffolk a guru, a visionary, a spiritual leader of awesome ability – I won’t be surprised if he’s called Paul, and has freckles, and skips now and then when he walks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Oct 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781398430969

Chris Walton

Chris Walton, awaits his 75th birthday in November 2022. Born and educated in Leicester, he became Christian in his teens, was called to the Baptist ministry and a year in Borneo with VSO preceded his academic theological studies at both Bristol University and Oxford. After local church ministries in South Wales and in Birmingham, then a period of time in Intentional Community he, together with his wife, led the Ringsfield Eco Activity Centre (as it was known then 1999 – 2016) in Suffolk. Since retirement Chris has the privilege of living near the Peak District. He and his wife have grandchildren with plenty of opportunity to put into practice what he daringly writes about!

Book preview

About the Author

Chris Walton, awaits his 75th birthday in November 2022. Born and educated in Leicester, he became Christian in his teens, was called to the Baptist ministry and a year in Borneo with VSO preceded his academic theological studies at both Bristol University and Oxford. After local church ministries in South Wales and in Birmingham, then a period of time in Intentional Community he, together with his wife, led the Ringsfield Eco Activity Centre (as it was known then 1999 – 2016) in Suffolk. Since retirement Chris has the privilege of living near the Peak District. He and his wife have grandchildren with plenty of opportunity to put into practice what he daringly writes about!

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my grandchildren—Lauren, Maya, Brook, Ben, Megan, Joseph, William, Ashley, Connie, Paige and Freya—with the hope and prayer that they will all have the opportunity to continue to love and enjoy the earth and its creator.

Copyright Information ©

Chris Walton 2022

The right of Chris Walton to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398430952 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398430969 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2022

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

I acknowledge my indebtedness to the Ringsfield Hall Trust, its founder, the Revd. Peter Langford and its trustees, staff and friends and the thousands of children who have stayed at the Hall throughout the years, all of whom who gave me the entry into the world of the child in nature. My wife, Ross, has travelled the same journey and shared her own experience and expertise, I thank her for wisdom care and patience throughout the process of reflection, prayer and writing.

An exploration of the innate mysticism of children.

Preface

The following stars and Kilburn story has become iconic.¹ It took place some twenty years ago at the Ringsfield Hall Trusts Eco Activity Centre in Suffolk,² and it started what has become the natural part of my Christian discipleship journey. It is the story of many metanoias,³ or radical changes of heart and direction, about children and about the natural world which I choose to call creation.

At the Centre, Charlie had left his jumper on the playing field. We decided to go out to get it together because he expressed a fear of the dark. As we leapt out of the front door, Charlie let out a yell and stopped with his head buried in his hands. I asked him what was wrong and he replied by pointing up at the sky, with his head still covered by his other hand. And up there was the starriest of nights. Moon, stars and the whole of the Milky Way; all visible in an awesome display on a coldish March night. I said, Oh, they are the stars.

I’ve never seen the stars before, came Charlie’s muffled voice out of his covered head.

Come on! I said, let’s go and look at them. So we ran on to the field, found his missing jumper, laid down in the muddy grass and watched. For a long time, there was silence, then Charlie, amazed, sang out a series of long, loud wows, weeeees and wows.

Eventually, Charlie turned his head towards mine, our ears in the mud. He looked at me with bright wild eyes and said, There ain’t no stars in Kilburn.

Charlie, hitherto deprived, saw the universe beyond himself for the first time. How he went on to define his selfhood and his perception of himself by coming into relationship with this other, I do not know. But I believe it has been altered. Before this experience, his truth did not include the infinite lights and darkness of space. Brian Swimme, a contemporary cosmologist, affirms that something happens in the soul of a child when gazing at the stars, a spaciousness opens up which is in psychic congruence with galactic spaciousness.⁴ Through the experience of Magic Spots, I have been privileged to see children respond to solitude in the natural world; like ducks to water, like innocents to spirit. I have been transformed by the discovery that Spirit resides within the whole human and more-than-human⁷ community of the earth.

A ten-year research programme (2000–2010) was an exploration of my interpretation of children’s responses to solitude in the natural world. In the ecological programmes for 8–11-year-olds conducted at the Eco Activity Centre, we facilitate ‘Magic Spots’, simply enabling children to be silently alone in a special place in the natural world. My quest was to interrogate how I interpret the children’s responses to these times of solitude. One commentator from the International Association of Children’s Spirituality wrote, I think my major concern about approaches to the spiritual lives of children is how often we turn to definitions and theories which are built on adult concepts, adult rationality and adult experience.⁵ I found that I needed to give equal weight to my own story and my Christian, but inclusive, sense of spirituality to the stories and spirituality of other adults, to the stories and experiences of the children, as well as to the Spirit-filled world of nature. My thesis was entitled ‘…and….’⁶ It was the result of a lifetime’s longing to explore the and of Buber’s ‘I and Thou’,⁷ inspired by John V. Taylor’s ’The Go-between God’.⁸ I explored the and, that is the space between one and another, in which I discovered children can be active agents in their own discovery of self, meaning and spirituality. For a long time, there has been an increasing interest in, what is sometimes referred to as, eastern spirituality. The bookshop shelves are full of meditation titles. Many of us, as adults, spend a great deal of time and effort learning (at least we do once we are convinced that it will be of benefit) how to participate in contemplative prayer, mindfulness, stillness and how to be in silence. I discovered that given the opportunity, children display an innate knowledge