Get On the Bus!

     I love kids...especially when I finally join them in their age appropriate wave length and we connect.  Eyes light up, imagination runs rampant, and we become co-conspirators in a huge game that only we two, or three or four...know.  Last night was like this.  It was in the middle of Steve's talk of a verse in Isaiah to our potluck group, about 8 neighbors who ate spaghetti together, carried around Marge's baby and chatted about our favorite topics.  Well, lately, the 3-4 little ones (ages 3-5) have been hungry for action (and noisy!)...slamming doors, each other and "washing" dishes...and each other.  Somehow I got this brain wave to get the 4 kid chairs in a line and play bus.  "Get on board!" I said to them, not too loud so Steve's audience could focus on what he was saying.  Instantly I had three customers, sitting in the chairs behind me.  They looked at me expectantly.   "How about McDonald's?" I asked them.  Sure, they were game and off we rode.  I must have been pretty animated, 2 neighbors watched me with grins and I wondered how I looked bumping around and pressing the "gas pedal" now and then, letting kids off.  Hadn't thought of the adult factor!
     For nearly half an hour we played, then they wanted to be the bus driver, then they put the baby in his carrying seat in front and laughed as they imagined him driving!  I have not had the pleasure of "play" in its purest form, for a long time.  I have actually been in a serious, troubled state...angry at filthy rooms and suites, at poverty mindsets, at uncaring society especially in a season of plenty.  When good times and feelings roll, where you buy and don't count the cost...whether from duty or love, where vacations are gone on and those who can't vacate, stay and struggle in loneliness and often painful circumstances.  I am heavy, I am guilty and limited.  I am human...I want a vacation!  I don't have all the answers!  If I have to change one more bed bug trap, or consider one more tenant we have to evict because of it, I think I'll die!  There are too many tensions, limits, agonizing decisions, people that need care.  And yet, I think I hear His voice calling through it all.  Last night it was a child's voice, "go sit down on the chair, I want to drive you to McDonald's".  I had to laugh, McDonald's?  When all the world is going to pot (lately literally, the smell is all over the place!), this 3 year old wants to drive me to McDonald's?  What a wonder and a delight...I notice the baby is smiling so broadly, I can't help but be caught up in their "in the moment" delight.  And she keeps driving, and the baby keeps smiling, and I lay down my cares for the rest of the evening and join in.
     I just read a small story called "Sharon's Christmas Prayer" by John Shea, in the book "The Holy Longing" (Ronald Rolheiser).  This is what I'm talking about;

She was five,

sure of the facts,

and recited them 

with slow solemnity

convinced every word

was revelation.

She said

they were so poor

they had only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches 

to eat

and they went a long way from home

without getting lost.  The lady rode

a donkey, the man walked, and the baby

was inside the lady.

They had to stay in a stable

with an ox and an ass (hee, hee)

but the Three Rich Men found them

because a star lited the roof

Shepherds came and  you could 

pet the sheep but not feed them.

Then the baby was borned.

And do you know who he was?

Her quarter eyes inflated

to silver dollars.

The baby was God.

And she jumped in the air

whirled round, dove into the sofa

and buried her head under the cushion

which is the only proper response

to the Good News of the Incarnation.