children

I know its been a long time since I blogged and I blame that on not driving enough. This is one I have been knawing on since July and just wanted to finish up.

I love Toronto and the surrounding area. We just finished a 5 day vacation and had a wonderful time. Started out with a picnic at Niagara Falls and ended with a shopping spree at Square One. I have one memory that sticks out in my mind from the whole trip. It was a sweltering 90 degree day again and we decided to take Iris and Lily to a park beside lake Ontario. This park had a water play area that had various fountains and sprinkler devices that shot water in every direction so the kids could run through it or stand underneath it to cool off. The thing that amazed me was the variety of children that were cooling off in the water and the joy and laughter in their hearts. They were all being carefully watched by their parents. I took Iris and Lily into the area and happily went with them to get soaked by different watering devices. I laughed as the other children of different ethnicities looked at us and laughed. There were black kids (Caribbean and African) and various middle eastern, European and Indian children all running around getting soaked. I can still picture the smiles as they would look at me. Maybe it was the big white guy with man boobs that entertained them but I know they just loved watching me running through the fountains with Iris and Lily. They would point sprinklers at me and make sure I was being soaked. The reason this is so striking is because their parents would sit on the outside and just watch their kids. They would be dressed in all their middle eastern or African or Canadian clothes and just ignore each other. Iris managed to make several new friends and my best guess through careful detective work of their parents was that they were from and Pakistan. They just laughed and held hands running through the water.
I keep thinking to myself that Jesus said unless we become like children it is impossible for us to enter the kingdom of Heaven. Imagine that if the United Nations acted like children in a water park or even our own church community how much more peaceful the world or our congregation would be. Leave it up to those darn parents and there ideology and theology and just plain sin to ruin the whole experience.