Wonderings--October 21

Most mornings when I am in the office, I hear the gentle, ever-present, din of the nursery school children. I find that I cannot function well without them. I hear their teachers leading the children in songs, preparing them to travel to the playground, and helping them enjoy their snacks. Craft instructions are given out and 'Days of the Week' is sung. 

We have a wonderful staff at the Cranberry Nursery School. Their love of God and of their children is apparent to anyone who walks into the building. I seldom close my door so that I can hear the children at CNS. 

Around 10:05 every morning, I hear the Half-Pints (our 2.5 year-old class) traveling down the restroom. I listen as the classroom aid and the teacher help the boys and girls through the entire process. Hands washed the children sit on color circles on the carpet waiting for their 'friends' to finish up. Then they will skip, dance, or walk down the hall back to their room. 

"Blake, sit on the yellow circle". . . "Abel can you sit on the blue circle." It is the normal rhythm of my morning and it warms my heart. 

But the children have changed me and brought me into their little habits. 

This morning I can't sit still. I grab my Disney coffee cup off my desk and head to the door. Opening it I see little, masked, faces staring back at me looking for me. I have been brought into their world. Early in the school year their teacher told me that the children ask if I am going to come say, 'hi' to them today. I cannot, not, come out and see them. It is my habit too. . . 

I am shown the new blue shoes that one boy has. "Captain America" sits in the back of the line and leans out to show me his shirt and his muscles. An out-going little girls leans forward and says something, but I am too far away to hear it. But I can see her smile over her mask and I know what she is thinking. It is a simple thing that I do to show up each day for them--and one that I cherish. 

An anxious child who cried so much early on in the year now looks up at me with her hair in two matching braids. She has come so far already and I know she will continue to grow and be blessed because of CNS and its staff. . . 

"Let's show Rev. Derek our sparkly hands. . . .  Sparkle. Sparkle. Sparkle." Eight sets of hands are held up high for me to see as fingers flex back and forth showing me that all the germs have been washed away. I respond, as I always do, "Wow those look great." Again, it is what we do together. 

William G. Jordan says:

"Life grows wondrously beautiful when we look at it as simple, when we brush aside trivial cares, sorrows, worries, and failures. . . Simplicity is a mental soil where selfishness, deceit, treachery and low ambition cannot grow."  

Today I know that he is correct. This morning was beautiful because I looked at what was happening in the hallway just simply and let the blessing of the Half Pints wash over me. I wonder what might happen for you, when you notice the simple things happening right before you eyes?

Blessings

Rev. Derek