When my daughter was a better Christian than I was.

She's a serious kid

A couple of Sundays ago, I took my five year old daughter up to the indoor playground at the mall. It's one of her favorite spots in Hickory. As far as I know, it's the only free indoor playground in town (if you don't count the cost of cookies and coffee, which of course I don't). It's a small playground, and on Sunday afternoons, it's wall to wall kids. From toddlers to 10 year olds, there are children running, climbing, jumping and playing. And my daughter is right there in the thick of it being her very active, very outgoing, extroverted self. 

What's interesting is watching how these kids interact, and comparing that to how the parents interact, or rather how we don't. The kids were playing, talking, making up games and interacting like mad. The adults though, me included, were reading, playing on our phones and doing our best NOT to get caught up in conversation with anyone else. This isn't really surprising I guess. Kids are less inhibited and generally more sociable than their adult counterparts. But it's worth noting a couple things about this scene.

If Martin Luther King Jr. was right, and the most segregated hour in America is Sunday at 11:00 am, then the most integrated hour is Sunday afternoon at about three. At least, that was the case in Hickory. Here were kids from every major ethnic group, and probably, every major socioeconomic group we have. Here were kids that spanned the spectrum of religious affiliation and at least a couple languages. AND here were kids, caring about exactly none of that. Here were five kids mashed together in a car pretending to drive (and crash). They are laughing and yelling, not worrying about personal space or differing skin tones. Here were two boys playing some sort of hand slap game; neither worried that one kid's clothes are probably worth triple the others kid's (1). Here was joy uninhibited by prejudice, kindness unhindered by judgment, love unmarred by learned hatred. Here, in short, was a glimpse of the kingdom of God.

Here was my daughter being a better Christian than her father, the pastor. Here were, I dare to guess, 20 other kids living out the ideals of their family's faith better than their parents. Here were children acting like better human beings than the adults who are supposed to be teaching, guiding and shaping them.It was encouraging and discouraging all at once. It reminded me that our personal and social dividing walls are entirely of our own making. It worried me that soon we would be inadvertently teaching these kids to build their own walls and stealing this simple joy. There is hope though, because 30 years ago, this scene never would have happened. The city wasn't that diverse, and the opportunities to interact with so many different people from so many backgrounds was impossible. Today's children have a head start in battling their parent's prejudices and can see that those old fears of those who are different are not based in reality. So give it another 30 years and maybe the parents may well be interacting with a similar amount of ease.

Don't get me wrong, my kid isn't perfect. She has moments of brattiness and selfishness. In fact, as I type, we are having a stand off about picking up toys up in her room.And I'm sure that those other kids have their moments as well. But as a Christian, I look for those glimpses of the world to come. I look for ways the kingdom of God is breaking into the world. I look for those moments when God calls us to live differently and shows us a better future. On a Sunday afternoon, in a mall playground, I saw a glimpse of that Kingdom. My preschooler and her new friends showed it to me, and it was wonderful to behold. 

1. I wish I could have taken pictures to prove all this, but as a parent, I knew intrinsically  that a strange little man in a hoodie taking pictures of your child for their blog would...not be well received.