This past Sunday after church we met my daughter Jessica and my granddaughter Peyton at the park. I was sitting there watching this little bundle of energy dart back and forth across the playground in her relentless pursuit of trying to ride the see-saw and slide down the slide as many times as possible. She ran and giggled until she couldn’t anymore. The playground was just her little world of happiness.
After we had been there for a little while another family came with a couple of children. I watched Peyton as the other kids made their way to the slide and how she instantly ran over there like she was about to stake her claim on that big blue piece of property with her name (in her mind) posted on the ladder. Jessica watched her daughter attentively not knowing if she was going to have to go rescue one of those poor unsuspecting kids that just came to play on a sunny Sunday afternoon and didn’t want any trouble. Then in an instant it almost seemed that Peyton went from the natural temperament of any toddler who initially had a playground to herself to the disposition of a little girl who just made a friend for life. Within minutes the kids were playing together and Peyton and her new best friend for the day were carrying on a conversation that would perplex the minds of any adult trying to figure out what they were saying.
I sat there watching them play and found it amusing that 5 minutes prior to their new bond of friendship they were just little strangers that started out with a staring match over a slide and a see-saw. To them they didn’t pay attention to each other’s physical appearance, they didn’t know what the words race, politics or religion meant, and they weren’t influenced by greed or selfishness. They were just kindred spirits of the playground who were enjoying the moment.
I thought how wonderful it would be for us to all be like that. But instead we grow older and our lives are tainted with things that interfere with the possibility of living a life with such simplicity. We judge each other too harshly, we are tempted by envy and jealousy, and we base our friendships on conditions and stipulations. Wouldn’t it be great if we lived in a world like the one that exists on a playground? One were it was all common ground and we didn’t instantly judge someone or not want to befriend them because of their race or their beliefs? And wouldn’t it be nice to just immediately trust someone without them having to earn it?
I’ve been thinking a lot about the events over the past several years that have taken place at the hands of terrorists and people who want to destroy our country. I’ve thought about how before all those tragedies have taken place we were just individuals living our own lives and seldom thinking about others. But as soon as someone tries to come between us we band together and we fight back. It shouldn’t be that way though. It shouldn’t take someone trying to tear us apart to make us want to come together. Just like when we were children playing together with complete strangers - we still have that common ground - it's just not a playground anymore.
I think that it’s sad that as we grow older that the difference in us as adults rather than children is that we need a reason or an excuse to trust someone or to form that bond. We don’t have that innocence anymore that allows us to just be friends with someone simply because we are kindred spirits. The difference now than when we were kids is that we look at so many other things about each other that aren’t important and we don’t look at the potential in each other.
I think that it’s sad that as we grow older that the difference in us as adults rather than children is that we need a reason or an excuse to trust someone or to form that bond. We don’t have that innocence anymore that allows us to just be friends with someone simply because we are kindred spirits. The difference now than when we were kids is that we look at so many other things about each other that aren’t important and we don’t look at the potential in each other.
I suppose that is what happens when you step out of that sand box and into the world of being a grown-up. You stop playing nice and stop just being friends with complete strangers. Personally, I wish I could take some of that magic sand that you find in the sandbox and sprinkle it onto the rest of the world because it sure would be an almost perfect world if we all just saw in each other what two toddlers see in one another on a playground.
