One of the brilliant pieces written by students from The Monthly Masterclass
There is a little known religious practice primarily associated with the Greek Orthodox faith that has a parent placing their child in the spiritual care of a stranger. This is at least how I understood it when I first witnessed a mother purposefully making her way with her baby in her arms to the front section of the church that I attended with my mother, grandmother and sister as a child.
I remember the woman placing her child at the foot of an icon and walking away. As a large section of the congregation stepped forward to attend to the child, I turned to my mother and asked how anyone, let alone a mother, turn her back on a baby? She explained that the baby had not been abandoned – its mother had simply dedicated her child to God in return for her answered prayer.
My mother added that the person who picks up the child accepts to be its godparent, thus taking the responsibility for its spiritual upbringing, especially in the absence of its parents. “But they are a complete stranger” I whispered to my mum, to which she responded that no member of a close community is a stranger. She assured me that the child would be safe no matter who got to it first. She went on to explain that it is not so much the individual who reaches the child but the community that they belong to that provides the spiritual support that all children need and deserve.
Sadly there are many children who are, for whatever reason, left in the care of strangers. The unaccompanied refugee child who arrives on our shores seeking asylum is, in a way, similar to the child who is left at the foot of an icon. The child’s parents or kin look to us for support, but all they seem to receive is indifference and cynicism.
Our community does not surge forward to embrace the unaccompanied minor. Instead it turns its back, accusing strange people from afar of offloading their children on us. We shut our eyes to the prison cell like detention facilities that unaccompanied minors are place in, happy to leave them in the care of government officials, private security firms, and the few who have the decency to hold out a helping hand.
A compassionate community does not stand back and expect the good few to provide the spiritual support that all children deserve — it offers its hand. I remember my grandmother telling me that a strong and decent community functions as one hand, and it is primarily for this reason that I am saddened to see the country that once held out its hand to my grandmother and the many post-warmigrants like her, threaten to push away our newest, youngest and most desperate arrivals.
The ‘unaccompanied minor’ epitomizes all children who are in need of refuge and spiritual care. A strong and compassionate community orientates its heart towards them, holding out its firm, warm and reassuring hand. This is the measure of a true community and indeed the moral standard by which all communities ought to be judged.