Childlikeness

Perhaps God allows us "rose colored glasses" in childhood so that when we're grown-up and sober we can still draw upon some tangible sense of the better country mentioned in Hebrews 11:16, that is, of Heaven. For adults that sense, if not by now fully ignored, is rarely felt, and that only when reminiscing on the rosy years.

Childhood is the wonder-anchor, and in some ways the closest to Heaven we get before we die. Its vivid fancies and deep, exciting dreams are not silly. In fact, of all motivations I think they're probably truest to What Should Be. Passing years can jade a person and force him to believe that What Currently Is is What Should Be. So myths become useless, and one treats his own imagination like a cartoon, some airy trifle not worth attention. GK Chesterton destroys this lie when he defends fairy tales in his book, Orthodoxy. There is more import in the fairy tale--or at least in the desires that drive it--than in the "rational" stale-dom of the sophisticated.

Jesus' own words reveal His thoughts on the childlike heart: "Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these" (Mark 10:14).

Oregon Road Trip, Fall '02

Mountain shadows loom
In the land of early dark.
Here the gales of November blow,
And volcanic highlands of the North Pacific
Rise, with crested peaks aglow