The Wisdom of Children

A few months ago we were having a meeting at church on a Wednesday night. Elizabeth and Greg had brought their daughter Zoe.

Before the meeting Zoe was just running around the room, full of joy to be running back and forth, with no real purpose or direction. I said to Elizabeth and Greg, "Do you remember the days when just running back and forth, for no reason at all, filled you with joy?"

Anyway, Zoe and that question reminded me of a poem I wrote a few years ago entitled "Amnesia":

The children were released
into the large open space,
given a respite
from the ordering of their day--
the lining up,
the counting off,
the sitting still,
the demand for quietness.
They looked, now free,
like doves taking to the sky,
like the fluff of dandelions
caught and scattered by the wind.
They ran
and ran,
here to there, and back again.
Their only destination
the movement itself,
kinesthetic joy
and salvation.
There is wisdom here,
I thought.
A truth,
but I could not remember it.