The Business of Children – Sunday, January 04, 1998
Have you ever watched a young child at play? But is it really play? What we call play can be serious business to a child. Watch a child listening to the dial tone on a telephone or touching the prickly ends of a fir tree or catching snowflakes in gloved hands. These are simple things that we, as adults, take for granted. But, to the child, the sound, the feel, the sight is pure delight.
We can dismiss the whole thing, saying that to the child these things are new—while we’ve heard the dial tone more times than we’ve wanted to, we’ve encountered pricklier things like cacti, and snowflakes melt so fast. Why bother? But is it really the newness that captures a child’s delight? Or does the delight come because the child is paying attention?
Unfortunately, we may see something so often that we no longer see it at all. Yet, our connections with the people and things around us come by paying attention—close attention.
One woman arrived home from a stressful day at work, complete with bumper-to-bumper traffic on the way home. She was feeling alone and tired. As she walked through the door—the same door she had walked through every day for years—she suddenly noticed how the setting sun coming through the window shone on the painting of an Easter lily that hung in the living room. She stopped, noticing the yellow inside of the flower against the rubbery white and seeing how the light brightened the green of the stem and made the white purer. In that moment she felt somehow connected to both the talent God had given the artist and to the beauty God had placed in the world. It was only a moment of paying attention, but, to her surprise, she could feel herself beginning to heal from the day’s wounds.
Now that isn’t a miracle reserved for a chosen few. Paying careful attention to things and people around us can help heal anyone who is willing to assume the serious business of children. By learning to pay childlike attention to life, pain can become experience, touch can become lasting sensation, suffering can become a future guide, and the simplest moments can become great delights.
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January 04, 1998
Broadcast Number 3,568