Seeing Down Syndrome

For years, I have helped with our church’s Harvest Festival. This year a woman with Down syndrome came to the festival. She was thirty-one years old, but she looked like a child. She was dressed as a witch. She came to my booth, the beanbag toss. Carefully, she aimed and threw the bags. She was focused and intent upon getting one through a decorated hole in the backboard. She missed most of them, but when one of the bags soared through a hole, she clapped her hands, jumped up and down, and grinned widely. She was a woman with the spirit of a child.

I thought about the words of Jesus, “Unless you become like one of these children, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” What does it mean to become like a child? Does it mean to squeal with excitement? To clap and jump? To grin widely?

Somehow, entering the kingdom as a child speaks of enjoyment in the moment, presence in the moment, full participation in the moment. I want to be a woman with the spirit of a child. I want to participate in the kingdom as it is in the moment. As it is that place of shalom. A place of welcoming, of hospitality, of peace, of presence. I want to be a child in that kingdom.

Day eleven of the Thirty Days of Seeing