Plug It In

I love to watch little kids. It’s too bad that they grow up and lose their spontaneity, exuberance, and animation. I’m very aware that those qualities do have to be monitored and tweaked occasionally, or else whole ketchup bottles will be emptied on single plates of French fries or the little brother will do damage to his sister’s head when he hits her with a toy car. Classrooms would be unteachable, and mothers would be bald.

In fact, I would be the first to stress the importance of having clear-cut parameters of acceptable behavior, as well as the importance of internal and external discipline for the safety and protection of others and for harmonious coexistence. So that’s the conundrum—how to keep the sparkle and energy within a framework of kindness, compassion, and self control.

This whole thing can be seen in electricity--a dynamic stream of potent force within a grid of wires, transformers, and circuitry that makes our lives much more livable. The wires with no electricity are just lifeless pieces of cable. Electricity with no wires is hazardous, out of control, and even deadly.

When they work together, they are wonderful, giving us light, heat, and many things I can’t even think of right now. If you have ever been without electricity for a period of time, you know how frustrated you felt. Our goal, night and day, is to have plenty of electricity flowing through a well-designed and maintained grid, making our lives comfortable, happy, and safe.

That’s what I want for all of us; the sparkle and energy within the grid of kindness and compassion. That could be our goal, night and day, to have plenty of sparkle and energy flowing through a well-designed and maintained grid of self control, caring, and goodness.

Jesus wants us to sparkle as he said “unless you become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” He also wants us to have the framework of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”

“Let there be light!”