CHILDLIKE ASPIRATIONS

After a busy day in neuro-anaesthesia, with drooping eyes and gas filled lungs, I reached home. I began sipping a cup of tea when our daughter began to cry. My wife had gone next door for some help and daddy was officially on the duty of babysitting. Considering that she was hungry, I offered her milk from the feeding bottle. She pushed it away. I tried to entertain her with music, rattles and lullabies. None of them worked. Her arms were wide open which meant that she wanted to be carried. In few moments, the cry turned to wailing and then to shrieking. I did not want to carry her, more out of tiresomeness and less out of my paternal duty to correct my over pampered kid. She kept on howling as if she had just suffered an injustice in a cosmic scale. I did not budge. I stood right in front of her but did not touch her. Her grandparents and aunts love was only spoiling her. And my wife not being around gave congenial conditions to correct Amitha, our eight month old child. This lasted for around ten minutes. She became tired. Tears were flowing in tiny rivers over her chubby cheeks. With all four limbs in air, she was like a gymnast honing her skills with an expression of melancholy. All through she kept looking at me if I would change my mind. Suddenly my wife ran into the room like a movie hero enters the climactic scene. She picked her up and Amitha’s storm of emotion began to recede.

Alice had to cook. She asked me to take care of Ammu. My wife tried to hand her over to me. Amitha began to weep again. Alice in the mean time explained that our daughter was better than before and she is getting over this habit of being carried. Moreover she was sleepy according to my wife.  I was moved with compassion over my daughter. I felt guilty of being a dictatorial father. I was ashamed of showing my might over an infant. I wanted to cajole her. She turned away from me. The edentulous smile that always welcomed me was gone. She just wanted not to notice me. The more I looked at her, the more she wanted to evade my eyes. Suddenly it dawned upon me that my daughter was hurt. For the first time I saw that she got pained by my actions.

She did not come to me for the rest of the day. In a while, she went to sleep with some banana puree all over her body that she had for dinner. In the mean time, I was filled with both awe and distress that my little daughter developed feelings and those were against me. Have I scarred the psyche of my little one? Will she be the same again? This deep thought pushed me into slumber.

By 6 AM, I was up ready for work. Birds were chirping and cooing around our house singing the morning song. Amitha loves trees, birds and their sounds. She would just see them for hours without any trouble. My wife wonders if Ammu will become an ornithologist of sorts. She woke up by the greeting of her avian friends.

 As I saw her, I shouted in a surge of love, ‘ Ammugadu ! ochey ra ma, ochey ra!’( darling come to me!) . She started kicking her legs on the bed as if she was cycling supine. Breathing fast with a huge smile and screams of joy she looked at me. Her arms were wide open wanting her dad’s embrace. Her anger was gone. Her pain was forgotten. She I think, ignored the cause of her previous day’s pain. She has forgiven her offender. I was moved first by her feelings and now by her forgiveness.

Children amaze us at times. They display qualities that grown up adults find it hard to show. The finer humanness that we ought to bring out is more often seen in kids. Even Jesus talked about it in His teachings. He, talking about the kingdom of God, said that the citizens of that reign would be like children. They would be childlike if not childish. He said ‘unless you become like one of these little children, you will never be a part of that kingdom’. Those words threatened the existing religious system who were considering themselves too important and were buried in protocols to be free to worship God. Jesus looked at children, their innocence, their purity of heart, their complete blind trust, their honesty, their utter dependence,( my daughter has just passed stools and is being washed up by my wife at the time of this writing), their forgiveness and proclaimed that these were the qualities He looked for in men. We were all born with them but lost them on the way. In that sense, children stand close to the Spirit of Christ. There is no shame in looking to them and learning what God intends for our lives.

Imagine a world where husbands and wives forgave more often. A world where we would forgive our enemies and our ruthless forgiveness, if I can call it, transformed them would make our planet a better place to live. There would be no jihads, no nuclear threats, no poverty and no hunger. There would be peace and sufficiency when we learn this art of forgiveness. That would nothing be the Kingdom of God, which Jesus talked about all along.

We always want to grow. Materially, professionally, socially, growth is what we strive for. But Jesus suggested the opposite. Instead of growing He is suggesting us to be kids again. He is asking us to yearn for those tender hearts of kids that get excited and are filled with wonders of this world, that get moved in compassion, that are filled in love. Let’s look at our children. Not in the prism of irritation and pain, but through the lens of God. And through them you have glimpses of heaven.