Saturday, September 24, 2005
in your eyes/i see the doorways/of a thousand churches
Boy, the world is full of cheery news these days...Mostly about how it seems to be ending. Wars, hurricanes, killer flu, vanishing fossil fuels, dirty bomb terrorism, irrevocably melting polar ice caps. (INSERT HORROR OF YOUR CHOICE HERE.) Wheee!
Seems that there are at least three responses to all this: you can "borrow Sylvia's inhaler" (aka the Plath Oven Helmet) and do a slow intimate inspection of your stove's interior, or you can head over to this site, or you can take a long look at the face of an 18-month-old. Option three works best for me. First, I've got a lot of them on hand. Second, the ones in my family tend to be beautiful--a fact I can take little to no credit for--and ever since that early Greek philosopher fella people have been figuring that beauty comes directly from the source of all good things. So if folks are right about that and there's still beauty in the world, then it follows there's still good.
Ah, logic. Remember those problems where you'd fill out a grid based on a bunch of statements and then be asked questions like, "If Bob is wearing the red dress and Sam is an ornithologist, what religion is Natasha?"
Me neither.
Third, you don't have to hang around them long to realize that very small people are enlightened. They have no time or reason for existential angst. They see the world as a bright clean place. They live in the moment, marveling at the beauty and richness that surround them. They trust implicitly and are happy doing anything at all unless they are hungry, tired, or in pain. In this way, young children are little bodhisattvas, toddling Jesuses, dirty-faced arhants. All modeling right living for us. All pointing the way. All with much to teach. So after we've prepared for the apocalypse by squirreling away our three day supply of food and water, let's turn off all the chattering screens, look our children closely in the eye and strive to be disciples of what we see there. For in this they are wiser than we.
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I have a comment to make, but it involves incriminating testimony - something along the lines of, yes they're cute and wonderous little animals - but most of the time I really want to lock them in the closet, watch my tv show (not something that involves animation) and drink out of a big kid cup a big kid drink.
But, yes, god makes them cute for a reason.
But, yes, god makes them cute for a reason.
Agreed, klem! And--I would argue--MORE eveidence of our relative inability to live in the present moment!
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