Old Enough to Be a Kid Again!

Re-discovering Wonder and Joy

… When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. (Paul, 1 Corinthians 13:11)

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… children’s books activate a part of the brain that some adults—caught up in the day-to-day business of work or child-rearing or simply survival—may have unwittingly allowed to go dormant. (Anna Holmes)

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Children approach stories with a flexibility that many adults lose: They tolerate nonsense and accept strange rules, as long as the story can delight them. As adults, we often replace that openness with efficiency and skepticism, flattening delight into something more practical. (Rafaela Jinich)

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I’m big fan of Paul, the most prolific writer in the New Testament. His ode to love, 1 Corinthians 13, is one of the most beautiful, profound, and transformational pieces in all of literature.

But I think he missed the point a bit when he wrote: When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.

Even Jesus constantly called his followers to be like children; to have a child-like faith (not childish, but child-like, i.e, open, curious, filled with wonder).

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During the Christmas season I will, at some point, turn to an old Christmas cartoon I watched as a child. One year I went all out and watched several from Rudolph to Mr Magoo’s Christmas Carol to a Yogi Bear Christmas.

Something inside of me yearned for the wonder, awe, and surprise of Christmas best seen through the eyes of a child.

When, like Paul, we move into adulthood and put away childish ways, we often confuse the childish with the child-like.

No doubt we need to act like grownups.

And yet, no doubt as grownups we still need wonder, awe, curiosity, and joy.

Those gifts are not so easy to access when the ways of adulthood close in on us.

Diving into a favorite middle school series or re-reading a book from childhood taps into something deep… something primal. Those moments lost in child-like wonder remind us of what it means to be human. To be alive.

As an adult I’ve lost myself in Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and Narnia. Surprisingly, while written for children and teens, the books, and many like them, help us see adulthood through new eyes.

And they take us on wonder-filled adventures that our minds and souls need to navigate the ways of adulthood.

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Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. (C.S. Lewis)

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That someday is today!

Give it a try.

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And if you need a recommendation, may I suggest The Adventures of Toby Baxter! I’m biased, of course. But the reviews and the awards suggest that maybe it’s a pretty good series. And it was written in part to invite adults back into the world of wonder.