Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:

Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!

When I was four, I was told I couldn’t play in the church anymore.

Actually, that’s not quite true but it sure seemed like it.  The pronouncement came by way of a note I was not yet old enough to read.  My friend and I found it on the shelf in a basement closet of the Presbyterian church in Wooster, Ohio, the same shelf that we had been happily making into our secret hiding place.  Oh, we were having such fun!  Crawling up there was half the joy, and decorating it was almost as good, filling it with all kinds of knick-knacks from home.  My dad was pastor, we lived in the manse next door, and the lines between home and church were happily blurred.  Until the note.

It was placed on the shelf on top of all our fun, and we raced across the alley to show it to mom.  She read it and said it was from the janitor and he didn’t want us playing there anymore and we had to remove all our treasures.  I was heartbroken.  We took everything away, mom helped us I think, but the note also took away my feeling that church was a fun place to be.

How many times have we done our best to take fun out of the church?  Now, I know church is supposed to be much more than a fun place.   A thin place comes to mind, from the Celtic tradition, where there is little separation between heaven and earth.  Have we ever been that place?  What about a sacred place?  That sounds a little more manageable, and I hope we are.  A safe place works, too, as we offer respite in a frightening world.  Education, worship, music, and fellowship . . . yes, yes, yes, and yes.  All have a place in the church.

What about a welcoming place?  Where we can be ourselves and experience some joy?  Maybe where we can find an old basement closet and make it our own?

I hope we are.  Because our children notice when we’re not.  They know what makes them feel at home and know when they are not wanted.

Jesus understood children.  We see this in our story this Sunday when adults are arguing about who is the greatest and Jesus brings a little child into the midst of them.  He didn’t ignore children, as they often were, nor did he tell them to keep quiet and stay in their place. He welcomed them right to the center.  “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”

Churches across the land don’t have as many children as they once did.  I wonder why.

It just may have to do with the kind of note we write.  I received a note over sixty years ago that didn’t want me there.  But I stayed, probably because my dad was the pastor and I was expected to be there, part of the family duty.  But not everyone has stayed.  Not many, really.

How much better it seems to me that we start writing a different kind of note, all of us, to our children.  Tell them how much we love them.  Cherish them.  How we want to listen to their ideas.  Learn from them.  Call them by name.  Smile when we see them.  Tell them their presence makes our day.

I can imagine God writes notes like that.  I would sure love to receive one, especially if it mentions that I might get my shelf back.

Grace and peace,

Harry