Thursday, October 18, 2012

FACING LIFE



Whimsical Cut Out, Jamestown, NC
Photo Time, Jamestown, NC
Face Time, Ashville, NC


October is Pumpkin Patch fund raising time at our local church and one of the benefits of retirement is selling pumpkins during the weekday mornings. That’s when the preschool children arrive for storytelling around the hay bales, a genuine old fashioned country hay ride and a small pumpkin to decorate. A few parents can generally be there with digital cameras to record the fall celebration. The toddlers that came to our pumpkin patch today didn’t disappoint. Their innocent and wide-eyed wonder always gives us “older and wiser” adults hope for mankind’s destiny. There’s a definite reason Jesus encouraged us to seek His kingdom with the openness of a child, before the world hardened our hearts and filters of bias clouded our vision. A UCLA study confirmed what Jesus already knew about the human condition: On a given day, five-year-olds engage in creative tasks 98 times, laugh 113 times, and ask 65 questions. Forty four-year-olds take on only 2 creative tasks, laugh 11 times and ask 6 questions daily.

How many times have you been out on a lark or a good time vacation and happened upon a whimsical face cut out with a buff body or cartoon character painted below the circular opening? And who can resist poking your head into the cut out for a self-deprecating photo taken from the other side? Once young children see the fun of it, they’re all in!

I’ve always advocated that it’s much more effective to personally visit versus calling or texting another person for some quality “face time” if you really want to make a point or an impression. And we show many faces to the world in this life--faces of great love, joy, surprise, fright, somberness, anger and grief to name just a few. But when we show our face in a whimsical cut out, it’s almost always the face of happiness!

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