Jun
16
2020
The Way A Child Sees The World
Posted in Daily Living 2 Comments
My daughter and I went to the drive-thru of our favorite coffee shop.
It is ironic for me to go to a drive-thru of a coffee shop, since I have never even tasted coffee.
I have no desire to even try it.
Tea is my drink of choice.
This particular coffee shop is also a bakery.
This particular coffee shop has an ice cream parlor next door.
When I go to the drive-thru with my daughter, I always order the same thing.
I order a strawberry-banana smoothie.
As we drove in that morning, we saw people sitting outside at the cafe tables.
I smiled as I saw my other daughter sitting with two friends.
Each of these young women have children of their own.
This particular morning they were by themselves.
They were excited to see us.
They waved exuberantly.
We did not have time to stop and sit with them.
My daughter, who is working remotely, had to get back for a meeting.
One of the young women came around the building to meet us.
She ran towards us with a wide smile, waving all the way.
I have something for you, Mama G, she said.
She ran past us and went to her car.
She came back holding a book I gave to her a while ago.
But I gave this to you, I reminded her.
It helped me so much, she admitted.
Now, pass it on to someone else who will be blessed, she said sweetly.
She stood next to my daughter on the passenger side of the car.
She walked along with us as we crept forward to the window where we would place our order.
It was so wonderful to catch up with her.
It was so good to hear about her three little daughters.
Our conversation went to the state of our country.
The pandemic, the murder of man, the violence in the streets, has broken our hearts.
It is difficult to raise small children when everything is swirling around all of us.
It is so hard to know how much to say to them.
Her oldest daughter is in second grade.
She is intentionally careful about the exposure to things that are happening.
We admitted that each of us is grappling about how this is happening.
There is so much hatred and anger.
It is not that we are keeping our heads in the sand.
We are very aware of what is going on in our country.
We just cannot fathom how there can be so much division.
She told us a story.
My girls have best friends that are from Jordan, she began.
Her daughters are fair skinned with light, blond hair.
Their friends, in second grade and kindergarten, have dark skin and dark hair.
It doesn’t matter; they are friends and that is all they care about.
This young woman is careful about the minds and hearts of her little girls.
Her daughters could never imagine that kind of hatred.
Friends are friends, no matter what they look like.
Even at this young age, they see the heart, not the outward appearance.
This young woman told us another story.
It was a story shared by the other young women at the cafe table.
Before the shutdown, when she was able to go to the gym, there was a sweet woman in her class.
One day, while walking on a local trail with her daughter, they saw that woman.
The two women smiled at each other, talked for a few minutes, and walked on.
The daughter of the sweet woman I know so well, recognized the other woman.
The young mom asked her daughter how she knew it was her.
She thought she knew what her daughter would say, since the woman is black and they are white.
I know her because she has the same shirt as you, her daughter said.
It was not her skin color that made her recognizable.
It was that the woman and her mommy had the same gym shirt.
I was touched by the story of this little girl’s innocence.
I think many of us can learn a lesson or two from these children.
Harriet Glickman, a mother and schoolteacher wrote to cartoonist, Charles Schultz.
She wrote to Schultz after Martin Luther King’s assassination.
She asked Charles Schultz to include a black character in his beloved Peanuts comic strip.
Schulz first expressed concern that if he created a black character, it would come across as patronizing.
Schultz wrote to Glickman saying, I would be very happy to try.
He knew he would receive criticism, since segregation still existed in 1968.
The president of the comic’s distribution company expressed concerns.
He worried about the character’s effect on Schultz’s popularity.
Schulz replied to the president’s concern.
Either you print it just the way I draw it or I quit. How’s that?
So, in 1968, Franklin Armstrong was added to the Peanuts cast of characters.
History was made.
The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7)
Lord, help us see the heart of a person.
Help us see a common shirt instead of a different color.
Enable us to call someone friend when they don’t look like us.
Help us see others as Jesus sees them.
I am delighted that Franklin Armstrong was added to the Peanuts gang.
It was an important first step back in 1968.
Today, in 2020, we should be so much further along than we are.
Lord, let it begin with us; let it begin with me.
Thanks for sharing this. Someone always has to be the first one to do the right thing. I also appreciate how Charles Schulz included the gospel it has Christmas program.
Yes, Paula, someone always has to be the first. How wonderful that A Charlie Brown Christmas is seen every year and the Gospel is proclaimed.
Gina