Young at Heart


 

Charles Shultz, creator of the Peanuts characters, said, “happiness is a warm puppy”. Few would argue that sentiment; I know I would not. So I have especially loved seeing these Christmas puppies pop up this year around the neighborhood.
Christmas is for the young at heart, whether man, woman, boy, girl or apparently, canine. One of the reasons I love Christmas is that it takes me back to memories of my own childhood. But I also find myself in tune with the magic of the season as I watch it through the eyes of the children around me. The joy and wonder erases a few of my years and lightens my heart.
It isn’t Christmas until I see children in make-shift costumes playing shepherds, angels, lambs, wise kings and a young couple, surrounded by hay, holding a baby. There is something about their simple depiction of this strange and complicated story that gives me faith to joyfully embrace it in a way that a lifetime of theological study never could.
The man the baby of Christmas grew to be taught us: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” To know God in a profound way we must return to the joy and wonder and trust that was our way of life as a child, yet is harder and harder to come by as the years roll past. We must, in a way, put on our own make-shift costumes and enter the story like little children, full of joy and wonder and trust that something so beautiful could also be true.
Peace.

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