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Come as a Child

Little children see more clearly than adults. They see what is Wonderful and unafraid, they go toward it. Water is Wonderful to a little child. They see warm water coming from the faucet while in their bath. It's moving and shiny, so of course, they try to grasp it. They have grasped other things, but here is a Wonderful surprise. When they grasp the stream of water, their hand closes on nothing. The water is till flowing; flowing around their tiny hand. They always smile at this and delightedly clench and unclench their hands to test it. They may get so excited that they begin to splash and kick just to watch the Wonderful water fly.

When my daughter Mary was about three, we drove to the edge of a lake and got out to admire the view. In the thirty seconds we spent doing this, Mary decided that this was much water in one place was Wonderful and just walked right into the lake. She seemed surprised at our alarm. Why didn't we approach the Wonderful?

When my daughter Mica was two, we happened to come home on a very dark, clear night. She looked up and saw the stars and stood on the sidewalk transfixed. She pointed up at them and looked at me. "Those are stars," I said. She looked back into the night sky. "Stars," she said in awe, "stars are W o n d e r f u l." If she could have ascended to the stars at that moment she would have, because little children see what is Wonderful and approach it unafraid.

I'm convinced this is why Jesus said if we come to God; it will have to be as little children. We have to see that he is Wonderful and approach unafraid. But we don't do this because we are afraid. We are afraid that he knows what we've been up to-and he does. To come to God in simplicity and nakedness is extraordinarily difficult for adults. Our brains are cluttered and racing with all sorts of unimportant things, we think God is dangerous, can't we do something else, like follow the ten commandments or go to church every Sunday, or give 10% of our income? The short answer is "no."

If I say we reap what we sow, most people groan, "Oh no." Why wouldn't we reap good things because we've sown good things? If I say there is a powerful Spirit in the room right now, most people feel fear. If I add, it's a good spirit, their fear is not relieved.

Our guilt and cluttered minds keep us from coming to God, where everything is peaceful and time stands still and he shines on you like the stars and surrounds you like warm water. Our guilt and cluttered minds keep us from the Wonderful.

But the little children walk right up to him, delighted by the light, drawn by the Wonderful; and so can we. He reaches down and pulls us up on his lap because he, too, sees clearly and we are Wonderful to him.

Recent column

Human Beings

I get philosophical sometimes and drive friends and family crazy with deep questions. The latest is "What is a human being?" It seems like it would be simple to answer that, since we are intimately acquainted with at least one human being, our self, but apparently the definition is tricky.

We could take a scientific approach and say we are a certain genus and species or an organism made of different combinations of molecules of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. That would be true as far as it goes. But science can only go so far.

We could take a religious approach and say a human being is a child of God, made in his image. Voltaire said, "If man is made in the image of God, we have certainly returned the favor." Recently I said something about God to a friend and he said, "You talk like he is like us." "But no," I said, "We don't say our father is like us, we say we are a little bit like our father."

Whatever the best definition for a human being is, I think it's important to remember that we have value as a human being and not just as a human doing. A human doing is easier to define. It's on your resume, it's your job title, and it's what you produce. What you produce has value, of course. Some stay at home moms think they don't produce anything, but I think that if they produce good human beings in the end they are producing more than almost anyone else.

In America, I think we are more concerned with human doings than human beings. I take as evidence the value we place on certain jobs. Jobs dealing with caring for children, who aren't yet productive, don't pay well. Jobs caring for the elderly who are no longer productive, don't pay well. Little children and the elderly are not humans doing much that is productive (or at least salable) so I think we devalue them.

I remember reading that in Russia, back in the bad old days; doctors were paid about the same as mechanics. The idea was that the official value of a human life was of little more significance than a dump truck. If we only value human doing, we run into problems with babies, elderly people, and the handicapped.

Back on the farm, when the animals were no longer productive, we put them to sleep, which is a nice way to say we killed them. Sometimes we killed them and ate them, so they were productive at least one more time.

I hope you see human beings, you included, are of more value than dump trucks and farm animals. I hope you see you are more than a human doing. I challenge you to do something good this week for someone who can't possibly return the favor.

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I write a weekly column-this is my favorite

When There's Not Enough

 I've been thinking a lot about a story I read many years ago. A man was traveling in India, a land where there is not enough food to go around. He was assaulted by beggars at every turn and as a compassionate man, he was finding the trip very distressing. He was sitting in a busload of tourists when a traveling companion, having eaten a banana, threw the banana skin out the window.

A young boy of about seven picked up the banana skin, separated the white part from the yellow part, and ate half of the white part. The other half he gave to his younger sister. Sharing is one approach to not having enough.

I was talking to a man recently who believes civilization as we know it is coming to an end. He wanted to know about wild foods, so he could scavenge in the woods when it happened. We talked about survivalists who store foods for just such calamities and about those who buy guns to shoot the hordes of people who would want to take their stash. That's another approach to not having enough.

Ironically, this discussion took place while we were in the middle of the 24 Hour Famine. Ten VIPs, teen Volunteers In Putnam, were voluntarily going without food for 24 hours to raise money for Putnam's most needy children. They were very brave and I admired them, especially during the final hours when they no longer had any energy and they huddled in one room like a litter of puppies waiting for the time to pass. They did not complain and they raised $1,300.

So some possible reactions to not having enough would be to share the little you do have, hoard extra in case times get tough, or voluntarily sacrifice to help those you don't even know.

Mother Teresa worked in India and visited the United States.

 She wasn't known for pulling her punches and she angered some people when she said the spiritual poverty in America was worse than the physical poverty in India.

I pointed out to the man who wanted to survive the end of civilization that in the end, like all of us, he was going to die anyway. He could die of starvation or get bitten by a rattlesnake while scavenging in the woods, or be a successful scavenger and die of old age. It's not so much what kind of death you have, but what kind of life you have.

If you would like to do more with your life than survive until you die, I can connect you with opportunities to do so right here in Putnam County.

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Summum Bonum
Current mood: anxious
Category: Religion and Philosophy

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