The Joy of Children

Call to Celebration

Most of us here this morning likely do not worship the baby Jesus as the emergent Christ of ultimate salvation. The new and potent promise of a child in this hurting world, however, is worth our loving attention and even veneration. Every child is precious, every child has the potential to save us from meaninglessness, from the meanness and spirit-destroying pursuit of money and things and selfish expression.

I am especially mindful of this preciousness and potential as we consider today the story of a long-ago birth in Bethlehem, a city once only the gathering point for a government census and now the site of war and devastation, of death and starvation on a scale most of us cannot fathom.

As we re-tell this age-old story today, may we all find ways to counter such devastation. May we all be saved by the actions we each take to ameliorate such suffering. For salvation can come to each of us when we honor the promise of a child new to the world, new to the realities of the senses and all the beauty and grace that comes from loving other people and holding the world and all its beings in compassionate relationship.

So, let today be a celebration of our children, of all children, of the children we all have been. Let today be a celebration of the hope and the wonder that shines through the eyes and the spirits of children, renewing world-weary vision and renewing our faith that life is good and full of promise, for as long as it lasts.

Scent Meditation with Music

I invite us now into a time of reflection and meditation.
Settle into your mind and your body as it is in this moment. . .
Close your eyes or simply soften your gaze. . .
Bring joyful awareness to the sources of delight and gratitude you feel . . .
Bring gentle awareness to those parts of you that hurt. . .
Follow your breath, knowing you are not alone in your pain,
no matter its nature. . .
We breathe together into this time of witness and compassion. . .
Open your heart to the spirit of connection. . .

Writers and scientists both have noted that scents, that particular smells, can take us back in time, can invoke powerful memories. I invite you to think back to your childhood. To think back to a happy memory of childhood. I invite you to remember yourself as a child within this happy memory. And I invite you to take from the baskets Leslie is bringing around something that smells good and loving and healing for you. Some of these scents are edible, so feel free to eat. Some are not edible, so be careful.

[Baskets have sugar/anise cookies, peppermints, evergreens, and other herbs.]

Inhale and embrace the scents that appeal to you. Evoke those memories that are loving and healing to you. Remember yourself as a beloved child, a sacred child of the universe loved and beloved, even if not be those you most wished embraced you. Right here, right now, you are that beloved child that you were, you are the beloved child you long to be. We are all of us children of the universe, yearning to be loved and whole as we are. In this moment, you are loved and you are loving. Let us sit in love while Abigail plays for us.

Closing Words

Last week, I got to hold a baby, a six months-old bundle of smiles and drool and socks falling off soft, squishy baby feet. Eamon is the newest child of a high school friend of my son. For an hour or so, I was in ecstasy. Even before he can speak words that I understand, Eamon is telling me much about how the world ought to be, about what is good and right, about what is meaningful, about living in a community of care and inclusion.

I long to be a grandmother, and I know that my longing and the desires of my children are two different things. It is not my place to impose my desires on their lives.

And so, I am determined to treat each child I am privileged to hold and to know as preciously as if they were my own blood, carrying on my own family lines, calling me Granny or Grandma or Nanny. Because we are all connected, because we are all on the web of reality, the web of life and biology, any child is my blood, every child is my family, no matter if they call me Granny or Rev. Rita or “that lady” or nothing at all. The web calls me to love, and I am grateful to love.

Perhaps you have young ones in your family to give your love to, imagining the generations that will live after you die. Perhaps you feel as I do, claiming, in what I hope is a non-creepy way, to love all children. And perhaps, today, you can imagine that love embracing you, too, child that you once were, child of someone you still are. Perhaps you were the child, swinging as high as you could on your swing set. Perhaps you are climbing hills and rocks, surmounting a high peak you thought beyond your endurance. And then the view! Perhaps you are holding in your arms a child, and rocking, the repetition soothing in the moment and reminiscent of other such times, even times when you were the child in arms. Perhaps you are digging in your garden, really noticing the way an earthworm moves or the shape of the roots of the weeds you can’t ever quite eradicate. Perhaps you are touching your own hand, feeling your skin and the bones and veins and tendons which are as much you as your thoughts and feelings. Perhaps you are touching the hand of someone else in this lovely way. The moment need not be large, need not be triumphant, need not happen when you want it to. All of us can learn and change. All of us have hearts that might grow three sizes, when we learn to see through the lens of love. We are often surprised by the joy of life, if we allow ourselves to be. Surprised by the joy that curiosity brings, that awareness brings, that relaxing into the moment brings.

This is what children bring us, simply by their living. May we rejoice in this and in those children everywhere. May they and their insights be our salvation.

I close with these words, adapted from famed Religious Educator, the Rev. Sophia Lyon Fahs:

We gather in the wonder of this moment
The wonder of being together, so close and still apart—
Each hidden in our own secret chamber,
Each listening, each trying to speak, each trying to understand
Yet none fully understanding, none fully understood.

We gather in reverence before all intangible things—
That eyes see not, nor ears can detect—
That hands can never fully grasp
that space cannot hold,
and time cannot measure.

We gather in reverence before all tangible things—
Costumes and props and prompts
Laughter and singing and shouting and running.
We gather before all these tangible things,
shaping our time and space into a sharing of love and light.

We gather in reverence before the wonder of life,
before the wonder of our children—
learning from old stories how they might bring helpfulness and hopefulness into all our lives.

May we see these children and all children as a blessing to us.
May we bless their lives with our attention and our care.
May you remember for yourselves, that you, too, are a blessing, a source of joy and love for
those in your life. May it ever be so.