Once While I was Little

Once while I was Little

This afternoon, I was driving home and the sky was a beautiful reddish hue with perfectly clear skies. I was reminiscing about being a child and loving to look at the sky and dream. What would I be when I grew up? What was God like? How can I make a difference? Why do we have to have winter? Everything was worth probing and the openness of the sky represented the vast opportunities that was ours in my youth.

In the 1970's, there was a huge degree of turmoil and upheaval. America, particularly in my African-American context, held previously credible institutions in suspicion (think Vietnam, the civil rights movement and the rapid turning away from the church). Yet, in the face of incredible cynicism, there was this sense of hope and a faith that justice, equity, and wholeness would prevail. There was a childlike sense that the opportunities for greatness and fulfillment were just over the horizon and that fulfilment, in its many senses, was imminent.

As I was driving and looking at the sky, I heard a song by James Morrison called "Once, while I was little". Its lyrics said this:

We could build a rocket, fly to the moon

Leave Tuesday morning, be back by noon

and there wasn't nothing, nothing, nothing that we couldn't do

Oh, once when I was little, once when I was little

Yeah, I could dream more then

I could believed more then

That the world could only get better

I could be more free then

I could pretend more then

That this life could only show me good times

Oh, once when I was little.

As I was listening, I could not help but ask God to help me to be more childlike in the midst of all of the "adult" responsibilities. Taking time to enjoy the times and dwell in the wonder of life. To understand the possibilities that are not limited by my own cynicism and experiences. To enjoy dreaming and living in the impossible that we not only dream about, but through the power and presence of God, are now able to help form. Forming new worlds, not for ourselves, but for people and places we could not have imagined knowing and seeing a decade ago.

Will you take time this week to be a child and dream and wonder and enjoy yourselves in the possibilities that defies our cynicism, laughs at our nihilism, and drowns out our hopelessness.

Its time to play again!

Pastor M Traylor