Adventurous
Been awhile....
My 4 yr old daughter, Audrey (the adventurous one) came to me from the playground crying a few weeks ago. I asker her what was wrong.
She said "I hit my lip."
I asked "How?"
She said "I was going down the slide ......
on my belly....
on top of Gwen (her 7 yr old sister)....
backwards....
and I hit my lip."
I decided that all those things violated her "insurance" policy and I told her that if she played that way she could expect to hurt her lip. (Btw, she was fine and there was no blood.)
This stuck w/ me, not because she was hurt but because of the reckless abandon that she played with.
I wonder. In God's world do we play that way. Caution to the wind. Devil may care. Not thinking of the landing but of the launching. How many opportunities to change our world are never realized because there is the chance that if we live that way we might bloody our lip?
I think it's true that if we play that way, in the end, the bloody lip doesn't matter.
Oh, and by the way, when I told Audrey that I didn't take complaints after play like that, she stopped crying, said "Okay.", and went outside and did it again.
My 4 yr old daughter, Audrey (the adventurous one) came to me from the playground crying a few weeks ago. I asker her what was wrong.
She said "I hit my lip."
I asked "How?"
She said "I was going down the slide ......
on my belly....
on top of Gwen (her 7 yr old sister)....
backwards....
and I hit my lip."
I decided that all those things violated her "insurance" policy and I told her that if she played that way she could expect to hurt her lip. (Btw, she was fine and there was no blood.)
This stuck w/ me, not because she was hurt but because of the reckless abandon that she played with.
I wonder. In God's world do we play that way. Caution to the wind. Devil may care. Not thinking of the landing but of the launching. How many opportunities to change our world are never realized because there is the chance that if we live that way we might bloody our lip?
I think it's true that if we play that way, in the end, the bloody lip doesn't matter.
Oh, and by the way, when I told Audrey that I didn't take complaints after play like that, she stopped crying, said "Okay.", and went outside and did it again.
This entry was posted
on Friday, October 29, 2004 at 10/29/2004 11:36:00 AM.
You can skip to the end and leave a response.
I love the phrase you used, "Not thinking of the landing but of the launching."
When I flew model radio controlled airplanes, I was often cautioned by the elder pilots in our club, "Taking off is optional, but once you do, landing is mandatory (in one piece, or many pieces)"
The cliché, "What goes up, must come down" takes on a whole new meaning when you are that freefalling "what," instead of some Newtonian apple.
I agree... if we thought more about the landing (and possible crashing), maybe we would review our pre-flight checklists a little more carefully!
Actually, I kind of admire my daughter for just that perspective. I remember when I was young I used to be just like that.
I used to play the game Red Rover (Quick Red Rover lesson - 2 lines of kids facing each other w/ linked hands. One team will call the name of a kid from the other line. The 'called' kid would then have to run and break through the line that called him or he would have to switch teams. This went on until everyone had been moved to one team.) I was the shortest kid on my block so invariably I would be called first. But I had a stretegy. When I ran towards a pair of grasped hands, trying to break them, I didn't just 'run' into them, I launched. I learned that it was very difficult for 2 kids to remain hand-holding when 2 knees come down on them w/ 90 lbs behind them. I loved Red Rover.
What I haven't mentioned is the landing. My landing was something I just never planned for because I had something to accomplish 'mid-air' before I could think of landing. So I typically made landing preparations in .5 - 1.5 seconds I had remaining of airborne time after I had broken apart the linked hands.
This produced some glorious landings. Maybe not for Olympic judges but for me. Not in their beauty but for the fact that I was elated as I landed that as soon as I could stand again :) I would get up and run back to my team because I had approached that line w/ (in some ways) reckless abandon.
I just think that the doors we close because we think too much about the landing and not about the playing are myriad. I think I'm at a point personally where I feel like someone's called me out and dared me to break their line. So no my question is, do I approach it the safe way (so that I don't get hurt) or the mad way (airborne and leading w/ both knees).
d4l3
» Post a Comment