Holding On To Childness

Frankie Watching Street Sweeper

I’m sorry Bill Moyers is no longer on PBS. The level of discourse there was always such good stuff. Below are excerpts from a broadcast where he spoke with Martin Marty, a religious scholar, about his book called The Mystery of the Child, a subject I find endlessly fascinating and important.

Although Marty is a religious person and I am not, I find nothing from him at all antithetical to my own perspectives. I enjoy what the guy has learned along the way, not at all annoying for me the way he discusses life, beliefs and the big kahuna, “G-O-D.”

I highly recommend reading the entire interview linked here. So much great stuff overall in Moyer’s archived discussions.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08172007/watch2.html

Many of us rant and rave, as well we should, about the uncivilized treatment of so many minorities or targeted sectors of society. For me, children are perhaps one of the largest groups that are abused and dismissed in so many ways, large and small, obvious and not at all obvious.

A busy world has no time for the real life of the child. I see it everywhere in modern culture, especially in the west, even among my so-called “conscious” friends and neighbors.

We keep ‘em busy, give them “everything” except, perhaps, what they need the most. Thank god they’re so resilient and wise, but imagine how far they could take all that if we old farts paid more attention to what it is they really want from us.

I was with two littles the other day, a two and six year old. They have all the material things you can imagine in their basement playroom and bedrooms, but all we did that day was walk and talk and sing and look at the woods and the fungus on the trees and climb a mountain

(A manmade landfill peak in a park on Wood Rd. created by Granger’s. A nice place actually, one of my new favorites spots.)

The kids could not have been more thrilled. No need for primary colors or anything made of plastic with buttons and sounds. They were as satisfied as they could be.

The six year old is a wild and wiry chick, a gymnast in training, for sure. When we reached the uphill challenge, she flew up that high terrain like a mountain goat, ready to run back down it already, while two year old Frankie and I were still only half way up.

Frankie is built like a miniature wrestler. A wide body with perfect balance, I’ve never seen a toddler run so damned fast without a fall or stumble. He made it almost to the top without even leaning forward, until the final ascent when he got down on all fours…and recommended, with dead seriousness, that I do the same.

I, at 62 and with slight health problems, finally pulled up the rear with my always present walking stick digging in for support. (first thing I look for when I hit the trail; those are some handy inventions, mm?).

Though huffing and puffing, I did indeed summit and met my team at the top, where we did the “hills are alive” Julie Andrews trip, twirling around up top with our arms open wide. (Well, I did anyway, as the littles gawked at me in silence)

What a vista it was, indeed. A lovely view of fall colors, farms, treetops and open sky.

It’s near the airport so small planes were coming and going overhead. Frankie was pretty sure we were not that far below them, up there on our Himalayan peak. He kept waving to his comrades in space, convinced they were responding in kind.

Later, he informed me (or himself…not sure which) of his thoughts and feelings, as he said quietly on our way to the car, “I want to come back here…”

The kid has a plan, folks.

Marty says, “…when they tell stories, fanciful as they may be, to that child, they’re unfolding a truth. And that’s why so often we collect what they say. When mothers sit in the park and chat about the children, they’re quoted as if they’re sages. Because they do say things that impart a kind of a wisdom.”

Here’s more from the lovely interview with Marty:

BILL MOYERS: You’re about to become how old?

No, I did it to try to understand the mystery of the child. But the whole thesis is that whatever is mysterious about the child is something we can constantly keep changing, to be replenished by so we don’t give up on people.