Lessons From Kindergarten #6

Things I Learned in Kindergarten...well, actually the title should be "Things I Learned While Working in My Daughter's Kindergarten Class on Friday Afternoons," but honestly, that really doesn't roll off the tongue does it?

Jesus was big on children and believed that they had some special insights about faith. Overlooking the fact that Jesus did not have kids, and thus was spared changing dirty diapers and dealing with two year-olds who have just learned the word "no," let assume he was right. I have put my keen intellect to the task and come up with several "insights" about faith that I discovered while working in my daughter's Kindergarten class. Here we go:

#6 There is a routine - it must be followed!
I learned in grad school that young children are concrete thinkers. Was that ever an understatement! There is a general routine in my daughter's class - note the use of the word general. In the minds of many of these 5 and 6 year-olds, however, this routine came down from the mountain with Moses, is engraved in massive stone tablets, and therefore must not be altered. Woe to the one who tries to change the routine! Some of these wonderful children absolutely freak out if the routine is changed. They don't know what to do. A few of them even feel a burning need to remind the teacher that this is not how things are supposed to happen, oblivious to the fact that she is the one who made up the routine in the first place. The look on their faces when they confront her reminds me of Bruce Willis in "Die Hard," a combination of fear and steely resolve to stop the bad guy who altered the routine and return the world to normalcy.
There is an exception - recess. The mere mention of this word brings cheers of joy and banishes any thoughts of routine. Who cares about the routine when you can go outside and play. All hail recess!
Routine is not a bad thing and there is value in having some predictability in life. Yet, faith is not a routine. The point of faith in Jesus is not so we can do the same things, the same way, over and over again. Faith is the celebration of the God who breaks into our lives with that magic word -recess. Recess from being alone, jealous, in pain, self-centered, lost. We are free to go out and care about other people, to let them care about us, to give without fear of losing, to enjoy this beautiful world we live in, to truly be loved.
What is amazing to me is how often we defend the routine and are willing to argue with others that fear, suffering, and self-preservation are the way things have to be. Yet we long for, hope for, need some one to tell us to forget about the routine and that it is time for recess. Know what - that is what Jesus did! So forget about the routine. Enjoy recess. It is a gift from God.