Baby You're A Firework

My favorite television commercial these days is about a car company. A dad is leaning into the passenger side window of a car. He’s talking to his apparently little girl. She looks to be about three years old. He has a set of car keys in his hand. He’s telling her things like, drive carefully, buckle up, stuff like that. She says, “Daddy, OK!” Then he hands her the car keys and of course she turns out to be a teenager, apparently driving alone for the first time.

I am that dad. My daughter is a sophomore in college and yet I see her as a little girl. I’m trying not to. I’m working on it. But I think of her like I thought of her when she was two or three years old and I thought, OK, she’s the President and I’m the Secret Service; it’s my job to protect her. I know I shouldn’t do that now, but I still sometimes do. I’m working on it.

I heard somebody say once that a two year old is willful and that what we need to do is break the will, break the spirit of a two year old. That’s sick! You don’t need to break the will, break the spirit, of a two year old, we need to lift up the spirit of a two year old. We need to nurture the spirit of a two year old. We need to enhance the spirit of a two year old, and a four year old, and a six year old, and a sixteen year old. We need to nurture our children in body, mind and spirit, not break their spirit, not tear them down, not belittle them. We need to give them everything that we can.

In a previous life I was a radio talk show host. I interviewed a state lawmaker one time. We were talking about education funding and how he was going to support cutting funds for public schools. He said, “Bill, you can’t solve the problem by throwing money at it.” I said, “Well, that’s how they solve the problem in rich school districts, they throw money at it and it solves the problem.” It’s not right, it’s not fair, it’s not just to spend sometimes twice as much per pupil in a rich school district as is spent in a poor school district. But if we’re going to do that, then we shouldn’t wonder why students in poor school districts don’t do as well as students in rich school districts. It should be pretty obvious.

The only state that I know of that is fair about all of this is the state of Vermont. A few years ago, I believe it was the state supreme court in Vermont, that looked at educational funding and saw a disparity between rich school districts and poor school districts, between kids who live in rich districts and kids who live in poor districts, and said, as if it were the Brown vs. Board of Education decision, separate and unequal is unconstitutional. Now I believe in Vermont the same amount of money is spent on every child for public education, as it should be. I wonder when Michigan will come to that same conclusion, that it’s unconstitutional to apparently care more about students in rich districts than students in poor districts. We need to raise up all children, to nurture all children in body, mind and spirit.

I never have understood the Christian doctrine of original sin. I know it, you probably know it, the whole idea that in the beginning of creation, in the mythological story of Adam and Eve being told by God not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and they did it anyway and when they did that they disobeyed God, they sinned and it led to the fall of humankind. Sin was ushered into the world when they did that. I understand all that, I mean I know it, I just don’t believe it. For one thing, the definition of the word “sin,” really means missing the mark, making a mistake, making an error. It’s not some sinister thing. It’s just making a mistake. I don’t get it. I don’t think Jesus got it.

A couple thousand years ago, according to the Christian New Testament, people would bring their children to this apparently holy man, to this prophet, to this Jesus. They would just want Jesus to tousle their hair, say a little prayer over them, but the disciples said, “No, no, you can’t do that. This is Jesus. He’s got more important things to do than mess with kids. He’s got to walk on water, and turn water into wine. He’s got to tell people to love their enemies and love their neighbor. He doesn’t have time for your children.” Then Jesus caught wind of this and said, “You guys just don’t get it. Let the little children come to me and do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.” Then the children were brought forward and he laid his hands on them.

I agree with Jesus. If heaven exists, at least on this side of the rainbow if not somewhere over the rainbow, then the kingdom of heaven, heaven on earth, belongs to little children. They are such a joy. They aren’t some bundle of sin. I just don’t understand this whole concept. You know it’s one thing to think of adults as inherently sinful; I don’t believe that either, I believe we are inherently good. But to hold a little bitty baby in your arms and to look at that little baby and see, not a bundle of joy, but a tangle of sin, I just don’t get it. A child is not some vessel of the devil. A child is a joy to behold.

I can’t even think that when little Adolf was in his parents’ arms, or somebody’s arms, that they looked at him and saw anything but a bundle of joy. Now he may have grown up to be Hitler, but as a child I think he was a bundle of joy, not a vessel of the devil. I think Jesus knew that, too. Certainly philosopher and author Jean Jacques Rousseau knew that. He said in one of his novels - don’t begrudge children the chance to be children. Let them be little children. Let them have the hardest job they’ll ever have: playing all day, having fun from morning until night. That’s what we expect from them.

Little children are not miniature adults. I think some people have the exact opposite of the problem I have with my daughter, seeing my adult daughter as a little child, some people see little children as miniature adults. They’re not. You can’t tell a two year old something and then expect them to salute as if they’re a recruit and do it. They’re not fully mature, they’re not fully grown, they haven’t grown up. They haven’t physically and spiritually and emotionally grown up. I think part of the problem of child abuse and neglect is because some people see little children as miniature adults or vessels of sin and they have to have sin beat out of them or shaken out of them. It’s a shame that we don’t treat little children like little children.

I saw a comedian named Emo Philips years ago in a comedy club. If you know him, you know that he’s very strange, but wonderfully funny. He said that when he was a kid, his parents always told him, “Don’t go near the cellar door!” That’s all he ever heard as a child. “Don’t go near the cellar door!” Almost every day: “Don’t go near the cellar door!” But one day the door was open and he did go near it. He went through it and he said he saw some amazing things on the other side, things he’d never seen before – green grass, blue sky, trees!

Some people, some parents, some churches see little children, not as a blessing but as a bother. I don’t think this congregation does, but some churches, some parents, some adults do see children as a nuisance, not as people to be nurtured. Children are a blessing. Children are full of joy, full of playfulness, they show us wisdom and fairness sometimes. The things that come out of the mouths of children are amazing. We need to see them as a blessing, not a bother.

I used to baptize children. I don’t do that anymore; I bless children, but I used to baptize them. But I would try to turn baptism on its head. I would say that the church doesn’t confer or convey anything on the children when they are baptized that they don’t already have. We don’t make children sacred or holy or divine by baptizing them. They already are. I said that baptism is when the church realizes that children of creation are really children of God. Sacred. Holy. Divine. Then I changed the words you’re supposed to say at a baptism. I’d say, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, who is a Mother to us all. I baptize you in the name of the Son, who is a Brother to us all. I baptize you in the name of the Spirit, who is a connection to us all.” That’s probably why I am no longer a Christian minister. I don’t baptize children anymore, I bless them. But really, when you think about it, we don’t bless children, they bless us. They bless us with their playfulness and their joy and their sense of fun and sense of humor and their sense of fairness and their wisdom. They bless us; we don’t bless them.

One of my favorite songs these days is a tune by Katy Perry. It’s called “Firework.” Katy Perry sings, “Baby, you’re a firework. Come on, let your colors burst. Make ‘em go ah, ah, ah.” The video that goes with it shows fireworks coming out of the middle of Katy Perry and the children and the young people who are in the video. It’s wonderful. It kind of reminds me of the old Christian song, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.” That’s what Katy Perry is saying to children and young people. Let your light shine. You are a divine spark. Don’t be ashamed of who you are or embarrassed of who you are. Be thankful for who you are. We should all be thankful for who they are. They are a firework. They are a light to the world. We don’t want them to hide that light under a bushel basket. We want them to glow and grow.

I’ve seen a couple of movies about the life of the Dalai Lama. Maybe you have, too. One of them stars Brad Pitt. And I’ve read several of the Dalai Lama’s books about happiness and the four noble truths and other ideas and ideals. So I know that the Dalai Lama, before he was recognized as the Dalai Lama, when he was about two years old, Buddhist monks were traveling back and forth across Tibet, looking for the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, looking for the reincarnation of the Buddha. They came upon this little boy and he was inquisitive and intelligent and they thought This might be him! They put him through a battery of tests, including spreading out several sacred and secular objects and having him pick out the sacred ones and he did. They came to believe that this was the new Dalai Lama, this was the reincarnation of the Buddha. So with his parents’ permission they whisked him away to a mansion or a castle and they gave him everything a child would need. They gave him the best education, both sacred and secular. They gave him food, all the food he would need. They gave him toys and games to play with. They nurtured him in body, mind and spirit and he grew up to be the Dalai Lama because they saw him as sacred, holy, divine.

What if we, what if society, saw all children as the reincarnation of the Buddha or the Christ child? What if society saw all children as sacred, holy, divine? There would be no more child abuse. If we saw all children as sacred, holy, divine there would be no cuts in education funding. Children would get the best education. There would be no more poor children. There would not be a quarter of the children in America (not some third world country), living in poverty. There would be no more poor children. Every child would be nurtured. Every child would be seen as sacred, holy, divine. And then every child would feel like they were living in the kingdom of heaven. Every child would feel like they were living in heaven on earth. As every child should.