She remains enchanted

This year my wife and I will turn 70. In biblical language we’ve had our allotted years of three score and ten. If that proved true I would die feeling deeply grateful for a blessed life. But honestly, we both want more time. The main reason is to see our five grandchildren (aged from six down to nine months) grow up. We are the happiest we’ve ever been.

Curiously, I find myself much more engaged and fascinated by them than I ever did when my own kids were young. Amid the blur of parental, financial and professional insecurity, it was enough of a challenge just keeping the show on the road.

The gift of grandparenthood is a welcome turning of the tables – enjoying the best of my grandkids and then handing them back. Their imagination and playfulness never cease to amaze me. We have a fox hole near our place which they run to every time they arrive. That’s because a very clever and nice fox lives there who writes them beautiful letters. They draw him pictures, dictate letters back and place them in his hole. Last week, my six year old grandaughter asked ‘but Pa I didn’t know foxes could talk’? I replied that they can’t, but they write great letters. She remains enchanted. 

Jesus declared that unless you become like children you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. As an advocate, life can be hard and serious with no time for childish things. But my grandchildren have set me straight.

Jesus launched a great a moral revolution in his Sermon on the Mount. But his invitation was clear: Enter this alternative Kingdom like children. I still intend to remain a part of Jesus’ revolution, but my grandchildren have taught me to do so with imagination and joy.