Theology for the Infant Soul

Dear Fagin,

We went to Trader Joe's yesterday. Bert looooves Trader Joe's. He gets to push his own tiny cart (like a maniac) and have little sample snacks and juice. Even the tiny cups in which the juice is served are a treat. Do your kids do this, too? Or maybe you don't let all three little boys push their own cart? Ummmm... especially the two-year-old? I can just see it... his tiny finger pointing like a general, "MY. CART!"

Anywho, back to the point. Wait a minute, I can't remember the point... ah yes, there it is. It came to me again today that I am often like a child with a cart. Except I'm in some scary huge big-box store and I can't see over the handlebar. I think to myself, "I've got this. No problem. It's even kind of fun...". I crash around with abandon a lot of the time. I bump into things, mumble an apology, and go the other way. Then I crash into something else. I get side-tracked by juice and treats. I get distracted by huge signs advertising quick fixes and great sales. I forget what I came to buy.

I am a moron.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the idea of pushing my own cart, a cart filled with all my own ideas and dreams and feelings and wills, is ludicrous. Like the rapper. It's kind of laughable. I can't even see where I'm going sometimes, except when I look behind me. And a lot of the time looking behind me doesn't help much because I get discouraged by all the wreckage and debris I've left in my wake.

The truth is, I'm not big enough to push. I'm not smart enough or good enough or strong enough. I don't know the way. I don't know what I'm supposed to be putting in the cart. I don't know what I should be leaving behind... and I shouldn't be helping myself to all the juice I want! Because really, I think God wants me to let Him lift me up to the seat. To not throw a tantrum when the control is taken away. To look at things from this new perspective... to be carried. Up there I can see. I can see where He's taking me (at least part of the way), I can see what He's putting in my cart, and most of all I get a great view of his Adorable Face. Sometimes He lets his Lovely Mother push me around. And she is so beautiful! She smiles all the time, even when I yank things off the shelf and make a huge mess. Sometimes she gives me juice.

Being in the cart is so much better than pushing it. True, sometimes He walks out of sight, and it's then I know He wants me to climb down and push by myself for a little while. Man, it's hard! And I ought to be glad when He's ready to take over again. I'm ashamed to say sometimes I'm not. Sometimes I wrestle. Sometimes I throw one of those nasty public tantrums and arch my back and kick as He tries to put me back in the seat. And He lets me. He won't fight me to the point of taking my will. He just waits patiently until I realize that it's dirty on the ground, and there's something gross stuck in the wheels of the cart, and people keep tripping over me.

Do you see how this analogy could go on forever? He is so good to teach me in ways I can understand! I think He just wants us to remember that He is here. That our carts don't have to weigh us down the way they do. That they may never be less cumbersome, but that with His help we will fly along the way!

You know how it feels when you push your cart in the parking lot, and get up to a jog and then jump on and coast? You know the look on your kids' faces when you do?

Be the kid in the cart! In this life it doesn't get any better than that.

love,

Hook