May 12th:
The other day I was enjoying a meatloaf sandwich (some things are just better leftover) and mid-bite a morsel of ketchup and mayo covered meatloaf fell out of the sandwich, bounced down my shirt and on to my pants. It’s one of the risks one accepts when you’re dealing with culinary perfection. Consequently, after the sandwich was gone I went to change into a spot-free outfit.
As I was going through my clothing change I thought back to my childhood to a time when my shirtsleeves were my napkins and dirt simply wasn’t that big of a deal. This led me to wonder what it is about youth that makes appearance such a non-issue and what it is about adulthood that makes appearance such a big deal.
I’m not sure I have all of the complexities of this issue figured out, but the word that came to mind was “oblivious.” It seems to me that children have a tendency to be oblivious to what is happening around them including what other people think. Ketchup spots just don’t register.
The question then became, “When Jesus suggested that we all need to be like children was he encouraging us to be “oblivious” to the world around us?” I don’t think so. Jesus sends us into the world to “seek and save the lost.” That doesn’t happen unless we care and in order to care we have to pay attention.
Maybe what Jesus was saying is that we need to learn to be “oblivious” to ourselves. We need to surrender ourselves to God’s love for us and then (because we are convinced of that love) we will begin to understand how unimportant all of the temporary things in our lives really are. Ketchup spots just don’t matter and neither does the style of our clothes or the size of our houses. We are not the sum total of our things. We are special because God declares it so. The challenge of faith (for those of us beyond our childhood) is to be oblivious to our own lives and passionately involved with everyone else.
Like I said, I’m not sure I have all of the complexities of this issue figured out, but I am working on it. One thing I do know for sure. I like meatloaf sandwiches.
