April 5, 2008
The Lost Innocence of Worship
As children we have the luxury of enjoying a realm of imagination that is only limited by our ability to think. The beautiful part to me personally about the exploits of my childhood is simply that I could be whatever I wanted to be without the restraints of reality. I did not just play with cars and trucks, I was any car or truck I wanted to be. This wonderful process is allowed before the cultures of our environment place us in the death grip of their expectations and introduces us to the limitation of cynicism. But that of course is another subject altogether, for another day.
One of my all-time favorite pastimes in the imaginarium of my childhood was playing war! I am sure my parents had to have invested a minimum of a million dollars in those intricately detailed, little plastic army men. There were not enough hours in the day to adequately explore the innumerable possibilities that one could contemplate in a bag of one hundred, olive green, single posed, plastic army men. And if you could afford the sheer pleasure found in a piece of the plastic mechanized infantry, that combination could keep a child awake all night!
The terrain made no difference. Outside, inside, on the ground, in a tree, the bedroom, the bathtub, in a house, with a mouse, with Sam I am, with green eggs and ham, you get the picture! My personal choice as I remember it was as far back under our house as I could possible get. I realize now this was a simple defense ploy for me adapted out of the demonic terror my younger brother was to a meticulously groomed battlefield. What had taken most of the day to construct; he could destruct in mere seconds! Let me pause here and weep for the innocence of a childhood lost that was much to brief, and far to long gone.
I am realizing this morning, the transition we supposedly make from imagination to reality in an effort to become adults never really happens, its just that the size of our imaginations increases so drastically, and the cost associated with those imaginations become so enormous that we hide them deep within our real worlds out of fear. It is my firm belief that one of the most obvious places we mirror this behavior is in our worship.
Watch children worship. What do you notice? I remember one of my own children coming out his room and relaying to me in the most casual manner, “God just came by and said He loved me!” You would never have convinced him it did not happen. Are there are some things God spoke to you in the innocence of your spiritual childhood? You know, back before you came to the understanding of was considered by your peers to be acceptable forms of worship. If you lose the innocence of worship, you trade the wonder of God for the regiment of life’s realities. Oh yeah, by the way, those places you imagined as a child, where did you get that ability to transcend reality and enjoy the pleasure and mystery of what you could not see? I think you know!
