Take a Breath
“It’s about the children.”
Whenever Sally and I get weary in well doing, we remind one another why we are seeking to do anything at all, well or otherwise. “It’s about the children.”
This, of course, sounds all high and lifted up, doesn’t it? But the truth is that it is not high and lifted up at all, but rather lowly, all things considered. You have to stoop low in order to see eye to eye with a child. You have to get down, humble yourself. Or you have to lift up the child to adult eye level, something most children resist because it’s scary to have someone lift you off your feet. If you want to be eye to eye with a child, then you have to get down – low to behold.
And when you do get down to a child’s eye point of view, what do you see? Depends on the child’s eye through which you are viewing, doesn’t it? On any given day, I walk from Herod’s Gate to Zion’s Gate – a path that takes me from one side of the Old City of Jerusalem to the other. I wind my way through narrow streets and alleyways, and all along the way there are children. I look for the children; take special note of children. Sometimes I stop along the way and get down on my haunches and just look around. I want a child’s eye point of view, and it is fascinating just to view the views from down there. Try it today. Just stop every now and then and get down so you can see from the perspective of a child. And stay down for a while. Don’t get up too fast.
Herod’s Gate leads into the heart of the Muslim Quarter, and the way is dark and often dirty. Down low, it is darker still, and the garbage is right there in your face. The stones are old stones that show their age, and with crackled voice, cry out of tough times. The children see these stones up close. The little ones crawl on the old stones, run on them, fall on them, and the children know that these are hard stones, but also stones that have been around for a long time. These stones are stable and enduring.
When you enter the Jewish Quarter you immediately feel the difference. The way is brighter, the stones cleaner – not new, but new looking. They wear the wear well, having been bathed and brushed up for company. Everything in the Jewish Quarter is better, and yet the stones on which the Jewish children crawl and run and fall are not so different after all. The stones will out last the children, and the children seem to know this, whether they know they know or not.
These stones are stable, enduring, and comforting then, I think. I watch old men and women as they walk along these same streets – and like children they are closer to the stones than those of us who still stand straight and tall. I watch these old ones and see them looking at the stones upon which they are walking as if remembering them from when they were small.
“It’s about the children.” Therefore, if indeed it is about the children – and we’re not just saying that to be politically correct – then it’s about becoming a little more childlike. It’s not about clinging to childish ways, to remember Paul, but it is about humbling ourselves in order to get down and see the world from the lowly position of a child, especially a poor child. And then what do we see? The world is big and beautiful and hard and unyielding and like the ten spies you think everyone is a giant and even the stairs look like mountains and you need some help and encouragement and once in a while you have something to say about all of this that someone ought to get down close enough to hear. (Okay, take a breath – a big breath.) And when you get down close enough to the ground to hear what the children are saying then you will hear them talk about how frightened they are sometimes and how little they feel all the time and how eager to learn they are sometimes and how bored to death they are at other times and how much they want to climb all the mountains in order to see all that lies beyond each one and they will too if someone doesn’t tell them they can’t, but of course, someone will tell them they can’t and some children will be told this sooner than others and more often than others and so the mountains are higher for some than for others and these are the ones Sally and I want to reach out to and these are the ones Sally and I want to come down alongside of and encourage and these are the ones we want you to get down and see and love and value and encourage as well. Will you? Please.
