First light can bring promise, hope, discovery. When we used to climb the big hills we would usually set out around 3 AM or so; we wanted to summit early to avoid afternoon thunderstorms above timberline. A few hours into the climb we could just begin to see the eastern sky emerge from darkness. Within a short time a new day would dawn. That gift of first light from above timberline could easily stop us in our tracks. And in the stillness of first light we could see God, life, ourselves with new eyes. We were like children, discovering sunrise anew.
The art of childlike life can open our hearts to experience life in its fresh, daily sunrise. We can experience, if we will, the ordinary life and loves which are all around us in the first light experience of a childlike perspective. The flowers, rain, sun, marriage, rest, nature, money, cold, warmth, dishes, work, play, conversations, … all life can be seen through this first light perspective. All it takes is the small steps and lingering gaze, the listening ears, the quizzical mind of the child within us to see our wonderful lives with first light freshness.
Arthur Gordon, a contributor to Guideposts, wrote A Touch of Wonder, a book which helped teach me this insight. It unveils the possibility that we can choose to soak in the sun rays of life in all their beauty and glory. He paints the pictures and composes the music of simple experiences elevated to sublime luminance. He invites us to see in life all around us the touch of wonder in a child’s vision.
Jesus said, “…unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 18:3.) There are of course many layers to all Jesus’ teaching, including His invitation to the art of childlike wonder before the light of Christ. It is a rich welcome to trust, to gleeful hope, to untrammeled love. It is also a commentary on new birth. We recite Jn 3:16 as a call to conversion and it is that. But the creation of new life in Christ is also an open door to the experience of all life in its first light, the light of creation, the morning of resurrection in us. The call for new birth is an invitation to the art of childlike life.
What would the art of childlike life look like? Jesus wanted us to emulate a childlike response to Him. What could that mean?
First, a child can experience life as fresh, new, special. Adults like us can easily get bored with even significant aspects of our lives. Understandably so. Think for example of marital relationships and church attendance. My wife Calder and I have been together over 17000 days! But the art of childlike living can offer us this particular day as a special delight in everything from morning coffee together to joining in the pleasure of rest. Remember when date night was a big deal? It can be again if the art of childlike perspective can be part of marriage. And church attendance— at 77 years of age I figure I’ve been to church over 3000 times! Boring? Not if I attend church expecting a childlike rediscovery of God’s mercies as “…fresh every morning” (Lam 3:23). The familiar Maya Angelou saying expresses the art of the childlike freshness in marriage and church and work and play and all life: “This is a wonderful day. I’ve never seen this one before.”
Second, a child can trust with more facility than adults who have learned all sorts of conditions, preferences, and religious hangups. A child can trust that it’s good that a blind person is healed; adults just can’t go there because after all Jesus healed on the Sabbath. A child can trust Jesus’ love as strong to both save life and fill life with abundance; an adult says, “Not so fast—this guy is from Nazareth and we all know those folks are no good.” A child might take a cup of cold water to a woman delivered from stoning; an adult might say this Jesus is catering to the wrong kind of people. Yes a childlike trust must be protected from gullibility and must develop through the inevitable disappointments of broken promises. But a child’s intuitive sense of the trustworthiness of Jesus can persist well beyond the easy skepticism we adults often feel.
Jesus’ invitation to be born again, to become a new creation in God’s love, to enter the kingdom of heaven as a little child is a call for us to come alive each day! God is inviting us to know all things new in the fresh first light of Jesus and His love—in marriage and church and work and trouble and triumph … in all life! We can wait for heaven and home as future; but we can also discover the heavenly places here and now (Eph 1:3, 2:6.) Jesus’ words “…call us o’er the tumult of our life’s wild, restless sea, saying, ‘Christian, follow me!’” Follow … into the joy of life; follow … into the transformation of trials into triumph; follow … into the art of childlike living. “This is the day that the Lord has made” (Ps 118:24). Jesus invites us to look, listen, know this day and all its ordinary beauty as a gift of God’s grace. Like the gift of first light.