“In the moment” is a phrase I have heard plenty of times to describe being focused and completely involved. I am “in the moment” this week as I write this article, and for a wonderful reason. I have been given a fabulous new job description for the week – I am the Bethlehem Vacation Bible School Imagination Station Leader! This is definitely a job promotion, and a much longer title too. I definitely feel blessed by God.
Monday through Friday this week I had 80 wonderful children (and they are all wonderful) come to my station to tell me all that they had learned in VBS that day about how God helps us stand strong. That has been the theme: In God we stand strong.
Moreover, we had a fantastic group of volunteers this week; there were adults and youth who kept pace with the children and guided them through all their learning. My job in the Imagination Station was to find a connection between their Bible verse for each day and an active “imagination experiment” that would give the children a tangible ,experiential way of describing what they had learned. And we had fun. We had so much fun.
Every now and then I would find myself caught in the middle of the church lobby as the eight groups of 10 would move from one activity to another. I was lucky that at my sixfoot height I was above the swirling flow of little bodies excitedly rushing from one to the next activity. From my vantage of height they sometimes looked like the flowing of streams or rushing traffic patterns, but as the week progressed they began to look like joyous processions of life. The overwhelming impression was life.
To stand in the middle of the kids was to feel their power and exuberance for life. Giggling, excited, curious, irrepressible life was all around us. It made all of our adults and youth leaders smile. It was also a reminder of their smallness, their vulnerability, and the beautiful gift of God that they all are. In those moments I could see how our teen helpers were learning that we all are striving to be a safe haven for children at our church, and that we want to make our entire community a safe haven for the children.
Watching and listening to the children also allowed me to recognize that although we had a specific theme of how God helps us stand strong through love, family and friends, prayer, trust, and the Bible, it is the children themselves who were the overriding theme of the week for me. Through the children God helps us stand strong.
I believe it is the children of each community and the whole world who make us stand strong, live to our best, and hope for the future. It is the little children who always have made us more human and more humane. Because of their dependence and need, through the very nurture they deserve the children cause us to rise to our highest values. The children elicit highest values of care, concern, compassion. And we know that rising to the role of their defender and advocate is vitally important because there are the unfortunate and frequent reports of harm, neglect and abuse suffered by children in every community.
I have also noticed the power of life in little children in times of grief. Recently at our church, and in many of the churches throughout Cook County, there have been processions of sadness as many of us have walked slowly behind a casket at the conclusion of a funeral. In one procession a baby in her mother’s arms squirmed and cried, and adults with heavy hearts responded by reaching out with smiles and encouraging words. The infant infused life and light into darkened feelings. What a blessing from God she is.
At the graveside of another funeral a small child tossed some pine cones into the grave and then joined the prayers of commendation. I saw in the family that remarkable combination of grief and gladness in a moment touched by God through that child.
I give thanks to God for children everywhere. I give thanks to God for parents, families, mentors, advocates, guardians and all who nurture, protect and care for children. They are a blessing from God to us; we must be a blessing from God to them. Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month our contributor is Reverend Mark Ditmanson of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Grand Marais.
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