I have been thinking a good deal lately about the ways of God’s Spirit, emancipating imagination, and the sense in which movement in and toward new creation is a return to childhood. I see it, for example, in the highly creative (and very well done, I must add) drawings of my wee six year old son, Aiden. He lives in a world of timeless and provocative liberty where almost anything is possible; everything is up for curious questioning. He recently asked me, “How long will it be, Daddy, before I’m older than you?”

Then I came upon this wonderful piece from Wordsworth. Notice, particularly, the introductory reminder of what sadly becomes ‘fugitive’ in adult life. Then too, I think we should highlight the ‘obstinate questionings’ which are the more honest description of childhood, as well as the inborn eschatological longings described as the ‘blank misgivings of a Creature moving about in worlds not yet realized’. What hope children restore that that which is ‘at enmity with joy’ may not have the last word!