Child-like Dreaming

It seems everywhere I turn I am surrounded by another couple with a new born baby. Today I ate lunch at Cracker Barrel. Next to me was a two year old-curly brown hair-blue eyed girl. She was beautiful. Her baby teeth were coming in and she didn’t know how not to smile. Sitting forward in a high chair made no sense to her. She kept turning around and high fiving me at my table. Who am I to say no to such as request?!

Sitting next to her made me start thinking about how simple yet freeing this child’s outlook on life was. I immediately thought about my six month old nephew and how he sees and interprets life. Children dream big. They live life big. They are completely submissive to their parents because they don’t have the ability to function appropriately to sustain their life, yet in the midst of their dependency they still find time to dream big. I guess it is because they have not learned to view life as scenery – as a simple back-drop while moving from one object to another. They are still immersed in the present, up to their eyes in colors, up to their ears in sounds, with fingertips that ache to touch everything and tongues to lick whatever their arms can hold. Children employ all of their senses. They take in the world and in turn allow themselves to dream big.

In short, children have imaginations. Our Christianized word for this is Revelation.

Maybe this is what Jesus means when he says the Kingdom of God is for children.

Isn’t the church’s job an imaginative one? Aren’t church members and Christ-confessors always attempting to form mental pictures of the self, the neighbor, the world, the future, and to envision new realities that are both engaging and transforming?

So why are children so much better at it than we are?

Have we as adults really been so overwhelmed by reality that it has caused us to lose our imagination or our revelation? Children look at stars and see hole punches in the sky and use combs for finding sea shells in the sand. Children’s imagination not only brings a level of joy and foolishness to their present life but it also demands an action on their part. Children dream big and then explore that dream.

There is something powerful here that we adults seem to miss. Reality, probability, and certainty have no place in the world of imagination. Literally, anything goes. What would the church look like if we allowed ourselves to re-imagine like we did as a child? We might just get a revelation from God.

Barbara Brown Taylor says,
In this imaginative act, we are grasped whole. Revelation is not a matter of thinking or feeling, intuiting or sensing, working on the left side of the brain or the right. It is a shocking gift of new insight that obliterates such distinctions, grabbing us by our labels and turning us around, so that when we are set back down again we see everything from a new angle.
We would reason differently, feel differently, and act differently. Imagination does more than affect us; it effects change in our lives. I implore you to never lose your child-like faith. It is what reveals a world of God’s love to you and allows you to play in that world with God.

Comments

Anonymous said…
JBO - a wonderful word for a world too caught in fear. If only we could trust that ABBA is there and we have nothing to fear. We are in His care and His grace is free. That could free us indeed!
February 21, 2009 at 5:57 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Most Difficult Parable Ever

Image
Theologian N.T. Wright finds the parable of the fig tree to be quite strange.  He says, “Jesus' warning in Luke 13 is at once amplified by this almost humorous, yet in fact quite sinister, parable of the fig tree in the vineyard.” And it is sinister.  It’s a hard pill to take.  Jesus' parable goes like this: A man has as fig tree planted in his vineyard.  One day he comes out looking for fruit on it, but there are no figs.  He says to the vineyard keeper, “Look at this tree.  For three years, I've come hoping to find some fresh figs, but what do I find? Nothing.  So just go ahead and cut it down.  Why waste the space with a fruitless tree?” The vineyard keeper replies, “Give it another chance, sir.  Give me one more years working with it.  I’ll cultivate the soil and heap on some manure to fertilize it.  If it surprises us and bears fruit next year, that will be great, but if not, then we’ll cut it down.”...
Read more

The Bird of Dawning Singeth All Night Long

Image
This Christmas I was moved by the words of Frederick Buechner.  For my last blog of the year I offer to you his wisdom rather than my own ramblings.  I hope it does for you what it continues to do for me. Frederick Buechner says in his book The Faces of Jesus: On the dark bulwark of Elsinore, Shakespeare has Marcellus and Haratio reflecting on Christ in the opening scene of Hamlet: Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes Wherein our Savior’s birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad, The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike, No fairly takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallowed and so gracious is the time These lines from the first scene of Hamlet in a sense say it all.  We tend to think time is just progression . . . as moment following moment, day following day, in relentless flow, the kind of time a clock or calendar measures.  But we ...
Read more

Sacrificing Joy

Image
I have been told my biggest weakness is I take myself too seriously. I agree. But here is my dilemma: My life is filled with responsibilities and deadlines. I go to school, pastor a church, assist my seminary in their admissions process, and feel obligated to be a good friend. My school takes up twelve hours a week plus roughly twenty hours of study. I work at least 10 hours on my sermon and spend two days a week with my congregation. Fifteen hours of my week is given to the McAfee Admissions Office and every Saturday I play softball with some friends. With this schedule I am up to 57 hours of responsibility time plus two days are given to my congregants. Why do I do this you ask? Because I can. Because God is blessing me in it. Because it gives me a sense of fulfillment. All of these shape an identity for me. And I love every second of it. We are all busy people. We all know what it is like to work the extra hour or sign up for one my volunteer role. We all over...
Read more