Like a Child

Mundane chores, when done alone, are such a perfect time to meditate.
And tonight, while I washed the dishes, I thought about being a child.
When I was seven I wrote a very concerned letter to the president.
He wrote me back a two page letter.
But this isn't about that.

Sometimes I think about Jesus telling His disciples they needed to become as a little child.
Why?
What about that?
What do they have that we lose?
Or what don't they have that we pick up?

My mind wandered back over the letter I wrote,
and I thought about the boldness.
About the lack of concern for what power thinks of them.
About the singular focus on the problem at hand,
undistracted by worries about protocol.
In a library, loudness.
In a church service, they don't sit like ladies.
In a hurry, dawdling over wonder.
In distress, howling.
No stuffing it down until it manifests in illness.
In joy, laughing uproariously.
They're real.
They don't pretend that good is bad and bad is good.

I don't think God is as fond of our niceties and protocols as we are.
I think He isn't afraid of reality.
I think He likes us to interrupt Him,
to cry on Him,
to notice His handiwork,
and look at the ants.
To yell out louder when the ones surrounding Jesus tell us to leave Him alone.

My children have screamed me from the far corners of the house when they needed me
and I wasn't responding.
They have hollered me out of a sound sleep.
They don't give up.
But they're more persistent at it when they're littler.
As they get older, I find out about problems sometimes hours or days later.
"You were busy. I didn't want to bother you."
As they get older, they let me sleep.
The youngest one still bursts into our room in the morning
to shove paper into his dad's face and demand a paper airplane.
Such a lack of respect for boundaries.
My body is mine, and your body is mine, too.

Is there ever more intimacy in the relationship between a mother and her child
than when he's living inside her?
And after birth, when the baby is nourished from nothing but her body?
Is that what You want, Lord?
For me to live in you?
To eat from You?
To let You wash me with Your living water?
To be clothed by Your hands?
Comforted only in Your arms?
Obsessed with where You are every second of the day?
Watching You?
Wanting You?

Eventually they will have morphed into the socially apt adults we all hope they'll become.
They'll give shy deference to the 'important' people in life.
They'll hold back their happiness so they won't look like fools.
They'll sew their mouths shut to keep from blurting out the truth.
They'll spend years without crying even though they're heartsick.
They'll ignore the moon, and look at their bank statements.
I hope they revert to their childhoods with Him.