As the first day of school has come and gone a simple thought has captured my attention.
It all started with the promise to my 6 year old soon-to-be first grader that I would let her pick out a couple fish and her own fish tank to go in her room to mark the beginning of her journey in a new school, new house, new town, and new state.
The past week my daughter has taught me something about the human soul and its need for interaction.
A fish is a difficult pet for a small child. Small children do not understand the delicate nuances of contemplative visual observation. They want to touch everything. They need to put everything through a series of paces that I think of as “kid testing.” Their minds, fingers, and eyes explore every way in which a new toy, doll, or game can be exploited for weakness and creativity.
For example, give my kid a stick and it is a wand used to ward off evil dragons and, hence, it must be waved about in a creative fashion for just long enough to either poke someone in the face or knock something onto the ground. Then the princess is saved.
A board game becomes an enchanted world which unravels into a story of “bad men” and battles between rivals until the pieces are lost and the game board flung into the air resulting in someone getting poked in the face again. Then the princess is saved.
Evidently, we deal with an inordinate amount of facial contusions in our home…
There is always a narrative, action, and a general sense that everything must be touched, handled, turned every which way, and tested to the limits of the child’s dexterity.
None of this applies very well to fish…
Don’t tap the glass. Don’t put your fingers in the water. Don’t pull them out with the net. Don’t touch them. Don’t overfeed them.
You may watch them and feed them a moderate amount of food 2 or 3 times a day.
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I feel so bad for getting her those fish.
She wants to interact with them. I don’t mean to imply that she doesn’t get what fish are about, but I’m worried now that I’m teaching her the skill of loving without interacting.
Matthew 18:3 says that if we do not change and become like children then we will NEVER enter the kingdom of heaven.
I’m wondering if I’ve begun to teach my little girl one of the pathways to NEVER know the kind of peace which results from living in a place where God is truly in charge.
By giving her something to love that she isn’t allowed to touch or interact with in any kind of meaningful way, am I setting the stage for her to relate to God as if in an aquarium?
Say a prayer now and again.
Routinely attend church.
Feed the offering plate.
Vote for the “right” causes.
I think I may have really screwed up on this one. How do I spin this into a positive?
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