As I write this it is almost midnight and one week before Christmas. I am up so very late because I have been listening to a recorded lecture entitled “True Self, False Self” by Father Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest and spiritual teacher. I commend it to you. However, what I am writing about is not theology or spirituality per se, but about love.

You see, my wife, Pam (also known as Nana), and I have had our twin grandsons at home for this week before Christmas and I have just had one of the most profound and deeply spiritual experiences of true and pure love in my life.

Pam and the boys had gone to bed about two hours ago while I sat listening to Father Rohr’s lecture. Just as the recording ended I removed my headphones and heard one of the boys crying in the bedroom. I went to check on him and found Patrick sobbing through a congested nose and throat while his Nana rocked him and tried to comfort him. Since he had just awakened he was almost panicky that he could not breathe (a feeling I know well since I grew up with asthma as my nightly guest). I asked him if he wanted some medicine and he immediately crawled across the bed and into my arms. So, off we went to the dispensary where he received a dose of pediatric cough syrup and decongestant.

However, it is only here that my story begins. In case you have not noticed in these columns I am a doting and devoted Grandad. Therefore, after the dose of medicine, which my trooper took with gratitude, Patrick and I retired to an overstuffed rocker/recliner in front of the fireplace where the miracle of natural gas fired logs burned brightly in the light of the Christmas tree.

We settled into the soft leather, and as he sniffled and snuggled his way into the crook of my shoulder I kissed the top of his head and whispered, “I love you, little boy,” to which, without raising his head, he signed back to me “I love you” in American Sign Language. I was aware that he knew the sign since we use it frequently when we Skype the boys via the computer, but the absolute trust and innocence of that gesture from a three-year-old who was sick with a head cold broke my heart and reduced me to tears as my precious grandson drifted back into a satisfied and contented sleep.

Oh, how much we have to learn from our children!

Jesus tells us without apology in Matthew 19:14 that the innocence and trust of our children in the love of parents and grandparents is the model for the love that God has for each one of us – “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.”

He also warned us in Matthew 18:3-5 saying, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”

One of the primary metaphors that Jesus chooses to teach us about God’s relationship to us and our relationship to God is that of the loving parent and the innocent child. In teaching his disciples how to pray he defines that relationship in the first two words of what we call The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9 and Luke 11:2). He tells us to address and approach God as “Our Father,” but the word he uses is the Aramaic word for “daddy,” which in Biblical Greek is “abba.” This is not a God removed and dispassionate, but an Abba who is deeply in love with his children and who wants us to be deeply in love with him.

When we take all these child/parent metaphors and examine them with our hearts the one thing that is abundantly clear is the openness and innocence of the child-mind (what is sometimes called “beginner’s mind” in spiritual disciplines). It is in the child-mind we most readily receive the love of our Abba and learn Abba’s ways, knowing his absolute love and acceptance of us.  Therefore, when we set aside our egos and our preconceived or conditioned responses to God and simply open our hearts and minds to the unconditional love and acceptance of God as our divine, loving, and perfect daddy we will begin to know divine love and peace.

Jesus underscores all of this in Matthew 7:11 when he says, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” Flawed as I am, if I can love my grandson so deeply and completely then how much more does Abba love me (and you!).

By Michael Doty