A child sits on a swing and lunges his body forward rhythmically, exulting in repetitive jubilance. He rejoices in the same pendulous routine of ups and downs, not out of boredom but out of joy, not in the absence of but in the excess of life, not out of compulsion but out of sheer giggle-filled, chuckle-bursting liberation and indulgence.
Do it again. Do it again. Please, can we do it again.
A child celebrates repetition.
Anna loves to swing, too. And I think the inner child in each of us do, too. The Professional People told me that Anna had to grow up before Ed could fully go away, but it is not that we need to kill the child within us before we may be healthily grown up. Grown-ups have inner-childs in them too, and those who do, are often happier for it. What's important, perhaps, is which parts of our inner child we keep- innocent wonder, child-like faith, startling boldness, and which we choose to throw away- selfishness, tantrum-throwing, emotional blackmail, even.
The bad bits of Anna need to grow up, but the most of her can stay.
But in this dangerous age of shades of grey, which embatters us too much too often, too many of us grow old overnight and lose the strength in the stuff children are made of. The irony is- to be truly Grown-up, our inner childs do need to be preserved- correctly and beautifully.
But we act like grown-ups on the outside, while our inner childs struggle between infancy and gawky pubescence, innocence and knowing, and are thrown into confusion, anxiety and loss. They become angry, jaded and grow altogether cold, old. We grow older on the outside, and our inner childs either wither overnight, or become stuck in timetravel, becoming enraged, bitter and sulky.
Do it again. Do it again. Please, can we do it again.
A child exults in repetition, but we grow old too soon. For why is it, that as we work and live, doing the same things over and over, day after day, that we grow weary by the pendulous swing of routine, and become exhausted, drained by the humdrum of everyday life. It is as if we had chosen to get off a rusty swing, a swing in whose heady rush of wind and exhilarating heights we no longer took pleasure in.
For adults work and grow cold. We sin and grow old.
And in doing so, lose their child-like strength to exult in and triumph over monotony. For every day becomes the same as the last, except perhaps being, only more dead. The days are flogged to death with sameness and the adults grow old and cold in their jobs, dead before they die, processing data, typing in numbers and flicking people off, for they have little energy for anything more.
And it would take Strength the size of a jumbo-set, the size of Noah's ark, the size of God's hug to infuse life back into the living corpses we've allowed ourselves to become.
I was in the hospital drawing blood for and taking the medical history of the umpteeth patient when I found myself slumped forward, tired, asking the same questions over and over, going through the same motions again and again. It was a scary moment, to learn how routine can become monotonous, how repetition can flog you to death. But all at once, when God's love for that person hit me hot in the face and opened my eyes, I found new strength again to listen to the same answers, to do the same things, to perform the same procedures- simply because this was a different, unique Person- special and precious in God's sight.
Perhaps with God's love, we just may be- enabled to.
Enabled to work, enabled to answer, enabled to love, over and over, without growing old, without growing cold.
Enabled to Grow up well, with our inner childs still preserved to enjoy the simplicity of celebrating repetition.
For could it be that for all His ancience and age, God's love is strong enough, to inspire newness into old things.
Could it be then with God's strength in us, looking through His eyes, we can find freshness in routine, forgiveness in raked-up anger, fire in a heart reeking with frost.
Is it then that we can go to work doing the same mundane procedural things, seeing the same things, going through the same motions- and yet all differently, by seeing every person at the counter, by the corridor, at the office cubicle, not as a digit, a statistic, just another case or patient or bed number, but as a Person, a child whom God loves so much that He would give up the world for him to know so. Who loves him as much as He loves me.
Is it then we can listen to the same glib promises men say to us to impress, pursue us, and yet, not allow our hearts to become hardened, dulled, embittered, and still find the courage, dignity and strength to be pursued and loved again by another- and this time differently, because our eyes are opened and we now see the difference between truth and falsehood, deed and cheap talk.
Is it then we can die a hundred deaths, over and over- yet without dying, only because our death produces new seeds for new lives, blooming into new shoots of vitality and vigour.
Because, well, could it be that God takes great pleasure and delight in the same creations every day, over and over? He draws the silken skies of dawn and dusk like coloured curtains, fingers the lips of chaste lilies and browns them to their graves, brews clouds over our lives for seasons of sunshine, rain and frost, creating the same creations over and over... and then, all over again.
Could it be possible that for all of His eternity, God delights in perservering steadfastness and unchanging faithfulness, fulfilling His promises of a new day, every single day?
Could it be that just like the child who sees every swing ride as his first exhilarating adventure, that for every sky and flower and Person, God sees them differently, too?
It may not be the law of cog-wheel convenience that necessitates cycles of repetition. It may be that God chooses to paint every ceiling canopy differently, craft every flower separately, and love every Person uniquely. Painting the skies in the same areas with a different brush, crafting the same flowers one by one, listening to and forgiving the same sins over and over, again and again. Yet diligently, faithfully, because each sky is admired by a different child, each flower plucked and chosen for a different lover, each sin committed by a different Person, with a different Story.
Can we do that too? Go about doing our daily grind and growing bigger, and yet looking at everything with child-like wonder and starry awe, simply because every Person encountered in the process was different.
Do it again. Do it again. Please, can we do it again.
I sometimes wonder- Could I be the kind of doctor who sees every patient with the eyes God sees them with? After weekly 36-hour shifts running around meeting demands, could I still see each Person differently, serve each patient faithfully as if he were my first, with dedicated humility and dignity? It would require a choice.
It may be that God has the infinite capacity for infancy, the eternal hunger for child-likeness, because He chose to.
For we have worked and grown cold. We have sinned and grown old.
But we have hope in knowing that God in us may help us preserve our zest and zeal, our eternal gratitude for every sunrise and dusk, every flower which blooms and dies, every human being which passes our way, as long as we make a daily choice.
Because perhaps, very simply, our God, for all His ancience, age and eternity, could simply just be-
- younger than we.
"Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."
- Matthew 18: 4
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