The Little Girl As God - A Homecoming Story

Yesterday as I left the homecoming service at the church of my childhood, a little girl came up to me and enthusiastically said, "Look what I made." This wee one, not much over knee high, held up something that I knelt to her level to see.

Covered in a loose plastic sleeve on a sheet of lilac paper were a small plastic frog and tiny fish, a star, a shell and several fall colored leaves. I read aloud the Bible verse at the top: "God saw all that he made and it was good" then I named every item on the paper with such pleasure.

The former teacher in me realized later I should have invited her to name the things in her collage. Yet as one who loves Nature, I was just about as excited as she with her creation. This was the kind of thing I loved as a child. I still feel excitement recalling the tiny planter I made at Easter from an egg shell in which chic weed was planted.. as well as my hand print pressed into plaster in an aluminum pie plate my mother kept hanging above her ironing board for decades.

As I knelt in front of this child I heard myself exclaim, "This is a work of art. Earth is a work of art. You're a work of art." With each statement I grew more excited.

The girl walked away with her family as I felt the gift I had been given. This child allowing or commanding that I see her art reminded me of the child I was and still am. She allowed both of us to experience the heart and art of appreciation.

I wonder how many folks realize what a beautiful work of art Earth and our bodies really are? The beauty to which I'm referring isn't the outer kind but the work of great beauty of cells, blood, breath, lymph and organs working in unison, imbued with consciousness. And likewise all around we've trees, bees and birds, rain and rivers, soil and sun, from bacteria to buzzards all working together on this beautiful planet Earth.

I wonder if God's a child like this happy little girl or at least has her attitude wanting to show and share creation with us. What might shift if we pressed pause for a moment on all our images and deeply held beliefs about creation from the Caucasian, gray bearded elder man God to the Big Bang? What might happen if we could for a moment in that pause, ask ourselves, "What have I done and what am I doing to this home that is body and Earth?"

My intent isn't judge, blame or shame, but to curiously consider how it is that we treat our bodies and Earth.

I wonder at times if whomever or whatever is behind Creation doesn't think: "I should have stopped after that fifth day" or "I knew I forgot something" as he or she holds the switch intended to stop evolution just before humans arrived on the scene.

Personally I could do much better. My pattern of self-care is black and white. I'm either eating healthily, walking daily and living gratefully or I'm on auto-pilot just getting things checked off the list, moving through my day like I'm a machine.

Thanks to the encounter with the little God girl, I pause to imagine a Creator running up to me exclaiming, "Look what I made!"

I want to live from the place I was in yesterday. I want to enthusiastically respond: "Wow! I love it. This is a work of art."

A day later and miles away, I now think, 'There's homecoming every day on Earth whether I'm aware of it or not as creation shares, ripples flow from the appreciative heart and I've the opportunity to come home to who I really am.

What brings you home to you?

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 19 September 2011
dawn@imaginetheshift.com