Wise as children

I had a moment this week when I realized that children are possibly and probably the wisest among us.

I was getting an oil change, waiting in the tiny room with the television and several other people. My attention was drawn away from my book to a CNN story on white phosphorus in Gaza. I have been following the recent news about Gaza in horror for the last few days, so the story immediately drew my attention. They were talking about the possibility that Israel is firing white phosphorus into Gaza and the ethical and legal ramifications of this. There was video footage of doctors talking about the severe burns and injuries that they are seeing in this heavily civilian area, and they showed a photo of one man in particular whose face was burned.

There was a child with his father in the waiting room. I would guess that the child is six. He saw the video of the man and he asked his father, "Daddy, what happened to that man's face?" The father looked uncomfortable and said, "He got burned." The child persisted and asked his father, "Why?" The father looked even more uncomfortable, mumbled something, and promptly took the child out of the room.

I was touched by this exchange and the genuine concern of the child. For children, life is not complicated. I don't like him because he smells funny. I don't like her because she won't share her toys with me. Children are brutally honest about what they think but they speak out of love and concern. Why do you have those dark marks under your eyes? Children don't understand when adults act in contrast to the way they proclaim children should act. If I'm not allowed to hit, why are they allowed to shoot?

I wonder if the simplicity of love is one of the reasons why Jesus said that we must be like children to enter the kingdom. I know that children had no status in his cultural context, that they were truly "the least of these" with no rights and no voice. But children also understand that love is basic, concrete, and actually very simple. You either love someone or you don't. Children truly sense the horror of the terrible acts of violence that humans inflict on one another. We should all be horrified. We should be confused. We should be asking questions. We should be as wise as children.