One of the first things I noticed about our youngest was his incredible imagination: he can develop a story like no other! In his tales, the impossible becomes possible, the unbelievable becomes believable, and the unlikely becomes almost anticipated. It is a blessed gift to have childlike wonder residing right here in our home!
Annie Dillard, in her thoughtful narrative, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, hits on this childishness in a way that causes me to crave that innocence in myself again:
When I was six or seven years old, growing up in Pittsburgh, I used to take a precious penny of my own and hide it for someone else to find. It was a curious compulsion; sadly, I’ve never been seized by it since. For some reason, I always “hid” the penny along the same stretch of sidewalk up the street. I would cradle it at the roots of a sycamore, say, or in a hole left by a chipped-off piece of sidewalk. Then I would take a piece of chalk, and, starting at either end of the block, draw huge arrows leading up to the penny from both directions.
After I learned to write I labeled the arrows: SURPRISE AHEAD or MONEY THIS WAY. I was greatly excited, during all this arrow-drawing, at the thought of the first lucky passer-by who would receive in this way, regardless of merit, a free gift from the universe. But I never lurked about. I would go straight home and not give the matter another thought, until, some months later, I would be gripped again by the impulse to hide another penny.
The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand. But — and this is the point — who gets excited by a mere penny?
...if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get.
And isn't that just the truth of it? What you are willing to see is what you get. I once heard someone say, Those who place everything in God's hand will see God's hand in everything. What keeps us seeing the goodness of God in the everyday and the mundane, or catching our breath at the same Autumn colors bedecking the same tree in our same backyard every year; what keeps us seeing the newness of the spouse God has given us or the places He has called us to live for forty-seven of our fifty years; what keeps us grateful is seeing, and what keeps us seeing is poverty. The willingness to acknowledge there are things much greater than us and our full schedules. The willingness to remain small and poor and humble, and to know that God is big and rich and glorious. The willingness to see that the life He has granted you is a life given to no other human being on earth; the sunsets you have watched, the smiles you've returned, the last moments of a faithful and furry friend you have been permitted, the first cries you have heard --they have all been for you and you alone. Given you by a God who is writing your story as carefully as you wrapped that shawl around the shoulders of the sister with cancer. Gently, tenderly, and sometimes intensely with loving correction in mind, God has fashioned this life for you and each morning presented you with the mercies and opportunities you require for the day. Your life is as unique as you are, and perfect for you.
Let us, with the wonder and innocence of trusting children, see all You have crafted for us, and never be ungrateful again.
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