Fun and Children

I've been thinking about fun and children. Children don't want to just have fun in your presence; they want to have fun with you. They want you to have fun with them.  And fun can not be faked. It can, however be allowed--made space for. Children invite you to enter into their world. We can be so lost in our adult-polluted minds that we lose our ability to enter their world. This is very sad. Jesus said if we are unable to be like children we will not know the Kingdom of God. When a child approaches you, you are either trying to invite him into something or shut him out of something. Both are important and necessary. There are things children must be shut out from. But if we are not careful, we will be shutting them out for selfish reasons--because we don't want to be distracted from our problematic adult mindset. We are lost in our "adult" minds--perhaps worrying about something or planning some activity, or dreading something, or bothered by the responsibility of watching after a child.  So we miss an opportunity to be free and innocent---like a child. We try not to miss too many of these opportunities. Missing them makes aging more difficult. It's hard to look back on missed opportunities to be free and innocent. Better perhaps not to look back, but rather look around---for a child!