My first movie, in the theater at least, was My Little Ponies. I was young and saw it with my cousins. This has been a part of my memory for my whole life, and in fact, I know no other way of existence except for with this memory. Part of me wishes I could say GI Joe or something, but I can’t. Unicorns running along rainbows and jumping onto clouds will forever remain as my first cinema experience. Whether or not this is actually the case, I’m not sure. I very well could have seen something else beforehand, but if so, I know nothing of it. For those tempted to question my manhood, let me make up for it. I like football and beer and have sport-coats in the back of my closet. I also like steak. The reason, I guess, why this movie and others similar are so wildly successful is because they cater to the imagination of a child, a period unique in our existence.
There is a uniqueness to the worldview and vision of reality held by children. Those of us who have grown up in church are most likely familiar with a similar statement from a preacher or two. But it is true that kids tend to see reality through a deep sense of wonder that often is gradually choked out by or during our teens, having yielded to a vision of logic and literalism commonly found in many among us. We do not have to look too far to observe this, perhaps no further than our own heart. I cannot help but think that this is at once both good and bad. It is good because we can’t continue to think how delicious clouds must be, and that unicorns can found on rainbows if only you could get close enough to observe. We have to grow up, and we must deal with things in honesty. But I think it is also bad. I think it is bad because this new and informed vision (not so new to many of us anymore) simply cannot be applied to everything, although it is easy to believe that all things become subject to it, if even subconsciously. And yet the first few verses in the 18th chapter of Saint Matthew’s Gospel remain. “Unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven” says Christ – the Creator and Redeemer of us and everything.
What is it about the vision of children that makes them such inheritents? What is it that is being communicated there? Certainly this truth is not meant to be taken with a literalist mindset. Would it not be harmful to our spiritual lives to revert back and relive in infant conditions? Does Saint Paul not call us to maturity in his first letter to the Corinthians? For an understanding of such things we cannot rely on individual texts, but rather our vision of the Scriptures in their entirety. We have to look back to see what has been given us by those who have gone before us. It is the flaw of modern Christianity that we each understand the Scriptures in light of ourselves, and not within the context of a greater community through history.
So where does that leave us? It is very true that when we contemplate the things of God we must use logic and reason to our fullest and utmost capacity, but ultimately we must check them at the door and contemplate with the vision of faith, love, wonder, and awe if we are to see with any clarity — I submit. Who of us can explain that God is three Persons? Who can explain how the Creator of the universe took on human flesh and was born of a virgin? When contemplating the mysteries of God, we must know we’re contemplating mysteries, and do so with love and wonder so that we might know the truth, Who for us is a Person, and not a system of beliefs. Christianity has been done a great disservice by those who understand theology as an academic vocation, rather than a revelation through prayer and purity of heart.
So it is my conviction that the world should be seen first through these in order to perceive with any clarity what lies at the foundation of everyone and everything’s existence. If pure literalism and rationalistic thought are applied first as our foundation upon which we build, and we apply this even to our faith and the Scriptures to understand the things of God, we have built upon a distortion. A foundation I am familiar with. So, I think, to see correctly is to see all things pointing beyond themselves to Christ – all of creation, us as people, the Scriptures. And at the heart of us and them are the mysteries of God Himself. And to these mysteries we must go and stay, and recognize them as such, jaws dropped and full of love – the soil necessary for our hearts to ripen so that the seeds of God’s Kingdom can be sown. And when they are, a hundred fold this yields as we share in the Divine Life of the Holy Trinity, healing us into that from which we have fallen.
So we need to be like children – not in the sense that we eat cream of carrots from a small rubber tipped spoon; but in the sense that our vision is full of wonder so that we can better see Him who is beyond all comprehension. A foundation worth building all knowledge upon because He is at the center of all things, in all His mystery and glory. And our organ of vision is not our eyes, but our hearts, which fills us with Him from the inside out. So it is my opinion that we need to take care and concern ourselves with the Scriptures, the Church Fathers, the Saints, the Sacraments, and prayer for the sake of purity of heart so that we might inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, where Christ fills everyone and everything.
Let’s discuss it over a pint.
Gradually Brightened 