5 Minute Reflection #14.04: Messages To A Time We Will Not See

This post is a little different than most of mine. It's not like an essay with a beginning, middle and end. Instead it is a collection of thoughts and images about children. In some cases the ideas are familiar. In some cases, the contrast between one image and another is jarring. Most who read this are in a position to make a difference in the life of at least one child. Draw your own conclusions about what that means.

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"Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see." John W. Whitehead

"Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you." - Khalil Gibran

Children are the future of civilization, or humanity, or whatever you want to call it. Without a future, civilization is without purpose. 

"It is more than existence and reproduction - it is about living - there is a joy to existence and children enrich the experience - we are all social beings and gather and interact well beyond the exigencies of existence - there is a nurturing side to us that relishes sharing our inner selves." - D. R. Guzmán

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Mumbai (The Guardian)

"God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them." - Bono

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"A person's a person, no matter how small." - Dr. Seuss

"How is it that something so simple as a baby's smile can just make my heart want to burst?" - Tamara Ahmed

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More than a million Syrian children are refugees.
Photograph: Nabil Mounzer/EPA via The Guardian

"The Syrian children refugee crisis is an embarrassment to humanity."- Harry Tucker

"One father in Zaatari (Lebanon) refugee camp was so worried about the safety of his daughters he made them stay in their tent for the entire month they lived in the camp. Noor, 13, and her sister passed the time playing with rocks." - The Guardian

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Photo courtesy Tamara Ahmed

What do we see when we look at a sleeping baby? A totally dependent, totally trusting human being, a reflection of the position of every one of us enjoys before God when we acknowledge Him.

"People brought babies to Jesus, hoping he might touch them. When the disciples saw it, they shooed them off. Jesus called them back. “Let these children alone. Don’t get between them and me. These children are the kingdom’s pride and joy. Mark this: Unless you accept God’s kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in.” (Luke 18:15-17 The Message)

The difference that you make in the life of a child today is the message that you send to the future.