{"id":3477,"date":"2006-10-03T01:06:18","date_gmt":"2006-10-03T05:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=3477"},"modified":"2006-10-03T01:06:18","modified_gmt":"2006-10-03T05:06:18","slug":"at-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2006\/10\/at-play\/","title":{"rendered":"At Play"},"content":{"rendered":"

My daughter loves to play on the hardwood floor next to the stone hearth behind the wooden rocking chair. She is one. I keep on thinking this is an accident waiting to happen and tend to move the chair, spread the toys away from the hearth, and sit down beside her just in case. Sometimes as she plays I watch her and find the thought: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153this is my life.\u00e2\u20ac? The thought is neither celebratory nor bitter but rather a fact that I cannot quite grasp\u00e2\u20ac\u201dI am the mother of a small child. That it happened at all seems remarkable; that it can and most likely will happen again is a thought I do not have time to ponder. <\/p>\n

Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.<\/i><\/p>\n

I look down to her toes gripping against the smooth wood and to small calves and rounded stomach. I find shallow dimples near her elbows. She plays with a focus and intensity that I rarely experience and scarcely recognize. The ball is tossed, the doll is squished, and she hesitates between the two. I wonder idly again about the process of becoming as a little child. I stack up colored blocks; she resolutely knocks them down, again, again, again.<\/p>\n

And I am filled with charity, which is everlasting love; wherefore, all children are alike unto me; wherefore, I love little children with a perfect love; and they are all alike and partakers of salvation.<\/i><\/p>\n

She is playing with her books again. She opens the pages of Bible Guess Who<\/a> and chatters as the whale swallows Jonah. She turns the page and points: baby Jesus in his mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arms. I pull the yellow tab and the wise men appear. I am a bit of a book snob, but I like this book\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe illustrations are soft and the text not too intrusive. My implicit approval propels her toward another book: ragged and ratty, a hand-me-down twice over, small pictures, too many words on a page. I do not like this book. None of this bothers my daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u201dsmall squeals echo through unrestrained play.<\/p>\n

But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.<\/i><\/p>\n

She will grow and there will be others, but right now, today, I know this existence to be idyllic. Me lounging on hard floors, she standing upright and clapping. Let the little children come unto Christ, as if I am keeping Him from her. I cannot imagine forbidding her to come and know her God. But today I have said only the most perfunctory of prayers, and only at mealtime; I thought hate toward the slow men working who kept me waiting an extra forty-five minutes at the auto shop; I hesitated when about to return money that was not mine; I resented the brief time it took to make a phone call to fulfill the responsibilities of my calling; and I did not prepare for family night. <\/p>\n

But little children are holy, being sanctified through the atonement of Jesus Christ.<\/i><\/p>\n

As a rule, I dislike efforts to find perfection and moral lessons in children. It seems unfair to expect angelic behavior simply because they are small. And gooey innocence does not typically hold much appeal for me. But tonight I watch my daughter play and I am moved. A shiver and glimpse of our combined potential: momentary parent and fleeting child each seeking light and knowledge\u00e2\u20ac\u201dlives colliding, bruising, illuminating. My daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s name is Lucy; tonight it fits her well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My daughter loves to play on the hardwood floor next to the stone hearth behind the wooden rocking chair. She is one. I keep on thinking this is an accident waiting to happen and tend to move the chair, spread the toys away from the hearth, and sit down beside her just in case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}