Looking through his eyes

I never really understood what people meant when they talked about looking through a child's eyes until I had a child myself. I suppose, like everything, being with children and being with YOUR child is a very different experience. The joy with which B looks at everything...the excitement and enthusiasm with which he approaches every task is sometimes unbelievable. How can watching the same damn Teletubbies introduction song on You tube be that exciting - over and over again? I know it drives me crazy. And yet, somehow, the baby in the sun makes him laugh hysterically and he is still surprised when Po pops up three times. Somehow, it is just as great as the very first time he's seen it - maybe even better, actually.

Today, the four of us (including the dog) headed out for a walk. As the dog and I forged ahead, B made it to the top of our driveway and then proceeded to run circles (literally) around daddy in the cul-de-sac. Around and around and around, giggling, smiling, downright laughing. And while we might have been frustrated any other day (Come ON B...let's GO), for some reason we watched the joy erupt from him and laughed (well, the dog was a little annoyed, I am sure). Watching him run full speed down the steep hill of our subdivision road, gleefully screaming with each step (Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah AHHH)...well, there's nothing like it. I don't know the last time I did anything with that much joy. (Hell, I don't know the last time I did anything with joy. I am sure that is a ginormous overstatement.) All along the way, he would stop to stoop at a bug neither of us would have ever even noticed...to pick a piece of wheat grass that he calls "caterpillars"...to point to the sky and the clouds and tell us what color it is...to wave at all the cars and trucks that drive by (a very southern thing, really). And while I would have overlooked most of that and even missed them, today, we all took time to appreciate the things he pointed out. Even the dog sniffed the grass he was picking.

I wish I had the openness to the world that he does. The excitement and enthusiasm for everything. The belief that he can do anything - and believe me, he will try just about anything. He has no hardened sense of the world, not yet. I find myself, too often, doing things because I should, out of necessity or duty, rather than because I really want to. I stop myself just short of doing something because I am afraid I won't be good at it, because I am afraid to fail. Junior high made me damn sure I knew what my limitations were. And seminary and the first few years of ministry reminded me of them. Sometimes I think I live through the eyes of someone else - someone who I decided knew better than me about who I was - and now I don't even know how to look through my eyes. And if that's true, that I am going to have to look through someone else's eyes, why not through my sons...why not through someone who looks at me with absolute love and admiration, who looks at life with innocence and joy...at least until I find myself again.

It is so difficult to be open to the possibilities...to the holy. Children are much better at seeing everything for what it is. Just this morning, B found the nativity set we brought home from Africa and went through naming everyone (though Jesus is often "little Joseph", just like Marlin from Finding Nemo is "Nemo daddy") . Then he picked up baby Jesus in the manger and looked at him really closely. "Mama? Baby Jesus!" "Yes, B that's baby Jesus." "Like. Like baby Jesus." and he lifted him out of the manger, took him over to the TV and introduced him to the various characters on the screen. Like Jesus was just another friend, joining in the Saturday morning routine. But really, that's more accurate than the tug-of-war I feel like I have on Saturday mornings with Jesus (fighting him to write a sermon that makes me feel good). We should invite him into our lives - or ordinary lives - let him sit with us while we go about our day, rather than gathering dust on our mantles. That's what he wants. To be part of our lives, not an afterthought. That's the joy I am missing. That's the joy I see in his eyes - a partnership, rather than opposition. An openness to any and all possibilities...cheerfully accepting life rather than living in the expectation of others. A radical openness...eyes wide open...to what God intends for each of us and for us all.