As a Little Child

NPR’s “This American Life” for this week, featured stories about celebration of Christmas. These were not heart-warming stories in every case. One such story was of a family whose celebration had, for generations, featured some scenario designed to foster belief in Santa. One such scenario had Santa lost on a golf course, wandering around trying to find their home. Another year, the children found Santa sprawled on the ice in their back yard, exhausted and in tattered non-Santa clothes. They helped him regain his strength with food and rest and sent him on his way. The tradition was so strong and so real that the children’s belief lasted far longer than most children’s. In one case, a son of the family believed well into his teens. He faced a crisis when he forced his mother to tell him the truth. Now in his thirties, he blames his inability to form trusting relationships on what he feels is his parents’ betrayal of his childhood trust. The taproot of trust is buried deeply in the soil of dependence. Think of a child you know; one who is less than five. Without adult provision and guarding, it is unlikely the child will live. From conception into the teens, a child needs an adult for food, clothing, shelter, love, wisdom,. From conception to birth this dependency is extreme; whatever happens to the mother happens to the child. What she eats, drinks breathes is shared. From her all resources are gained. Separated from her, a child requires a great deal of very expensive support to survive. As consciousness and reason dawn, this dependence fosters trust—the ability to predict that what one needs will be provided. Will there be food on the table at breakfast? Will I be cold when I walk to school? Am I safe in my bed at night? Unverbalized, these questions are answered deep within the child’s developing person. The answer she or he arrives at shapes an entire life of relationship. Brennan Manning spent many years telling of Abba-Daddy: God seeing Himself and trying to get us to see Him as a proud loving father; a father who goes to any length, through any sacrifice to provide all necessities to His dependent children. If recognized, if truly realized, we, the recipients of His loving largesse come to trust Him. Our dependency nurtures trust. In theological terms, this is called “faith.” It is a gift, a free gift, growing, as it does, from the soil of provided and recognized needs met. He tells us, “I provide the rain, showered on those who believe and those who don’t.” Rain being the foundation of an agricultural society’s survival, it is a symbol of the provision of all needs, given without discrimination to all mankind, to all His children. Recognized or not, we are bathed in a sea of His beneficence, His gifts. From conception to death and beyond, if truly recognized, all things are a blessed gift of His gracious love. All events, good or ill, arise from His generous and wise heart. Recognizing Him as Daddy, can I see myself as child, as infant, as fetus? Can I lay aside my distorted view of myself as independent adult and sink back into that time when all was provided without measure, without cost, without reciprocity? American culture in particular is so rooted in the concept of self-sufficiency that we have difficulty accepting any thought of dependence. “God helps those who help themselves,” undergirds our culture, our stories, our politics. But, perhaps, our disastrous relationships with one another and with Daddy, are based in just this: that we see ourselves as independent, autonomous beings-separate and self-sufficient in all things. We try to make Him happy with us by doing, by rule-following. We want to provide for ourselves and our family by the sweat of our brow. Trust and dependence; two sides of the same coin, one growing out of the other and in turn fostering a recognition of the first; an unending Moebius ring of relationship; the cure of all my rebellion; the source of all my joy. 12-24-12