“‘Amen. I say to you whoever does not accept the Reign of God in a childlike attitude will never enter it'” (Luke 18.17).
The late, great Ray Bradbury tells a story that when he was nine-years-old he was in love with the Buck Rogers comic strip. He used to clip it out and save it, day after day. Until, one day, a classmate at school made fun of him for this. So, he went home, tore them up and threw them away.
I can remember something of the same from when I was a kid. There were things I would be all-in on. And, like Bradbury, I would read and clip and save anything associated with my current thing. I also got a ridiculed for that. Ridicule that, as I grew older, made me try and tamp down that enthusiasm. I learned to temper my excitement so no one would see that childlike side of me.
Jesus told those who walked with him that we must accept the new way, the Good Way as children do, with a childlike attitude. Something, I think, speaks less about innocence or purity of heart—as I’ve often heard it described—and more about courage. The courage to be brave enough to let our excitement and our joy run free.
Ash Wednesday isn’t typically associated with joy. The repentance and mortality of the day tend to put me in mind of something more like a dirge than a pop song. Certainly, there’s an importance to reflecting and remembering that we have failed in loving our neighbors as ourselves. But, if we’re going to enter into the Reign of God that Jesus told us is already amongst us, we can’t neglect the joy to which this day points. A joy that can only be experienced in a childlike way.
A month after throwing everything out, Bradbury went back to clipping and collecting those comic strips in spite of those who had made fun of him. He would later write The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, and (my favorite) Something Wicked This Way Comes. And, if you’ve read his work, you know he never lost that childlike joy.
Get excited, Jesus is telling us. This is good stuff. Stuff to talk about, to go on and on about, clip pictures and paste them on your walls and save them in big, overstuffed scrapbooks. It’s letting myself feel that abandon I did when I was a kid. To, with that gritty feeling of ashen palm branches on my skin, allow myself to be taken by the joy that death has been conquered, hope is possible, and love more powerful than anything else?
What if what I need is to let the joy sweep me away? What if the fact that I’m dust that will be dust again means that no ridicule is worth worrying about? What if I cared less about being a grown-up and more about playing in the reality that Jesus said was already all around?
Maybe, I should find some scissors and glue.
Good Shepherd, you are the gate that stands open to a place you invite us to run and play. Help me be brave enough to run into that pasture on dusty feet and experience the joy that lies waiting.
I absolutely adore this! “What if the fact that I’m dust that will be dust again means that no ridicule is worth worrying about?” Talk about a new way of looking at a familiar passage and practice in our faith.
Just don’t run with those scissors 🙂