A few weeks ago, I was in Little Rock spending time with my 4-year-old grandson, Kennedy. Morning showers kept us indoors. After our nap, the sun was shining bright, the air was clean and it was just the right temperature for a walk to the neighborhood park.
If you haven't been to a park with a pre-schooler in awhile perhaps you've forgotten the pleasure of such simple things. There were frogs croaking in a lily pond on the edge of the park, and large goldfish swimming peacefully -- some orange, some albino and some of two colors. Kennedy looked and looked for the frogs -- whose sounds seemed to be piped in through nonexistent speakers -- but we never found even one frog.
Kennedy climbed through, over and around the two jungle gyms -- scaling "rock" walls and carefully placing each foot on successive rungs of a rope ladder, to be able to slide down the shiny curving slide. I'm sure -- to him -- the top platform seemed like the top of the world.
As any child does, Kennedy loves to be pushed in the swing, and he wants to go higher and higher. Pushing him reminded me of how my father used to push my girls in the swing in my parents' backyard, and Kennedy's voice sounded strangely like an echo of those earlier high-pitched voices crying out, "Just a little bit higher!"
The rhythm of the swing was hypnotic -- push, swoosh, swish; push, swoosh, swish ... I thought about Kennedy's mother enjoying her granddaddy pushing her in the swing. I remembered my daddy's calm, attentive manner with his grandchildren -- something that seemed to come out of nowhere at their births because he certainly hadn't been that patient with my brother or me. I smiled to think my daughters probably feel the same way about their daddy and me. That old familiar ache brought just a bit of moisture to my eyes, when I reflected that Kennedy's mother was just about his age when her granddaddy died suddenly.
I caught the swing to slowly lower it to its stationary position, telling Kennedy it was time for me to teach him how to swing by himself. I settled into the swing next to his. I took a few steps back, stretching the chains to their full length, explaining to Kennedy how to begin. As I demonstrated how to pump your legs back and forth while timing a gentle pull on the chain with your arms, it happened. I became 4 years old again. Just for a few moments -- with the first "swish" backwards and the corresponding "swoosh" forwards after a big leg-pump -- gravity seemed suspended. The pure joy of swinging filled my whole body, mind and spirit. How had I forgotten the magic of swinging?
I could remember so vividly spending hours on the kindergarden playground next door as a 4-year-old, willing myself to go higher and higher and using my legs and arms to make that happen. My own grandmother's voice was in my ears, as though the simple act of swinging had brought her back to me.
"Let's go home, Lili." And there was my sweet boy's smiling face as he held out his hand for me to take it in mine. We talked and walked the few blocks back to the house, and I relished every word from his lips -- still caught up in the surreal joy of our time in the park, knowing that 4-year-old boys don't stay little forever. Before too many seasons go by, he won't want to hold my hand.
Ordinarily, I'd say that I'm a Disney World sort of girl. I like meticulously designed places and over-the-top experiences. Too often, I don't slow down enough to let those beautiful once-in-a-lifetime simple pleasures completely consume me. I give thanks for that afternoon, and for how God let me touch those memories at the same time I relished the memory that I was making.
Today, this Saturday, there are 49 families who are remembering their loved ones who were murdered in an Orlando night club less than a week ago. Forty-nine men and women who were once 4 years old themselves, whose hands gripped that of parents and grandparents. Forty-nine people who were loved by friends and family and who are loved by God. God created this beautiful world, with croaking frogs, and swimming fish, and children who run and play and swing on swings. God created each of the men and women who were killed -- as well as their killer -- in God's own image.
Today, even more than that day in the park with my grandson, I cherish the simple pleasures love and life bring, and I give thanks to God for those moments. I pray for an end to hatred and violence, for God's shalom -- God's peace -- that will quiet demons in the heads of those tormented with the desire to kill. I pray for a country that does not allow semiautomatic assault-style rifles to be owned by nonmilitary personnel. I pray for an end to racism, homophobia, religious intolerance and fear of the other. Even more, I pray for love.
NAN Religion on 06/18/2016