Untainted Eyes
Two things I long for. Two things lost, but not forgotten.
The childish wonder I saw in a lizard as it lay warming itself in a dust speckled shaft of sunlight. The eyes of my children as they drank my words that fuelled imaginations of a world yet to be seen.
Adulthood is conditioned toward sclerosis. As I speed toward a half century of life, I feel a hardening creeping toward me as the sun begins to dip beyond the zenith of my days of wandering. When did I cautiously handle every new discovery, swill every new taste before swallowing? When did my default setting switch to “let’s wait and see”? When did I become such a skeptic?
Skepticism is exhausting. Always looking for the angle, the sell, the loop-hole, the attached strings. Always listening for the subliminal message, the ring of falsehood, the unmistakable tone of sensationalism. Always expecting the let down, the “told you so”, the uncovering of lies, the sting of disappointment. I grieve the passing of childish days, where innocent wondering consumed my mind but never wearied my soul.
I grieve too, the passing chapter of parenting that saw the same hardening in my children. I wistfully smile as I recall the wide-eyed excitement my children lived in, long before disappointments marred their vision; yesterday, when skepticism lay undiscovered and simple pleasures were simply that. Both they and I, when I too was like them, saw the world in wholeness, sharp edged and clear. We had untainted eyes. But those days have slipped away.
“Skepticism is like a microscope whose magnification is constantly increased: the sharp image that one begins with finally dissolves, because it is not possible to see ultimate things: their existence is only to be inferred.” — Stanislaw Lem
Now, with brief glimpses of “if, buts, and maybes”, we feverishly build an image of the world that won’t crumble beneath our feet. Forever groping about, not trusting the ground with our full weight, anxiously expecting to pitch forward into the darkness, knowing that those who promise to break our fall probably won’t. What a wretched existence we’ve constructed for ourselves.
Maybe it was this very knowledge, a knowledge that only a Creator may know, that caused Jesus to rebuke the gatekeepers and welcome the children. Maybe it was his intimacy with human tendencies that shaped the words on his tongue that held back the skeptical and swung wide the gates to innocent eyes that were yet untainted by ‘adult’ concerns. Maybe it is his willingness to swing a child up onto his knee, generously mixing laughter with their high-pitched giggles, that should infectiously invite us to lean in a little closer as well. Maybe we have grown up too much.
When C.S. Lewis wrote the concluding chapter to his Chronicles of Narnia series, Susan, who had once been a Queen of Narnia and friend to all who lived there, is conspicuously missing from this final adventure. When Jill is questioned on it, she responds, "Oh Susan!" said Jill. "She's interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up.”, and I think in that one observation is laid bare our great problem, and maybe the very thing Jesus was warning us about. Grown up eyes fail to see the things that matter most. Not because they are completely unable to, but because they have been scarred and clouded by years of unbridled skepticism. We have forgotten how to embrace with wonder the glorious truths of God. We have relegated much of the divine to the realm of fantasy.
“When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” — C.S. Lewis
In our progressive age with our modern sensibilities, we have developed a fear of childishness. Yet the very thing we shun, wrapping it up and relegating to the ridiculous, is the very thing Jesus asks us to embrace.
And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” — Matthew 18:2–4 (ESV)
In the things that matter most I long to be childish once again. To hear the words of Jesus, and feel his welcoming embrace, and simply stand with wide-eyed wonder and innocent acceptance. I long for the scales to fall from my eyes, and with untainted vision see the grace of the gospel in all its fullness wash away the stain of skepticism. I want to laugh out loud. I want to dance like nobody is watching. I want to sing without shame. I want to throw myself off the back of the lounge knowing that Dad will catch me every time. I want to be curious, turning over stones and lifting fallen branches, not to defend my position or justify my existence, but simply to joyfully explore the wonder of who God is.
These things I long for. These things were lost, but they are not forgotten, and dear friend, they can be found again. Like lost treasures, they await us on the adventure of learning to walk again in childlike trust, firm in the grip of Jesus, with untainted eyes.
