Put Away Childish Things?

One of the things that Jesus and Doctor Who have in common is this: they see the value of looking at things like children.  Jesus, guiding a child into the centre of his preaching, told people that unless they became like children, they stood no chance of entering the kingdom of God.  Tom Baker, having a brief sulk, asked "What's the point of being grown-up if you can't be childish sometimes?"

Childish, of course, is bad if you sustain it.  Child-like, however, is good - but again, not in huge huge doses.  You can't be innocent as a dove all the time without being as canny as a snake.

But you can hold on to the advantages of childhood.  What would they be?

Children ask big questions.

Yes, they may be simplistic or silly or out of bounds, but children are relentlessly curious and broadly unbiased.  And that's how they sometimes hit on the right questions, the ones that adults miss.  Grown-up preconceptions lead us to rule out possibilities because they seem silly.  But I point you to that (admittedly fictional but nevertheless true) boy in The Emperor's New Clothes, who doesn't mind that people might think he's thick, and is unafraid to ask, "Why is this dude naked?"

Children share their biggest, wildest ideas.  

And yes, they may be unreasonable, unfeasible and in crayon, but that's fine as long as someone somewhere has a discerning mind to go with them.  A good idea or a good answer is likelier to be found in a child's 101 answers than in the two I might put forward when I'm being an adult and don't want to be laughed at by other adults in the room.

Children have fun.

They're not afraid to like the things they like.  No child says they'd like to go to the opera when they mean they want to play video games.  No child pretends to enjoy PCC when they could be running around.  Children can be entranced by the world, unstoppable in their pursuit of fun.  And when something is fun, it's easier to do.

But honest enjoyment of fun can dry up in adults, often by the age of 21 (be honest, when did you last whoop with joy?).  And adults have generated arenas in which fun is unthinkable.  Politics.  Academia.  Religion.  The hardest thing about churches is when people arrive with a po-face and look down on having fun, or assume that the only good ideas come out of seriousness.

"I'm serious about everything I do," said either the Doctor or Jesus, "just not necessarily the way I do it."  Don't ever assume I'm not involved in a serious business just because I might be enjoying it.

Oh, and there's no correlation at all - at all! - between how serious you are and how good you are at your job!  In fact, there's an opposite correlation.  Research finds that raw talent is overrated when compared with people who enjoy something.  The best violinists aren't the ones who started out best; they're the ones who enjoyed scraping so much, who had so much fun that they kept on practising, that they woke up energised to punish that horsehair.

Have fun.

Children are harder to fool.

Be honest, would you rather try to fool an audience of children, or an audience of adults?

Well, magicians - who fool people for a living - choose adults every time.  Adults can be misdirected at will, but children are harder to shake, harder to shake.  Adults have been trained socially to follow certain cues, which a magician then exploits.  Children are untrained, so they can't be corralled.  Adults can concentrate, but children have a more diffuse attention, which means they'll spot what you're up to when an adult would be looking where you want them to.  Adults may be trying to upstage you as a matter of pride, but children are actually just trying to figure out how everything works, in the same way they're trying to figure out how the whole world works.  Adults - be honest - lose our edge after 18, but children are still sharp.  And adults over think things, whereas children seek out obvious explanations.

I know all this.  School assemblies are full of brilliant, questioning people who figure out my every trick.  I wish they were on my PCC: less prejudice, less straitjacketed thinking, and a hell of a lot more fun than adults.

Have fun with your own thinking, your own problems, your own ideas.  Jesus is constantly being faced with two options and coming up with a third and better (and more fun) one (that annoys the hell out of most of the adults present).  Doctor Who is all about thinking imaginatively.

Somewhere, Isaiah declares that "a child shall lead them."  Sometimes you need the eyes and the ways of a child to lead anywhere new.  Jesus welcomed a child into the heart of things, and he saw the world through child-like eyes as well.  Have a play yourself, or spend some time with someone who'll remind you how.