The children over summer

"Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs." — Mark 10:14

I walked past the fellowship hall this morning after church and the door was open and the room was empty and the chairs were stacked against the wall. Someone had cleaned since the last class. The circle was gone.

I stood in the doorway for a moment and thought about where they all are today. Swimming. Running through sprinklers. Sitting in the back seat of a car going somewhere with a cooler and a towel and a sunburn coming. Being children in summer, which is its own kind of prayer, or ought to be.

I do not worry about them in the summer. That is not quite true. I do not worry about them the way I worry about them during the school year, when I can see them every Sunday and notice who is quiet and who is not eating the crackers and who has started sitting apart from the group. In summer I release them the way I release the garden to the rain, which is to say I let them go and I trust that the growing will happen without me standing over it.

There was a boy in the class this year who said something about prayer that I have not stopped thinking about. He said prayer was talking to someone you could not see but who you were pretty sure was listening. I think about that sentence every time I sit down in the morning with my coffee and my Bible. Pretty sure. The honest place.

I hope he is outside today. I hope all of them are outside today. I hope they are being children, which is the hardest and most important work a person can do, and I will see them in September, and in the meantime I am going to listen for their names the way I told them to listen for theirs.

Ruby keeps a collection of prayers at her kitchen table. You can find them here.