The Trolley Car
One winter morning when my son was just a toddler, I could hear him in the living room, talking quietly to his toys, "Where did you go, oh there you are." "No, no, you go here." I heard the clacking of plastic toys banging together, and the soft, "ding-ding" of his Daniel Tiger Trolley Car. When I went into the living room to see what he was up to, I found every character from Daniel Tiger, several Little People, Tow-Mater, and Lightening McQueen all crammed into Trolley. I had a flashback from my study abroad days of riding "the tube" in London during rush hour.
The first thought I had was, wow, if Pixar and PBS characters from different universes can dwell together, why can't we? As an adult, when I play with him, I find myself wanting to keep all of the characters and parts separated. I want the Little People zookeeper figures with the zoo animals, and the Daniel Tiger toys with the trolley, and all of the Cars characters lined in a row. They don't go together. When is it that we lose that sense of imagination? When do we begin to separate people into categories and labels? Such divisiveness must be learned...because in a small child it does not exist. What is it that Christ called us to do, have the faith of a child?
How do we move ourselves beyond fear, hatred, ignorance--to a place of understanding and harmony? There is such separation around politics, religion, the color of a person's skin. There is such pain and misery in our world that goes overlooked--how can we not see our brothers and sisters? How do we regain our childlike faithfulness in Jesus' command to love our neighbor as ourselves? I believe we have to intentionally place ourselves and our interests in places that matter. We must invest our time into engaging people who are different than ourselves. Simply out of respect. Simply for understanding. Simply out of love.
God's kingdom is surely more like Kemper's trolley car than the world in which we live. Perhaps in this season, this is the gift I will pray for...more trolleys.