Struggling to Enter My Second Childhood

/ Dennis A. Gray / Leave a comment

I’ve spent the last couple of days listening to the Toronto ‘Sick Kids’ Hospital radio telethon on CFRB. I listened to story after story of kids facing seemingly impossible medical challenges and the courage they display. Children in wheelchairs and sick beds, hooked up to miles of tubing and a plethora of equipment, still manage not only to smile, but find reason and strength to laugh and bring a little fun into their lives.

I’m reminded of other examples from other fund-raising efforts. The children in AIDS-riddled Africa still manage to laugh and play in the midst of their despair, taking immense joy from something as simple as a ball made from rags bound with tape and string. Children who spend their days scrounging through garbage dumps in South America to earn a small income for their families, draw comfort and love from each other in the meager hovel they call home. A small boy in Uganda smiles enthusiastically for the camera as he carries a 20-litre can of water almost as big as himself two kilometers from the well to his hut – twice – everyday!

Closer to home, and not nearly facing such misfortune, I marvel at my own nephew. I remember when, the night his grandmother died, the four-year-old’s primary concern was to say to his mother, “It’s okay Mommy, don’t be sad!”

As I listen, and watch, and remember, one word comes to mind over and over again – resiliency.

Children are, at one and the same time, the most fragile and the most resilient of all human beings. They will, given the chance, find reason to smile and laugh, and opportunities for play in even the most devastating of circumstances. In many ways, I envy them.

I’ve often wondered where they get this remarkable ability and I have come to the following conclusion – it’s faith. Children quickly realize, if only on a subconcious level, that they have no control over their situation. As a result they must rely on the adults in their lives to put things right. They put all of their faith in their parents, grandparents, older siblings, whoever it is that takes care of them. This level of complete dependency frees them to do one thing – enjoy life the best they can. They are free to play, and laugh, and sing in the midst of all they must endure because they have handed the whole thing over to people who are able to deal with it much better than they are.

Unfortunately not all children exhibit this inate ability. My heart goes out most to the ones who have lost the capacity to play. They are most often orphans, huddled in rooms filled with dozens of others like themselves, with no one to hold them, no one to assure them that everything will work out some how. They have fallen so far into their despair they have lost the very sense of what they are – children.

Having said all that, I’d like you to consider the words of Jesus from Matthew 18:3-4…

And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

For me the reason Jesus suggested we become like children lies in this simple matter of faith. As adults we constantly feel the need to worry over what will happen next and how we can control it. Hardest of all for us to accept is that there are things in this world that are simply beyond our control; there are things we cannot do anything about no matter how hard we try. Even after we have prayed and “surrendered” everything to God we still ask the same question once we get up off our knees; “Okay, now what do I do?”, as if it is still up to us to solve the problem.

But to fit into the kingdom of God requires ‘complete’ dependency on Him. That’s why we have to become like little children. As children we understood what it meant to ‘trust the Father’ because it was instinctive to us. We need to go back there once more. We need to regain the ability to not worry over what we can’t control. And when we do we will enjoy once again that same freedom we knew as children.

Because we are not spiritual orphans, because we have a Father who cares for us and answers our needs we can devote ourselves to the one thing that matters most – to enjoy life as best we can. We can be free to smile, to laugh and even to play in the midst of our desperation because we know that even if we don’t understand what is going on we have a Father in heaven who will take care of it for us. Even if we seem to be going hungry right now we can enjoy the simple pleasure of a ball made of rags because our older brother Jesus will take care of things somehow.

Too many of us are living like orphans. Too many of us are so lost in worry and despair we have lost the very sense of who we are – children of God. We huddle in the churches with others like ourselves wondering who will take care of us, who will feed us when all the time God is reaching out to us in love.

So I challenge you, dear Reader. Like me, try to enter a second childhood. Become a child again and enter into the kingdom. Smile, laugh, play a while. God will take care of things if we will only let go of them.

Shalom

Permission to Do Nothing – Granted!

/ Dennis A. Gray / Leave a comment

It’s been a long month — storyteller’s workshop, worship conference, video testimonies, worship projects, barbershop concerts, drama rehersals. Not a lot of free time for writing as I would like. Finally got a free night this past Sunday. Resolved to spend the evening doing as little as possible. Roberta planned on reading a book, I was going to relax with some great jazz music. Then it hit — guilt!

Even as we settled down for the evening we hadn’t gone very far when both my wife and I felt it. We were actually planning to do nothing! We were about to commit the sin of being unproductive. How could we think of such a thing? More than once Roberta looked up from her book and said, “There are things I should be doing. I shouldn’t be just sitting here. (long pause) But it’s all I want to do!”

I knew how she felt. I had to remind both myself and her that that not only is doing nothing NOT a sin, it is a command of God! It would seem that God knew his creation would fall prey to the insatiable drive to ‘do something’, and so he commanded one day’s rest in seven to address the need for rest. For the record, even two thousand years ago, in the time of Jesus, this was considered a little strange. Many people regarded the Jews as lazy and irresponsible because they took a whole day off every week.

What I have always wondered however, is why we have this overwhelming drive to be busy in the first place? Why do we get so fidgety and restless when we do nothing? Why is the same level of inactivity that is acceptable lying on the beach, so unacceptable in our own living rooms?

I have a theory.

I think we all suffer, to one degree or another, from the tryanny of our own attention span.

That’s right – the tyranny of our own attention span. The same hightened sense of boredom that has us flipping channels, also keeps us from slowing down and just enjoying the moment. And in a world dominated by the 10-second sound byte, the video montage, and the one-minute news update, the situation has become even worse. There are many people today that are simply incapable of paying attention to anything for any length of time.

The result is we have trouble simply enjoying the moment. When we do spend a few moments resting, doing nothing, before long a little voice in our head says, “Okay, been here, done this. What’s next? Come on people – I’ve seen this movie before. Show me something new.”

Of course on the spiritual level there’s another aspect to it as well — fear.

I have come to the realization that some of us are reluctant to stop “doing“ because when our minds are not filled with these activities then we might be tempted to “think“. And this is bad because thinking can lead to contemplation. And contemplation can lead to introspection. And introspection can lead to having to face some hard realities about ourselves, and nobody wants to do that. And so because of our fear of facing who we really are, we occupy our time with as many activities as possible so that we don’t have time to think about how good or bad a person we might be.

Of course, on the spiritual level, this is all very good for the enemy. Satan of course has no desire to see God’s people spending a lot of time in quiet contemplation because they just might be quiet long enough to hear the still small voice of God. They might, even without intending or planning to, take head of the prompting and leading of the Holy Spirit; and we all know what that could lead to.

So here’s my challenge to you. Take a few minutes, or dare I say it, one day a week, and strive to do nothing. You just might find it’s the most productive thing you’ve ever done.

Shalom…

The Not-So-Savage Curtain

/ Dennis A. Gray / 2 Comments

Like a lot of people in this world, I am a fan of the Star Trek franchise. Now, before those of you who aren’t hit the Back button, this article is not about Star Trek per se, so please bear with me.

One of the episodes that stands out in my mind, is an original series episode called The Savage Curtain. In it the crew of the Enterprise travel to a planet called Excalbia. The unique thing about the living rocks that inhabit Excalbia is their culture has no experience with the concepts of “Good” and “Evil.” In an effort to understand this concept, Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock find themselves on the planet’s surface along with an assortment of characters extracted from kirk and Spock memories including Abraham Lincoln and Genghis Khan. They are divided into the “good guys” and the “bad guys” and forced to battle it out to the death. A few skirmishes and much philosophizing later, Kirk and company emerge victorious and the Excalbians come to the following conclusion…

“It would seem that evil retreats when forcibly confronted. However, you have failed to demonstrate to me… any other difference between your philosophies.”

After a few more philosophical observations and a memorable quote from Abraham Lincoln (There is no honourable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war except its ending.) everyone survives and the crew moves on to its next assignment.

So… why the trip down Trekkie memory lane? Well, what always stuck in my mind about this episode was not the debate over the classic battle between good and evil but the aliens involved. The Excalbian spokesman makes the claim that the very concept of good and evil is unknown to them. This seems nearly impossible. Could a society with no concept of good and evil, or right and wrong actually survive? Would they not at the very least come to the conclusion; harm me = evil and help me = good? Could such a society exist?

Well actually, we are supposed to be just such a society. At least that’s what Juan de Valdes suggests. I wrote about Valdes a few weeks ago. Those who haven’t read the article will find it here. This morning, over coffee, I was reading a book of excerpts from Valdes’ One Hundred and Ten Considerations. Check out consideration number 106 where he talks about man(kind) in the spiritual sense:

He was placed in the garden called the earthly paradise. But after he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he lost the image of the likeness of God. He was expelled from the earthly paradise and retains the knowledge of both good and evil. I understand it is unnatural to man and foreign to his first creation to remain excluded from the earthly paradise. Likewise I understand it is unnatural for him to possess ‘the knowledge of good and evil.’ By what I experience in man’s restoration, in his regeneration, and in his being made a new creature, I realize that he does recover the image and likeness of God.

Think about that for a moment; it is unnatural for him to possess ‘the knowledge of good and evil.’ The scriptures seem to re-enforce Valdes’ interpretation as God asks Adam how it is he knows that he is naked (Gen 3:11). The knowledge of this simple fact indicates to God that Adam has transgressed, as it is knowledge Adam would not have if he had remained obedient.

It is an interesting notion that if everything had not gone awry in the Garden of Eden, then the human race today would, just like the fictitious Excalbians, have absolutely no concept of good and evil. Morality plays would not exist and neither, I imagine, would the entire arena of philosophy. (A good thing perhaps?)

I will confess that this idea is entirely beyond my comprehension. I find I cannot adequately imagine a culture that is devoid of these most basic of concepts. I realize I am being repetitive here, but really, to think that if everything had gone according to God’s original intent then we would exists in such a pure state of innocence that terms like “good” and “evil”, “right” and “wrong” would be completely meaningless and serve no useful purpose in our lives.

If Valdes is right then in the next world we will be restored to this state of innocence. It is no wonder that scripture is so lacking in details of the next life. It will obviously be beyond our comprehension. I can hardly wait!