"I won't grow up..."

"I won't grow up,
(I won't grow up)
I don't want to go to school.
(I don't want to go to school)
Just to learn to be a parrot,
(Just to learn to be a parrot)
And repeat a silly rule.
(And repeat a silly rule)…"
- from "Peter Pan"

But this song from Peter Pan was not my anthem.  I never stopped thinking about growing up.   "When I grow up I want to be…" was the prelude to most of my thoughts as a child.  I was in a hurry to grow up.  I didn't want to be a child.  I wanted to be a teacher, a lawyer, a professor….anything but a child.  Peter Pan's sentiments above, were as far from my dreams as Never-Never Land was from a London flat.

I wanted to go to school.  I loved school.  And more strangely, at least to most of my friends, I love all the silly rules.  I thrived on them.  The more rules…the better.  Rules were something I could count on.  Rules were reliable and I liked things that were reliable.  I liked being able to know that if I brought my homework in on time I would have earned privileges.  Privileges like getting to play chess during recess.  I liked knowing that if I waited patiently with my hand raised…I would be called on.    I was a rules junkie.

This served me well through 30+ years of grade school, middle and high school, college, university…and as a teacher and principal myself.   But as a wife and mother…well, not so much.  I didn't know how to play.  I didn't know how to let a day unfold before me.  I woke up each morning with the day's schedule etched behind my eyelids.  This worked as long as my daughters were….infants. Feedings at 6, 11, and 2…baths at 10, naps at 10:30 and 2:30 were perfectly suited to my matrix-like mode of operation.  But once they became little girls I was lost.  Thank goodness my children were creative and seemed to know, instinctively, how to run and jump and make noise.  These activities did not seem to be a part of my DNA…unless of course they were cast in the framework of a ballet studio or an art class. 

But I got away with my peculiarities…sort of.  By the time our oldest daughter was a toddler I was deeply involved in my work as a spiritual healer.  Wasn't it "reasonable" that I would need peace, quiet…order.  Is it any wonder that the career paths I had "chosen" were ones where I could demand the kind of rules, systems, and schedules that made me feel most "in my skin".   Why, I would ask myself (and anyone else who would listen) didn't even Mary Baker Eddy herself have a penchant for "strict order and neatness", "close attention to detail", and "simplified and systematic way of life"?   Wasn't every Christian Scientist aware of the pin cushion story.  For those of you who aren't…here is the Cliff Notes version:  Mrs. Eddy was so aware of the orderliness in her household that once she entered her office and noticed that the pincushion on her desk did not have the pins placed in the right order and proceeded to correct her staff for not placing them properly.   I'm sure she had her reasons.  And I'm sure her's were motivated by a deep spiritual sense of Principle.

But I can't tell you that mine always were…or  how often I referred to this account (and what I assumed her intentions were) as a justification for my own obscene demands for rules, schedules, and of course, neatness.

Okay…enough about where I've been. 

This summer I have been thinking a lot about what it means to be a "child" of God.  I haven't found a single place, in the Bible or in Mrs. Eddy's writings,  where it talks about the virtues of being an "adult of God"…heck, I can't even find one reference to man as "God's grown-up".  So I have been…and this is more of a stretch than you can imagine…trying to express more child-likeness.  To be more spontaneous, playful, open to change, and eager for adventure.  And not just when I am at camp…but all the time.

As a start, for the first time in their lives our twins are spending their summer (the weeks that they are not away at camp) home with us…all day…while I work.  In the past they have been in a local school-sponsored daycamp each summer (after they came home from camp-camp) so that I could have the peace, quiet and order that I felt I needed.  But this summer I decided I could learn from them about inventiveness, creativity, spontaneity, and joy. I could learn more about what it means to be a child of God.  I am learning to play…to be flexible while I stay focused on God's presence in my life and in the lives of those who have called for help.  I have found that my heart is purer, my responses are free-er, and my thoughts are quicker…more flexible, orderly, and agile under their tutelage as child mentors.

I am learning to be playful and quiet, orderly and spontaneous…and yes, I am still obsessively neat…but the colors are more childlike and the songs that I am singing in my heart are more joyful and sweet.

Today this is the song I woke up singing.  It is one that Clara and Emma taught me last night in the dark after I finished singing them their lullabyes.  It is a song they learned at camp:

"Happiness flows in a circular motion
Floating like a little boat upon the sea
Everyone is part of everything, everywhere
You can be happy if you let yourself be
Happiness flows
Happiness flows
Happiness flows
Happiness flows!"
- Unknown

Call me if you would like to know the tune…I will sing it to you!

With childlike joy,
Kate