As Jim Sees It

With apologies to Robert Fulghum, who learned a lot of cool stuff in kindergarten; here are three life lessons I got from my three year old grand daughter last week.

Lesson Number One: Skin color is just skin color.
Sarah has been friends with Karma, a classmate at daycare, for several months. They play everyday, go to the same birthday parties and call each other best friends. Sarah talks about Karma a lot. Her parents know when Karma has been good or put in time out. They know what she wears and what kind of food she likes. The other day, several months into this friendship, Sarah asked her father, “Have you ever noticed that Karma has very brown skin?”

Lesson Number Two: If you have enough, why would you want more?
When Sarah comes to our cabin we spend a lot of time watching three DVD’s. We watch “Happy Feet,” “Charlotte’s Web,” (Also known as “Charlotte the Web”) and we try very hard to a DVD with Ariel, the little mermaid in it but it keeps getting stuck and we never see much of it beyond the coming attractions. After watching each of these around seven-hundred thirty-four times, Kathryn said, “Sarah, we need to get some more movies up here don’t we?” Sarah replied, “Nope, I like these three.”

Lesson Number Three: Why would you want it if you know it’s not yours?
Sarah is puzzled by everyone’s habit of locking the car doors when they go in the grocery store. She pointed out to her mother that “You just have to unlock them when you come back.” Her mom tried to explain that we lock the doors to keep other people from getting in the car and taking it or stuff out of it. Sarah doesn’t get it. “Well, they will see that it isn’t their car and get out and go to their car won’t they?”

Makes me wonder what you think about if you aren’t filing people into categories, worrying about how to get more, and making sure no one takes your stuff away. Would we then be flirting with “blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God?”