Lenten lessons in a munchkin meltdown
March 6, 2020 at 10:13 p.m.
When you have children, or grandchildren, you can be certain lessons will be abundant and often tied to the latest munchkin meltdown.
Last week it was a box of crayons.
My two-year-old grandson knocked his box off the play table, scattering crayons everywhere.
We worked together to pick them all up, but when we were done, one was still missing. I told him not to worry, it was just one crayon. When I tried to close the box to put them away, the tears started.
“No!” he exclaimed between sobs, attempting to pull the box from my hands, adamant that we could not close the box without the missing crayon. He felt the incompleteness of it. It was Just one crayon, but one crayon that counted.
His meltdown came on the heels of an assignment for me to write about the 2020 Census. The purpose of the story was to explain why it’s important for everyone to participate, and to highlight how faith-based entities are offering programs to educate and assist hard-to-count populations so they may participate.
One of the people I interviewed was a prominent program director. When he was done emphasizing the importance of all citizens participating so that crucial programs would receive the funding needed to help meet the needs of each community, he offered another simple yet profound statement which was his bottom line.
He said, “The most important reason for everyone to participate in the census is because everyone counts.”
He was saying emphatically that everyone matters, everyone has an inherent dignity that gives their life importance.
When I replay those two words in my head – everyone counts – I struggle with what I see and hear every day, on the news, in my community, in the supermarket parking lot. It’s obvious that, for many, not everyone counts. For some, no one counts more than them.
This is not what Jesus taught us. He modeled love, compassion, empathy, mercy, forgiveness and unity. He prayed for it and offered parables as lessons. For me, some of his most powerful lessons were about humility. He said, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself with be exalted.”
He reminded the host of a dinner: “When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors …. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you.”
After writing the census story, and remembering my grandson’s insistence that every crayon in the box was needed, I had to ask myself: “Who counts in my life?” beginning with my family and expanding out to my friends, the broader community and other countries.
One answer came from paying attention to the posts I skimmed over on Facebook. It was a hard reality to face.
Making personal change can be hard, and we may not know where to start. When I get stuck, I pay attention to my grandchildren.
Jesus held children up as an example for the disciples to follow, mostly because of their humility in relying on their mothers and fathers. They are an example to every disciple of the need to rely on God in all things.
But being who he is, I believe Jesus was well aware of the inherent wisdom in children, and their ability to remind us that, even in a box of 64 crayons, every single one counts.
Mary Clifford Morrell is the author of “Things My Father Taught Me About Love,” and “Let Go and Live: Reclaiming your life by releasing your emotional clutter,” both available as ebooks on Amazon.com.
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When you have children, or grandchildren, you can be certain lessons will be abundant and often tied to the latest munchkin meltdown.
Last week it was a box of crayons.
My two-year-old grandson knocked his box off the play table, scattering crayons everywhere.
We worked together to pick them all up, but when we were done, one was still missing. I told him not to worry, it was just one crayon. When I tried to close the box to put them away, the tears started.
“No!” he exclaimed between sobs, attempting to pull the box from my hands, adamant that we could not close the box without the missing crayon. He felt the incompleteness of it. It was Just one crayon, but one crayon that counted.
His meltdown came on the heels of an assignment for me to write about the 2020 Census. The purpose of the story was to explain why it’s important for everyone to participate, and to highlight how faith-based entities are offering programs to educate and assist hard-to-count populations so they may participate.
One of the people I interviewed was a prominent program director. When he was done emphasizing the importance of all citizens participating so that crucial programs would receive the funding needed to help meet the needs of each community, he offered another simple yet profound statement which was his bottom line.
He said, “The most important reason for everyone to participate in the census is because everyone counts.”
He was saying emphatically that everyone matters, everyone has an inherent dignity that gives their life importance.
When I replay those two words in my head – everyone counts – I struggle with what I see and hear every day, on the news, in my community, in the supermarket parking lot. It’s obvious that, for many, not everyone counts. For some, no one counts more than them.
This is not what Jesus taught us. He modeled love, compassion, empathy, mercy, forgiveness and unity. He prayed for it and offered parables as lessons. For me, some of his most powerful lessons were about humility. He said, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself with be exalted.”
He reminded the host of a dinner: “When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors …. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you.”
After writing the census story, and remembering my grandson’s insistence that every crayon in the box was needed, I had to ask myself: “Who counts in my life?” beginning with my family and expanding out to my friends, the broader community and other countries.
One answer came from paying attention to the posts I skimmed over on Facebook. It was a hard reality to face.
Making personal change can be hard, and we may not know where to start. When I get stuck, I pay attention to my grandchildren.
Jesus held children up as an example for the disciples to follow, mostly because of their humility in relying on their mothers and fathers. They are an example to every disciple of the need to rely on God in all things.
But being who he is, I believe Jesus was well aware of the inherent wisdom in children, and their ability to remind us that, even in a box of 64 crayons, every single one counts.
Mary Clifford Morrell is the author of “Things My Father Taught Me About Love,” and “Let Go and Live: Reclaiming your life by releasing your emotional clutter,” both available as ebooks on Amazon.com.