To a 12-year-old self

You’re still a kid,

at 12, collecting stamps,

trying to play street

football, rolling your eyes

but secretly still enjoying

the circus, riding bikes

(no helmets back then;

stay tuned); reading

so much your parents

are worried. But it’s OK;

they shouldn’t.

Two things it will take

a lifetime to learn, and

when I tell you I’ll get

a funny look in return.

But here goes:

One, it will take you

a long time to learn

confidence, but you will

learn more that those

who always have it.

Two, you will be blessed

with never regretting

a decision, a choice,

because you will look

back and know you

wouldn’t have had it

any other way.

Tweetspeak Poetry has a poetry prompt this week – writing a letter in the form of a poem to your 12-year-old self. What would you say? What advice would you offer? Check Tweetspeak Poetry to see how others are responding.

Portrait of Louis Guillame by Paul Cezanne (1882); National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

What separated us

Twenty-eight years separated us,
not even a comma in the span
of time, those years of Roaring 20s,
Great Depression, Gone with the Wind
and the Wizard of Oz, Pearl Harbor
and the bomb bookending the war,
divorce and remarriage, whole novels
of experience and living, generations
fusing and passing, and she sat
in a hospital bed, eyes tired, smiling
at the thought of what she had had
for dessert for lunch. The sherbet,
she said, was delicious.

Photograph by Larisa Okhtienko via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

“Playdates with God” by Laura Boggess

The crowds are large. Jesus is busy with Kingdom work. He’s talking to people. He’s having yet another “let’s out-teach-the-teacher” session with the Pharisees; this time they’re trying to trip him up on divorce. And then some people bring small children to him for him to lay his hands on them, to give them his blessing. His disciples admonish the adults bringing the children. And then he admonishes his disciples.

“Let the little children come to me,” he says, “and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Matthew 19:13-15 NIV).

It’s a punctuation scene. Right before this happened, and responding to his disciples’ question about who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, Jesus had called a little child to his side and said, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3-4 NIV).

Writer and editor Laura Boggess decided Jesus was serious.

She asked herself what might happen if she approached God with the heart and mind of a child.

And she wondered what that would look like.

One of her first experiences was on a trampoline. When the people who owned the home weren’t there.

Thus were born regular “playdates” with God.

And thus was eventually born Playdates with God: Having a Childlike Faith in a Grownup World.

It’s not just a trampoline. It’s a zipline (I want to see a video of the author ziplining). It’s bird watching. It’s Super-Soakers. It’s walking on the beach. It’s a hammock. It’s anything you plan or encounter that pushes you out of your adult comfort zone and embraces the idea of play and wonder, with the idea that it will lead to a more childlike heart, and a more childlike faith.

 

Boggess has the gift for telling stories. Each one of the chapters is built around a specific playdate and theme. But she doesn’t stop with only an account of the theme; she adds insights from toher events and situations, calling upon authors from St. Augustine to Madeleine L’Engle and Luci Shaw to enhance and expand.

If I have a personal favorite chapter (and I first have to say I have several favorites, including the naptime chapter), it’s the one entitled “Love Story: Yada, Yada, Yada.” It’s about how the busy world (not to mention arguments and misunderstandings) can crowd out and turn cold our closest human relationships.  

I read Playdates with God, and I experience both the joy of play and the deepening of faith. Boggess is that good a writer.

Photograph by George Hodan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Talking with Thomas Merton

I was talking with Thomas Merton,

well, actually, I was talking and he

was listening, that period of silence

each day those Trappists do,

you know. Silence forces you

to listen. So we talked, or rather

I talked, he never said a word

but he spoke

of everything,

like a child,

he was a child, you know,

once.

Related: My post this week at Tweetspeak Poetry on Thomas Merton's In the Dark Before Dawn.

Photo of Thomas Merton via the Thomas Merton Society of Canada.