I think one of the main differences between kids and grown ups is that kids think dandelions are flowers. Go into any home with kids in the summer and you'll see vases and kitchen counters over flowing with those little yellow weeds. Kids have the ability to look at something that is so common and so wide spread, and still see it as beautiful. As a flower, not a weed.
Jesus says that to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven we need to be like a little child. And so maybe we need to start looking at the dandelions and seeing flowers again. Maybe we need to look at blank wall and see a canvas. Maybe we need to see the tree in the backyard as a tower to another world. Maybe we need to look at a stranger as a friend.
We need to see the ordinary as beautiful again.
Because when we see the ordinary as beautiful, something extraordinary happens: everything becomes beautiful. And yes there is still mess and chaos and disaster and hurt and pain and hate and injustice and abuse and evil, but if we're looking through the lens of the child there is more beauty than pain, and more life than death, and more love than hate, and more good than evil. Beauty is greater when we walk into it and become a part of it. Beauty is greater when we see our own smallness and the bigness of everything else.
Let's go find a field of dandelions. Let's lay in it for a while and make animal shapes out of clouds. Let's blow the dandelions seeds into the wind and make a wish. Let's wish for peace and wholeness. Let's wish for love and justice. Let's wish that the name of Jesus would be known across the world. And let's go make those things happen.
Let's walk with Jesus to see how he's already putting the world back to perfect wholeness.
Work in us God,
Help us to see dandelions as flowers.
Matthew 18:1-5
At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me."
