This morning I heard the same blessed children's songs that I expect upon the breeze--better than birdsong! They always strike me as the background music for a day's beginning that brings me back to the core of joy. Like rarefied praise music, the songs are a testing of the range of a delightful squeal, the giggles that accompany finding ones own gait, the rhythms to fit a bounce-ball game, shouts that come from the unexpected, and a bawl bringing adults at their swiftest pace.

But this morning, some aberrant wind brought the anthem to my heart with an unusual sadness. Was it last night's news? Could it be that I wanted to freeze time for them--wrong-headed woman that I can be? Somehow the sorrow was tied-up in their natural wonderment, the genius of their little hearts to choose play first, the beginnings of their language that had so few of the awful words of hatred yet, the heights of the sounds they could make because each one had an opera of joy in their chests.

I rested in what I knew to be true; It was something that Jesus said, resonating for the generations: "...Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter at all." (Mark 10:14-15)

It consoled me to the depths. Jesus said that we could always come to Him if we just kept upon our hearts the lessons of childwonder! To wake up with a certainty of discovery, to keep a skipping gratitude in our hearts, to find the lyricism of meeting our mates, to be astounded over newness, to voice our speech and thoughts as uplifting, and to run for sure refuge to the swiftest of Parents when a holler is the sound of our cry--these were the ways to grow-up.

The next passage in Mark--10:16 says: "And He took them in His arms and began blessing them, laying His hands on them." I was at such a place as I saw Him enkindle each little-one whom I love from my neighborhood with His touch of blessing.