Ageless Children

“We'll be Friends Forever, won't we, Pooh?' asked Piglet. 
Even longer,' Pooh answered.” 
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

We are all children of God.  I think people of most faiths would agree.  But then came Oliver Bear.  With a name straight out of some yet-to-be-written classic children's book, and the latest addition to our clan, his birth has me thinking about the childlikeness in each of us, and how this childlikeness never ends.  It is as immortal and forever - even longer!-  as love itself.

Childlikeness is Godlikeness --- you can see it in the calm and untamed eyes of the newborn and in the parent's eyes --deep set with satisfaction and quiet joy.  But does this purity and peace ever die off?  Never!

There is a story I recently heard about a new older sister who demanded to spend time alone with the newborn.  She was so adamant about being alone with the baby, the mother wasn't quite sure how to go about it. She finally relented and kept the baby monitor on high, so she could hear what was going on in the room during their visite.  Once alone with the baby in the nursery, the sister went to the newborn, and in a low whisper, said, "Tell me what God looks like.  I am forgetting."

Heart tugging as that story is - and if any of you can reference this story, please do -  we can never lose or forget our connection to God, that pure and ever-fresh connection to divine Love itself.

Purity, adventure, wonder, exploration are just some of those childlike qualities derived from our God, who is Love.  We are created as representatives of Love, so that we are each others' reminders that Love is here, adventure is here, wonder is here. Regardless of our age ( or how many times we have circled the sun) we can never lose our childlikeness, because it is God's likeness.

All we need to be reminded of this is to look into one another's eyes.

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"All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered." 
— Kenneth Grahame (The Wind in the Willows)