A boy's wisdom

My apologies for having been preoccupied outside the blogosphere for a week or so. I've had to work (perish the thought) on some overdue articles, been driving kids to new camps, and wondering if I can make my free-lance work pay. I have to say that I'm very impressed by those of you who spend so much time in blogworld. When do you find time to do anything else? Perhaps some of you don't have kids. When I have time alone, which I do when the kid's dad has our two delights (they are delightful, most of the time), I suddenly feel the void not filled with their maturing attempts at humor, their arguments, and their questions. A couple of nights ago I was upset about something and my little Colin (well, he's a big almost nine year old) asked me why. "It's my job to make you feel better when you cry," he said seriously, his blue eyes sparkling in his freckled face. "No, it's not," I responded quickly, determined that he's not going to develop into a guy who feels he needs to look after his mother because she can't do it herself. No child should feel that kind of responsibility. "Your job is to be the best person you can be." Then he said, with the matter-of-factness that I treasure "Maybe if you tell me what's bothering you, you'd feel better, like I do when I tell you what's on my mind." I threw my arms around his solid frame (we're a tall clan) pulled him up onto my lap. He'll allow me to do that when no one else is looking. Sometimes I wonder that God allowed the enormous gift of children to someone so deficient in organization, and patience, and affection for Cartoon Network or DisneyWorld. May His grace work in spite of my shortcomings, heal the wounds caused by my sins, both of commission and of omission, and lift my kid's spirits with love and laughter when it is most needed. Would that some of the love and laughter were present in The Episcopal Church right now. We adults aren't always as good at laughter as kids are. Somewhere along the road we lose the sense of how funny we really are. We're pretty rotten at showing mercy...surely, given how self-righteous we all can be, wrath ought be the last weapon in our arsenal. But it is the one we seem to use most frequently (maybe its right behind self-pity). Why, I wonder? Could it be....Satan?