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Good morning.

They say that having children keeps you young. If you ‘re listening to this after another exhausting broken night, you might disagree!  But there is something about a child’s way of seeing the world that keeps giving us new perspectives on life.  They continue to surprise us with their own kind of wisdom. 

A poem called Hagia Sophia by the 20th century monk, Thomas Merton, picks up the idea of wisdom’s childlike, playful character:

Sophia, the feminine chid, is playing in the world, obvious and unseen, playing at all times before the Creator. Her delights are to be with the children of men.  She is their sister.

There is a deep wisdom in playfulness, as I’ve found throughout the last 3 lively weeks of festival in Edinburgh.  Sometimes, we need something other than our sombre, calculating, reasonable mind in order to see a way through an intractable problem. Our sense of play can offer solutions that logic may not be able to see. Where cynicism narrows our options, playfulness can open them up by releasing our curious, creative mind and taking away the elements of controlling self-assertion or of fear that can so easily cloud our judgement. And when Jesus said that we must be childlike in order to enter the Kingdom of God, perhaps he meant something like this innocent spirit, free from ego, self-forgetting and open-hearted.  

Holy, playful wisdom of God,

Creative Spirit who delights to be among us;

Open our minds and hearts to the possibilities of life.

Awaken in us a childlike spirit -

Open, curious, free and unselfconscious –

That we may enter your kingdom of joy.

When we face anxiety today,

Or when we feel the weight of our responsibilities,

Lighten our hearts and free our minds from the burden of care.

Amen.