This weeks column: Eyes of a child

Well the first good cold front has hit and I’m a bit excited about it. I’m always a big fan of fall. As far as I’m concerned, it can come twice a year if it likes.
Fall reminds me of being a young and not having a care in the world.
Yes, even I was a child once. Not much shorter, just a lot skinnier.
I remember the piles of leaves in the front yard, the Papa Smurf and Pirate Halloween costumes.
I even vaguely remember a trip to East Texas where I accidentally pulled the hand off a scarecrow and freaked out.
Along with the cooler fall weather, I was also reminded of childhood again last week.
I went and visited Sydney Joyce Skaggs for the first time on Thursday.
She’s right at two-weeks old now.
It’s amazing to think that at some point I was her size. That almost blows me away.
Her parents, B and Sara Skaggs (and her grandparents, aunts and uncles) are all very proud, as you can imagine.
But I began to wonder, “When she’ll lose her innocence?”
I hope she never does, but we all know one day it will come.
I wonder when she’ll join the ranks of sarcasm and cynicism that has overtaken the rest of us.
Where is that certain point where suddenly we lose that childish imagination -- where a light bulb doesn’t fascinate us, or a ceiling fan or us draw us into a trance?
Where do we lose the point where we start doubting, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so?”
When do we stop really believing Jesus is the only answer to all the questions?
And once it’s gone, can we ever go back? Once the world has beat us down and up, and black and blue, can we ever go back to that childlike innocence again?
Right now Sydney doesn’t care who holds her or whose finger she wraps her tiny hands around -- but one day she will.
One day she’ll learn, “Don’t talk to strangers.” “Don’t associate with the ‘wrong’ people.”
And her world of innocence will begin to fade away.
She’ll begin to join the rank and file of the rest of us and then the cycle will continue.
I talked about this with my friend Aaron, who has two wonderful children of his own, Amelia and Wilson.
Amelia, age 3 1/2, hasn’t seen me in several months, but when I visited her last, she exclaimed loudly, “Mommy - it’s my friend!”
She doesn’t even remember my name, but she knows I’m her friend.
And Wilson, age 2 1/2, is always more than willing to come give me a hug every time I show up and lets me throw him as high as I can over and over again.
“The great thing about children is you get to see the world through their eyes,” Aaron said. “My kids do things all the time that bring back memories I forgot I had. I’ll never forget the expression on Amelia’s face on her first Christmas when she opened up a present and saw this big bright red teddy bear.
“I knew I had lost the joy in Christmas years ago as a teenager. But when I saw that face, I had it back for the first time since I was a child myself.”
Oh, if only we could all return to that innocence.
Before our first heartache, our first rejection, our first missed-bill, our first car accident, our first experience with death.
Sydney, Amelia and Wilson have their entire lives before them. And as friends of their parents, I’ll do everything in my power to make the world a little better for them.
And hopefully along the way, I’ll get to see the world through their eyes and remember what it was like to be young again.
“For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, ‘I’m telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom. What’s more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it’s the same as receiving me.
“‘But if you give them a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you’ll soon wish you hadn’t. You’d be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck. Doom to the world for giving these God-believing children a hard time! Hard times are inevitable, but you don’t have to make it worse--and it’s doomsday to you if you do.’” - Matthew 18:2-7