Happy Sunday,
Iβm sitting here at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and Iβm staring at the baby monitor, watching our daughter (Jordan) play in her room β¦ and Iβm in awe.
Much love, enjoy the day.
Glenn || PATREON / BUY ME A COFFEE
In Matthew 18:3 Jesus says that unless we become like little children we won't be able to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Kingdom of Heaven, we've said elsewhere, isn't a place that we go to when we die but a state of being that can exist in the here and now. It's a way of living and being in the world that makes this life more like the next, earth more like heaven, the heaviness of our days much lighter.
And we usher it in by ...
The way we live in the world.
The way we move through the world.
The way we act.
The way we speak.
In other words, with our words and actions and being in the world we have the power to make earth more like heaven or more like hell and here (in Matthew 18) Jesus tells us that to make our world more like heaven we need to become like children.
Since I've had the opportunity to spend more time with Jordan over the last 18 months or so of working from home, I've noticed something remarkable about her. And it's something that I used to notice in myself, too, but that I lost somewhere along the road of growing up and becoming an adult.
And what I've noticed is her spontaneity, the fact that from morning until evening she has no plan, no agenda, and very little of her day mapped out in her mind.
The night before we always talk about what we might want to do the next day ...
Go to Halloween City (we went every day for about 2 weeks).
Go to the bookstore.
Go to Starbucks.
Etc.
... but when she wakes up in the morning and I watch her on the monitor in her room I sit in awe as she goes from one thing to the next with no real agenda or plan in her head.
And then when we come down for breakfast she may want to eat while she ...
Plays dolls.
Or does a puzzle.
Or watches Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.
Or colors.
(Everyday it's different.)
... and then after she eats her breakfast she may want to go for a walk or keep playing dolls or go outside on the swing set or play in the sandbox or kick the soccer ball around or lay on the bed and cuddle with our cat or send mommy a video at work or fill up the sink and pretend it's a pool for her dolls.
This goes on and on for the rest of the day until we hit bedtime and it's time to read books and relax before we brush her teeth, sing some songs, and drift off to sleep.
She's spontaneous all throughout the day because rather than make a plan of what she wants to do and when she wants to do it and make a list of goals she wants to accomplish (like the rest of us adults) ... she just follows her heart and does whatever she wants to do, whenever she wants to do it.
As we grow up, though, and have goals and things we want to accomplish ... we lose that, right? Some of us lose ALL of that spontaneity while some of us hold on to SOME of it, but we all lose at least a portion of it along the way as we develop goals and agendas and plans and schedules and all sorts of things. We map out our days, we map out our lives, and then we get up the next day and do more planning and more mapping and more goal setting.
And there's nothing wrong with that, mind you.
I wouldn't have earned my doctorate or started the What If Project podcast if I didn't have a goal, if I didn't make a plan. I wouldn't be able to stay home with Jordan as much as I do or have the podcast and my social media gigs as my "job" if I didn't spend a lot of time setting goals and then working the plan to make them happen.
Goals are good.
BUT.
So is spontaneity and so is following your heart in the moment.
Right?
That's what Jordan has been teaching me lately, anyways, and as I watch her play and move from one seemingly random thing to the next I can't help by think of Jesus' words in Matthew 18 and wonder if we have the power to bring heaven to earth when we do less planning and more following our heart in the moment, less rigid schedules and more spontaneous living.
Yes - perhaps following our hearts, the place where the Divine spark lives - moment to moment throughout our days and being attentive to that voice inside ... perhaps that's the key, or one of the keys, to making the world around us more like heaven.
And so I'm trying to add more spontaneity into my days and may even start something where on Saturdays or Sundays I do "Spontaneous Saturday" or "Spontaneous Sunday" where I wake up and do whatever I please for the rest of the day with little to no planning because perhaps if I carve out time to intentionally listen to the voice inside ... I don't know ... perhaps I'll become more aware of it in the midst of my planning and schedules and agendas and all the other adult-stuff we all need to contend with on a daily basis.
Who knows.
Oh and I know some might label that as a "Sabbath" ... please don't give me the religious jargon or triggering phrases. I'm not talking about a Sabbath day or a day of rest, I'm talking about developing a habit whereby we follow our hearts more and more and more throughout our days in an effort to resurrect our inner child, live from that childlike place, and make our world more heavenly.
Much love and more coffee.
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