Tekna-logy 2

Saturday night it was just me and the boys. One of those first cool nights. I love Fall, and can't wait for those times when you have to break out a light jacket. Anyway, we had spent some time just being outside in the cool air.

We walked up and down the driveway, John wanting us to get exercise, Joe wanting to wave at cars. On one of the trips back up, John spotted a patch of clover. The boys looked down and remembered what i had told them about perhaps the greatest evangelist, St. Patrick, who used the clover to describe the mystery of the Trinity; three leaves, one plant. You can't separate them and still have clover. Neither can clover be clover without the three parts. There's a good lesson for the church: almost every problem the mainline churches face have to do with not understanding or adequately respecting the Trinity. But I digress. John and Joe each told about “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

Then John blew me away. “Let's pray. Thank you Heavenly Father for clover and trees and grass. Make mommy all better. Amen.”

Later that night, we were all sitting at the bar in the kitchen. I was writing in my journal and the boys were coloring pictures. They asked me what I was doing and I tried to explain the idea of a journal to them. As they were coloring, I realized that they were pretty much doing the same thing, drawing what was important to them, what made them laugh, or what stuck out. John was drawing “everything what's in the sky” (he talks like a British working man for some reason...) Joseph was drawing the pool. More specifically, “a big splash,” one of their favorite things. I throw them way up in the air and they make huge waves. Well, Joe had drawn John making a big splash, and his picture of John was revealing. A few months ago, I learned an interesting perspective when I saw the pictures they took. It makes you realize, kids live in a big world. We adults generally take pictures on the level. These the boys took were skewed, either obviously coming from someone short, or not centered. They really live in a foreign world! (Thus John's insistence that at Daddy School, the fathers must sit in the little kid chairs...) Joe's version of John was very sweet. There are some legs sticking down from a big head with big eyes. If you know John, you know that he has a large head and very large sweet eyes. It was a moment where you could catch a slight glimpse of how Joe perceives John, maybe the most important person in his world. I remember my mom used to tell me that my brother was the person most closely related to me. That stuck with me, and I guess I unconsciously share that with John and Joe. Or maybe it just happens. They eat together, play together, and sleep together. One day, you know, such times end. They say you have to become an adult. But does anyone really want to? It comes at the price of loneliness and alienation. No wonder Jesus said you have to receive the Kingdom like a little child would receive it.