The view from here

Then [Jesus] took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’ (Mark 9:36-37)

I see her almost every morning. I think she is five, maybe six. Today, she wears a bright gold jumper over a navy-blue blouse and black leggings. Her dark, Pakistani hair is tied atop her head and wrapped in a scarf a little lighter than the blue of her blouse.

Hand-in-hand with her mother, she crosses Chase Avenue toward the corner to meet the school bus. But she doesn’t walk. She skips and jumps and floats and bounces. And day-to-day, I sit here on the balcony with my coffee and stop my reading or prayer or whatever I am doing … to watch her.

It’s a pretty good way to start the day … because I fall in love with every skip, bounce and jump.

How can I not? She loves life. She loves holding her mother’s hand and waiting until the bus ferries her away to school. She loves what awaits her there, and her every move sings a love song for the life into which she has been born.

Seeing such joy could awaken wistful longing for the innocence and joyful expectation one loses along life’s way. But I feel none of that. Nor do I wish to return to the age which she now enjoys.

An immense wave of love and gratitude washes over me as I witness the love of life that is in her. Touched by love’s presence in this most mundane of moments, my old heart is liberated to embrace the day, even as she does.

Once more, I am reminded that the world is a very sacramental place. For, the Love Who Is … joyfully takes myriad forms (like the smiles of children) to break open our hearts that we might feel the heart of God within ourselves. It is right then, amid joy and perhaps tears, our imperfect little lives glisten with Love’s own beauty, eternal life filling our hearts, freeing us to be who we really are.

I suppose this is enough to glean from one common moment, but there is yet another sense, an awareness that the love in this precious child, and the love awakened in me, and the love of her mother who walks her across the street are one great love, and we are all in it. And every once in a blessed while, for reasons we don’t understand, we are awakened just enough to see and feel and taste heaven’s sweetness.

The Apostle Paul suggested that no eye has seen nor ear heard nor heart conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. But sitting here on my balcony, I have a pretty good idea.

David L. Miller