To Read Only Children's Books

To read only children's books

To cherish only children's thoughts.

All grownup things to disperse far away

And to rise from a deep sorrow.

Osip Mandelstam 

trans. Dmitri Smirnov

This past week I began re-reading the Odyssey, in Robert Fagles magnificent translation.  As I've been reading, I've been reminded that my initial introduction to Homer was not so much textual as visual.  

As a child I was fortunate indeed to have come across the Golden Book Illiad and the Odyssey that immediately captured my imagination.  Even as a child, (or perhaps, particularly as a child) I must admit, many children's books seemed to me to be, well, childish.  Either clumsily drawn and painted, cloyingly sentimental or both.  More what the illustrator thought a child should want to look at rather at than what a child would actually want to see. 

But this book was different.  

Superbly illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen (not that at the time I paid any attention to who the artists were),  I was immediately drawn-in. I was enthralled by the wonderfully vibrant and dynamic line work and bold, expressive painting. 

By the flawless page composition . 
 

The large folio format of the book. 

And as a nine-year old, I loved the charioteers and heavily armored warriors with swords and spears fighting each other.

   

Inevitably, I suppose, beginning with the death of my sister, I learned more about deep sorrow than I'd ever thought possible.  I had to quickly put away children's thoughts.   

But that child's book which I was reminded of again this week, I continue to cherish.  

The God Who Suffers With Us

The inexplicable mystery of God, revealed in Jesus, is of a God who bears our burdens, laments our sorrows, who suffers with us, living and dying in silent solidarity with the poor and the powerless, with a love that is stronger than death itself.  

Confronted with the merciless violence and hatred of this world, His only weapon is mercy, kindness, friendship, forgiveness and sacrificial love.  He invites us to live and to be like Him, as best we can given our frailties, failures and fears.  

What we celebrate in just a few more days at Christmas is that He chose to be born as a child as vulnerable and needy and defenseless as these children evacuated from Aleppo earlier this week.  It is in their need and that of the millions of refugees who have fled this or so many other wars that we must seek Him, bind His wounds, comfort and console Him, welcome Him and give Him shelter.   

Despite the past six years of civil war in Syria and the pitiless destruction of Aleppo, I continue to believe that the merciful, meek, persecuted and peacemakers are truly blessed.   Despite the cynical triumph of the power of depraved and relentless violence this week, I believe that darkness will not have the last word, in our world, in that tortured country, in our hearts, now or in the future. 

Come, Lord Jesus.