What is a child?

Here's a poem I read some years ago. I've just come across it again in my summer reading, and I thought I'd reproduce it for the benefit of my readership... i.e. for all two of you!!!

What is a child? It's worthwhile being sure,

For their outlook - not ours - he called mature...

Describe a child, then. Simple? Passive? Gentle?

A widespread view, but not one that's parental!

Yes, partly true - but most sentimental.

Those who've had children know they're pioneers,

Tireless seekers hungry for ideas,

Questioners, ready to learn and solve and find,

Committed, energetic, quick of mind,

They trust, they love, but don't use love or trust

As an excuse to sit, grow dull and rust...

If their imaginations are more clear

Than ours, is it not possible they hear?

More clearly too? Are spiritually quicker

Than many a teacher, youth leader or vicar?

May they not hear the voice of God and shout it,

While we get on quite nicely, thanks, without it?

They may not have the knowledge we possess,

So the Holy Spirit has to shift much less

In terms of intellectual debris

Than perhaps he might with you. Or you.

Or me.

From the video Children in the Way, NS/CHP, 1988. Cited in Dallow, G. (2002) Touching the Future, Oxford: The Bible Reading Fellowship, p. 82.