One thing you may not have heard me say is that I have enjoyed a love affair with children, especially newborns, infants, and toddlers. This love affair started in 1991 when my wife was pregnant with our first child. Let me share with you how this love affair began.
In 1990, I was in my second year at St John’s Theological College in Auckland. All the married students were housed in married quarters of the College. The three years at St John’s College were truly blessed days. I had the opportunity to study and train for the priesthood while all provisions were provided for.
Our neighbours, Peter and Sarah, were about five years older than us and already had a baby girl, Natalie, who was two years old. We adored her. We were very close to Peter and Sarah. My wife often talked to Sarah about being pregnant and motherhood.
Two events in Sarah’s life made me fall in love with newborns, infants, and toddlers.
The first event took place on an ordinary day while Sarah was bathing in the sun in her garden while enjoying tea, and Natalie was riding her tricycle. All of a sudden, Natalie came over to Sarah, got off the tricycle, placed her tiny hands on Sarah’s belly, patted her gently, and declared, “Baby! Baby!” At that time, Sarah had no idea she was pregnant with their son Ben.
Later, Sarah told us that she couldn’t have been pregnant for more than a day or two at the time. Yet Natalie knew that a miracle was growing within her and announced it with absolute certainty. Sarah had visited her GP that day, and it was confirmed that she was pregnant.
How did Natalie know that a baby had been conceived in her mother’s womb?
The second event took place nine months after Ben was born.
Sarah had prepared to give birth at home. Their trusted midwife facilitated the baby’s birth, and Peter and Natalie were present.
About five days later, everybody at home had settled into their daily routines and had come to celebrate the new addition to the family. And then, this happened.
Natalie, who had turned three about a month before Ben’s arrival, started demanding to be alone with the baby brother. Sarah and Peter were reluctant, fearing Natalie might be jealous and wanted to poke at the baby. So, they put them together but lingered outside the bedroom. Little Natalie crawled over to her baby brother Ben and whispered (loudly): “Please talk to me about Heaven. I’m beginning to forget.”
Sarah told us about these two events, and I began my love affair with newborns, toddlers, and children.
Since 1991, if a baby is in the room, I have experienced a heightened awareness, as if a magnetic connection draws my attention, and I must make contact.
As the father of two of our children, I spent many hours simply gazing into their eyes during their early years of childhood. In those private and intimate moments, I often sent silent, inquisitive messages asking them to tell me about God and what Heaven is like.
I may have spent countless hours lying on the floor or bed, directly contacting the two children. I spent many hours gazing into their beautiful eyes, conveying to me the delight of where they had come from and the frustrations of having found themselves on this side of life.
As they were growing up, I was fascinated by the children of the same parents showing different personality traits: some traits common to their sex as boys and girls, a few idiosyncratic traits picked up from the parents, and many other traits unique to them alone.
I remember asking my two children, a son and a daughter, when they were toddlers, who had just begun to communicate with language, to tell me what they remember about their experiences before coming here to be with us.
Since, intuitively, whenever I briefly communicated with babies during a visit to the family or when I baptised them, I asked them the same question.
To this day, I have not stopped asking that question to babies and toddlers. I know that they can be a window for us to glimpse into the unfathomable, infinite, invisible world that we are all to discover. After all, they haven’t had much time to forget.
During the service, the children do their own thing, and parents attempt to keep them engaged. At the same time, I have often wondered whether they savour the memories of Heaven, which are much more real to them. Those memories must be more vivid and real to the children than the experience we try to create for ourselves in the liturgy.
When I think of newborns and toddlers, I often think and reflect on the words of that beautiful poem by the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.
One of the lines says:
“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting, and cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come”
Each time I looked into the eyes of a newborn or a toddler, I reflected on what the poet was saying.
Isn’t our whole human experience being like a dream? We sleep, dream, and wake up, forgetting all those wondrous experiences in our dream state. But sometimes, we can recall some titbits of those dreams, especially if we have just woken up from sleep and noted them down.
As Wordsworth says, our birth may indeed be a sleep, but not all of it is forgotten by children. This idea became the basis of his poem, which Wordsworth mentions as remembrances are said to be from children who seem to have these recollections. These recollections are somewhat like the descriptions we sometimes give of the dreams we see one-third of our lifetime while asleep.
In today’s Gospel reading, we hear the story of the disciples arguing about who would be the greatest in the Kingdom of God, and Jesus teaches them a lesson through the example of children.
In the reading, Jesus had just announced for the second time about his betrayal, the sufferings he must undergo, his death, and his resurrection. The disciples were oblivious to everything Jesus had said because they were absorbed in their own self-importance. They wanted to know the greatest in the Kingdom of God.
At this point, Jesus moves to teach them perhaps the greatest lesson of their lives. To make his point, Jesus took a child, held the child in his arms and said: “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.” (Mark 9:37)
It seems that what Jesus was trying to teach them then was not registered with the disciples.
If you read the next chapter in Mark’s gospel, you’ll find where people brought their children to Jesus, hoping he might bless them. The disciples thought it was a waste of time. They rebuked the crowds and said: “Don’t bother Jesus, go away; he’s got more important things to do.”
When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” Then, he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them. (Mark 10:14-16).
What is it that Jesus was trying to teach his disciples? And what is it trying to teach us today?
To understand this, let me go further and say how children were understood in Jesus’ day. When children are mentioned in the Bible, they’re usually lumped together with the women, outcasts, losers and cattle.
In Jesus’ day, children were a symbol of utter powerlessness. They had no rights or legal standing. They depended on their parents to provide for and protect them. They were subject to the authority of others.
Only a few weeks ago, I shared with you that according to the law, children could be even given in slavery if parents defaulted on a loan of money.
Jesus chose such a symbol of powerlessness and said: “If you want to be a part of the kingdom of God, become a child.”
Jesus elevated the status of children and said: “To receive a child is to receive me; … allow the children to come to me. Don’t forbid them.… Whoever will not receive the Kingdom of God like a little child, he will in no way enter into it.”
The Greek word for children is micron, sometimes translated as “little ones.”
So, what is unique about children or little ones?
They are very special because they have not progressed far enough along this ego-driven earthly plane to have a mind at war against itself.
The problem with the disciples was that they were so ego-driven; all that mattered to them was their self-importance and how they would make it to the top. To that end, they were willing to put everyone else down and behind and buy into whatever would progress them towards their selfish goal.
These are the things that form a mind and attitude in us to be at war against all of our true nature. That is the nature that the newborns and toddlers have – a nature that is in tune with the nature and attitudes of Heaven. This nature and attitudes of Heaven are the things that define the Kingdom of God (or the Kingdom of Heaven, as Matthew calls it). These are the attitudes Matthew calls the Beatitudes -- the attitudes and natures that make oneself blessed and happy.
So, the disciples, focusing on their self-importance, were light-years away from the Kingdom of God. They were alien to the Kingdom's nature and values when they allowed their selfish egos to drive them to the top of the list.
Like Natalie, all toddlers who give evidence of having memories of existence before arriving here have quiet minds. Their minds are not corrupted or filled with doubts, leading to conflicts about what they feel inwardly versus what adults tell them. Children speak their truth and recall their remembrances without concern about what anyone else might think. They make no apology for it.
Isn’t it unfortunate that children who pass the toddler stage after about 36 months of birth soon forget their prior existence in Heaven?
Isn’t it true that we also have forgotten the eternal gentleness that once shone in our quiet minds? A quiet mind knows the truth that is felt deep down in us. But the mind gets conditioned to accept things imposed upon it by well-meaning adults and cultural and even religious teachings.
Natalie is now a 33-year-old woman. She confesses not to remember anything of her conversations with Ben when he was born. However, when Natalie is faced with a challenge in life and wants to connect with God, she asks Mum Sarah to retell and remind her of her encounter with Ben.
Ben is a 31-year-old young man. He has no recollection of Natalie asking him to tell her about Heaven, which she had begun to forget at aged 3. So, when Ben is faced with a challenge in life and wants to be connected with God, he also asks Mum Sarah to re-tell and remind him what Natalie had asked him when he was a newborn.
In Wordsworth’s poem, he also gives an invitation to remind and connect us with God.
“The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar…
From God, who is our home.”
Jesus’ words, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me,” remind us to connect with God and the mindset and values of His Kingdom. He wants us adults also to be “little ones”. To become so, we must embody and emulate the values of Heaven and reflect its nature in our lives.
Each time we are drowned to worship, as we are doing now, I believe, we are drawn back to recollect the memory of Heaven. In doing so, worship and prayer refresh our memories of Heaven and reconnect us with God, his Kingdom, its values, and the eternal gentleness of our minds. Amen
