Kids squeal and wiggle when you try to poke them in the neck. After awhile, they run off, and you can return to your adult conversation. Did I mention how much fun it is to hang out with friends?
The joy of friendship far exceeds any happiness wealth might offer.
Here at home too, the best of it all, perhaps, is being with family and friends. Sit and talk and eat and laugh and play with the kids. It puts the 'go back to work' part in perspective. Work is just work, pretty much, but love and joy seem to lean more in favor of family and friends and playing with the kids. If our Father were to encourage us along that line, it would probably include his enjoyment of time with us in the same sort of way. Family, after all, is family; we've been adopted by one who loves so magnificently; that's probably where we learn how.
A fellow much younger than I was describing for me his personal pilgrimage over lunch yesterday.
Having been raised in a healthy family, relationships were in good shape as he entered adulthood. Raised in traditional American church ways, he had a reasonable load of baggage, as many of us do, regarding what that was all about. With 'us and them' thinking and the rules that gave it all structure, it was a beginning. Out in the world as an adult though, he had to discover for himself what the Father's interest in all these 'other' folks might be.
His conclusion was a single word. Compassion.
The way he sees it, if a heart of compassion underlies the choices he makes in life, he's probably on an OK path and has a surprising amount of latitude in where he might apply his efforts.
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| With carrots for microphones, kids sing with the TV. |
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Momentarily standing still, little imp is a
delightful child and a joy to the rest of us.
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(All the photos are from an afternoon's lunch with dear friends in a tiny African country. Not wealthy, perhaps, but rich in so many ways.)
