I find myself more and more interested in not knowing. I can’t imagine why because I tend to be overly intellectual. And that is a very bad thing to be.

My brother and I are emailing almost daily and the most frequent subject is memories of our childhood. It occurs to me that is before we begin to know thing intellectually. Then we were busy sensing and feeling life directly. And adulthood robs us of this ancient privilege.

Not to worry; it is still there. We access it by becoming intentionally childlike.

Jesus did tell us to become like children. And society frowns on this because it “knows better.”

Online spirituality is a clogged drain of intellectual parroting of what it means to become like a child again.

The situation is dire but it can be solved and you can help bring your child back to life.

Ask it some direct questions. Like, “What happened to your freedom?”

Or “Where did you lose your sense of belonging?”

Because sitting at a keyboard does not give you a sense of belonging.

And freedom only happens to individuals, never to groups.

That is a very important clue!

Do you want your freedom back? It is easy because you never lost it. You cannot lose what truly belongs to you.
And so my brother and I talk to each other from a felt sense of what our family was like. We had a father of whom we were all afraid, including our mother. But even in that stressed-out family, we were children enjoying the moment. Playing cowboys, shooting caps, singing as we went on Sunday drives with our parents.

Writing returns me to childhood; it is my passion. It developed then and now the ripe fruits are at the tips of my fingers. These typing fingers, these passionate fingers that know love and death and above all, know life as a little child. Amen.

Vicki Woodyard