The Childlike Path

In a time of waiting, we were asked to engage with patience more deeply, and have at last received our answer. 

And if it has arrived without everything we wanted and hoped for, it’s nonetheless accompanied by the invitations to heal, accept, and continue to choose mature and loving responses to the one life we’ve been gifted to travel in communion with others.

I’ve been reflecting on the ways so much of our culture encourages and rewards indulgence and refuge in petulant childish rejection of the other rather than delighted childlike engagement with the world. One path is selfish, the other welcomes shared wonder and joy. One demands instant gratification and satisfied demands, regardless of coherence; the other is willing to sacrifice and walk with mystery, relying on wisdom and waiting for prudent answers to emerge. One grabs and grasps; the other reaches and extends. One screams and closes doors; the other listens with an open mind and heart. One nurses grudges; the other commits to forgiveness. The childish will do anything to have desires met; the childlike are sated by the pure miracle and possibilities of truth. To the childish heart, justice has no meaning; to the childlike, it is beloved. The childish are never satisfied; the childlike are always grateful. The childish deny loss; the childlike grieve and heal. Most dangerously, when faced with challenges, one chooses the comfort of regression and the other explores the co-creation of answers that will benefit all to the greatest degree possible.

Each of us chooses our path moment by moment; a great gift we have as humans is the gift to transform. I hope we’ll do so more consciously. Healing waits to embrace us with no time to lose, and offers us solace and peace we desperately need and can’t ignore.

The weariness of this profoundly troubling time has been greatly exacerbated by the willfully childish and the noisy distractions of the immature. Let’s hope and pray that our way forward will be led by those gifted with both maturity and the mindful retention of wonder that leads to new ways of being. And, as our gifts and time allow, may each of us work to confront and set aside childish impulses and choose the deeper eruption of joy allowed when we balance childlike innocence with mature wisdom.

Gentle, gentle peace.

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