Colour Supplement

Articles by Christians around the world

Sunday September 24 2006

 

What children bring to the table

By Gordon Atkinson

 

What children bring to the table is pure love, like a fifty pound nugget of gold a yokel hefts onto the bar in full view of everyone in the saloon.

One-by-one we leave the gambling tables, the liquor, and the player piano to sidle up to the stranger with the pretty rock. In that instant, love comes over us like the rush of a mighty wind, filling the room and touching us as if with tongues of fire. The irresistible pull of our desire sucks the air from our lungs and leaves us weak, panting, and forever addicted.

The yokel says, “This is love. Do you understand now?”

And your heart says, “Yes!” But this is no ordinary yes. This is the yes of your bones, the ontological yes of your being, the yes that existed before all time. This is what you were made for and only now do you see it. You cry out, and your body shakes, and you fall to your knees in submission. This is the world's most powerful drug, the one that all others can only imitate. Once you have tasted it you will pay any price for more, or wander the earth to honor even the memory of it.

This is what children bring to the table. They dance into the room dragging the greatest power in the universe behind them like a toy on a string. All of your petty sophistications are swept aside, and when they are gone you do not remember the substance of them or how they once held power over you. There is no going back. Here you stand; you can do no other.

You know you have handed over the keys to your kingdom, but the transaction is complete. It happened in an instant; it happened before you could draw a breath. And now the power to break your heart lies out of your control and in the hands of a child.

And they will hurt you, children will. They will take everything you have and give you only sips of what you desire. And then they will harden in time and become more and more like you. They will become guarded, and they will lose love. Then they will leave you to seek it in distant lands. When they leave, you are forever changed, forever hungry, forever seeking. You are deeper, richer, more capable, more able to love.

And if there is someone who shared this love with you, and if the two of you worked hard to stay connected through the firestorm and through the grief, and if both of you were equally determined not to lose each other in those long years, then one day you will turn to your beloved, lay your hand on her aging cheek, and discover that love has not left you after all.

And everything you gave for love will be returned to you. And you will become children for each other, dancing again in the Garden of Eden. You will see with new eyes. You will know Wisdom. You will bless the world.

And it is said that you will walk together in the land which the Lord has given you until it is time.

Gordon Atkinson is pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in San Antonio, Texas and has his own excellent website www.reallivepreacher.com.  We are most grateful to Gordon for his permission to reproduce his essays here.

BACK TO HOME PAGE