God’s best gift
The enthusiasm and joy of children.
Full of the zeal of a Grade-9er, I rushed into my science classroom. “Hey, Mr. Pollet, do you. . . ‘’ Mr. interrupted brusquely: “Curt, watch your mouth. No ‘hay’ around here. Straw is cheaper. Grass is free. Now try it again.”
“Excuse me, Sir, could I tell you something about our fishing trip.” I suppose my teacher did want to hear about my fishing trip (being a fisherman himself), but also figured he should enforce a certain way of addressing teachers and other adults. I have no problems with that. But I’d prefer enthusiasm over Miss Manners’ politeness any day. Try reading the following enthusiastic sentences with breathless excitement.
“Don’t you see that children are God’s best gift?” (Ps. 127:3)
With the wonder of children
“Hey, Mr. Gesch. We saw hundreds of Bohemian waxwings in one of our trees this morning.” [They were attracted by frost-softened mountain ash berries in your yard.]
“Hey, Mr. Gesch, I saw a pygmy owl this morning. It flew into a window but didn’t get hurt; it just went into a tree. I think I saw the fake “eyes” on the back of its head.” [They hunt during the day and get mice, chickadees and house sparrows; we need more of them around dairy farms.]
“So, I told my Dad, that’s not a martin, it’s a tree swallow. Purple martins don’t live here. We have barn swallows, violet-green swallows and cliff swallows here, though.” [We made tree swallow nesting boxes at school. I’m glad he didn’t add, ‘Don’t you know anything, Dad?”]
“What’s this bird that my cat killed?” [It was a McGillivray’s warbler.]
“We saw a raven catch a dove in mid-air.” [Ravens aren’t solely scavengers; they’re mighty hunters and fliers, too.]
“My dad put these moose ticks he found in a jar. May I show them to the class?” [Yich!]
“Teacher, we found these owl pellets under the eaves of an old building. May we cut them up in class?” [Yes, yes, of course, yes.]
“My cat goes out at night and catches these mice with long, pointed noses, but never eats them. Why not?” [They are shrews that emit a horrid smell, sort of like essence de skunk; they also have poisonous saliva.]
“Grandpa, I saw a yellow dandelion, right next to the Terryberry Library, and it’s still winter.” [File under ‘Microclimates’ and ‘Weeds – Beauty of’.]
“Mr. Gesch, Custer caught a baby skunk!” [Custer, the Labrador retriever, did indeed catch a baby skunk, carried it in his mouth, and followed the excited 15-year-boy through the open door into our living room and . . . dropped it there.]
Better the elation than the etiquette. Best of all: the child.
“If my child ever comes home from school ‘turned off,’ as they say, from some area of God’s world, because of an anesthetizing teacher who killed their interest in the good things God made, I fume helpless, pledging to make it up someday somehow.” Calvin Seerveld, Rainbows for the Fallen World.
