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I am a Child An invitation to return to innocence
and connect with love within "All, as they say, that glitters is not gold." -- John Dryden Sometimes it's just too much to take in. I'm talking about the selling. It just goes on and on and on. It never stops. Commercials on television boom at louder and more disturbing frequencies than the shows they wrap themselves around. And advertisements on the radio have become tape loops that repeat ad naseum. So I turn off the tube and turn off the radio and all is quiet here as I settle in for a well-deserved nap. I am awakened by the sound of the fax machine beeping word of a last-second delivery. Expecting news, or at least a memo from a co-worker, I am greeted by a letter-sized print-out of an ad promising me new office equipment, followed by a second one minutes later offering me the cheapest cruise tickets anywhere. When does it stop? It doesn't. But fortunately for me, I have the key to escape advertising's relentless pursuit of my pocketbook. It came with my body, built-in. It came with yours, too. At some point, and I cannot tell you exactly when, I became aware that I could switch the channels of my own perception. If I didn't like what I was watching, I could go within and experiencing something completely different. I could create the experiences just like I create daydreams and go off to magical places within my imagination. Or, with my attention -- and intention -- I could access parts of my Being and do some serious connecting with long over-looked parts of myself. Perhaps that's what children do when they're bored with adults. Perhaps that's what teenager do when they're bored with adults. We misinterpret their blank stares for apathy, when in fact, they may actually be Travelers in disguise. [Or just bored teenagers who ache for something that really quenches their soul.] Perhaps this Traveling, which can be done just as successfully with eyes wide open, is as innate to the human condition as dreaming when we go asleep. Perhaps as children we journeyed in our imaginations all the time, and at some point we stopped going there. We got too busy. We felt foolish and couldn't talk about it to anyone. We were too preoccupied with myriad distractions flooding into our physical dimension that we forgot that there were other realities just as real. Perhaps the point of growing up is to see if we can remember who we were as infants, as young children, and then find ways to become that again. Not just the ability to visualize and dream, but the ability to create instinctively. To speak honestly. To see and feel what's really true. Jesus said, "Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it" (Luke 18:17). I'm sure he was on to something there, something that we, as adults, rarely think about in our busy lives. I'm slowly learning that the longer I resist my creative nature, ignore the yearnings to go Traveling in my soul and stall the promptings of my heart to be more loving and trusting those around me, the quicker I become petrified and "adultified" and unable to move much or find space to breathe. It's a suffocating experience. Have you felt it creeping into your life? Those who are able to become as children again, and do what they do and live as they live, are able to fly in the wind and soar above the stress, free. "I am a child, I'll last a
while. -- Neil Young The experience of smiling again is something too many adults have stopped trying to achieve. Yet, it's never too late. As much as it hurts, forgive and forget the past, stop trying to build up walls around yourself and instead, march with intention around those walls, down the street and into the park where the children are playing and singing songs. Stop and truly listen to them and try as hard as you can to remember when you were there, in that space of freedom. And even if you cannot remember, fake it and be there now. Turn off the television and turn off the radio when the static and the selling interferes with your ability to hear the calling of your own Soul. There's always gonna be somebody who wants something from you. Give them your love. Give them your peace. Give them your playful Spirit. And send them on their way. Tim Miejan is editor of The EDGE. Contact him at (651)578-8969, toll-free at(888)776-5687, or email editor@edgenews.com Copyright (c) 2002 Tim Miejan |
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