Delight and children go together, perhaps because 'delight' requires a freedom of time and space and person that fades away as we mature. You can see delight in a child's eyes - the butterfly they are chasing, the present hidden inside bright wrapping paper, the candles on the birthday cake. It is not just their eyes - delight energizes their entire body so that dancing and jumping accompanied by a tad of squealing comes as a package deal.
It is more than receiving something nice. It is about the wonder of the beauty and mystery and adventure right before their eyes. Somehow their entire body knows that something amazing is happening right now, so they enter into an experience, body and soul, to be where all the cosmic forces are in harmony.
Somewhere in our growing up we shed our capacity for delight. We probably got smart, learned that dreams don't always come true, worried about looking like fools. But in the process, we gave away those moments when the sheer power of life being lived energizes our entire being. We gave away our certainty about tomorrow. Graveyards were our certainty; gardens but a possibility.
So hear again the words of Easter morn "He is not here. He has been raised." Graveyards have become gardens. Resurrection is a recapturing of our capacity for delight - for trusting that this God of the Universe continues to be 'good' for all the God promises.
To believe is to risk delight in the name of God.
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