What Endures

I find that many families pass on to their children, in time and expense, things that will not endure beyond childhood.  How many adults are doing ballet, baseball, basketball, volleyball, and soccer? These time consuming passing things replace family dinner, family conversation, reading beyond school test subjects, and the use of leisure to make things up, play family games like cards, explore your inner world and maybe even pray, but that might be a leap too much.  For that matter, adults who do sports, seem to run, bike, play golf and tennis.  These are things you can do over the long haul.  So is a spiritual life for the long haul, but this requires some quiet, leisure, inactivity.  Parents seem to fear that if their child isn't "busy" something is missing, or is wrong.  A lot of sports do little for the imagination, except when we grow out of them, we tend to still fantasize.