One of my favorite parts about working here at Grace is the number of kids who are around the place every day.  Ok, sometimes (like this particular moment as I attempt to draft a blog entry amidst choruses of "this is the way we wash our hands") long for a little peace and quiet.  But most of the time, I’m grateful for the presence of the little ankle-biters and the enthusiasm which breaks the quiet of mid-week parish life.

As we begin meditating on this theme of discovering manifestations of God’s grace in the world around us, I thought it might be worthwhile to reflect on the call to have “faith like a child” that we often hear quoted in Christian circles.  I can still recall my very first memory verse from elementary school (yes, I went to one of those Christian schools that made students learn memory verses): “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me” (Matthew 18:3-4).  That sounds really nice, but what does it actually mean to become like little children in our faith.

Let us turn for a moment to the world of cinema.  Hands-down the best movie my husband and I saw this summer was Super 8, which could also have been called “Stephen Speilberg and J.J. Abrams restore wonder to the big screen.”

If you didn't see the film this summer, check out the trailer.

Super 8 tells the story of a group of kids who get caught up in a real alien invasion while making their own amateur monster movie.  The film had cinematic strengths in its own right, but what Leeman and I (children of the 80s that we are) loved about it was it’s unashamed references to sci-fi classics like E.T. or the Goonies.  These are movies that embrace what it means to be a child, and highlight the difference between the world of childhood and adulthood.

Remember the almost magical connection that Elliot had with E.T.  … a connection the grown-ups around him could not fathom?

Where Elliot approaches E.T. with awe and wonder, the adults (as Elliot puts it) “just want to cut him up.”   In Super 8, the adults respond to the alien invader with fear, desiring to kill it before it destroys their homes.  It takes the eyes of a child to look into the “monster’s” soul and see the creature's own fear and longing just to return home to its own people.

Back to the context of the church: I don’t think having a “childlike” faith means having a simplistic understanding of God or refusing to ask the hard questions.  Quite the reverse.  Having a childlike faith means still having that freshness in our spiritual lives which allow us to be struck with wonder when we see God’s presence in the world.  It means having the humility to recognize that God is far larger than the categories and boxes we create for Him.

This past Sunday, we welcomed two new children into our community of faith through baptism.  One of the prayers the priest offers at the end of baptism asks God to grant to the child: “the gift of joy and wonder in all your works.”   Perhaps if we allow that gift of joy and wonder to truly blossom in us--to open ourselves to seeing God at work around us in wonderful and incomprehensible ways--we will be well on our way to living our lives as real children of God.