Fresh off the plane from Calgary and a few days with some very special friends, our daughter’s client needed her doula care, so in blew our sweet Gabrielle for a few days of blissful play!
The decor changes from Arts and Craftsy/Country Living to Romper Room and we clear the decks for tea parties, forts, pretend restaurants with pretend friends that include Salmon-gone, Salmon-salmon and Baby Jackson. Babooshka joins us when Lamby is in town and it’s storytime between the bed and the wall. The setting is humble but the conversation is rich fare. 
Gabrielle already shows signs of the gift of teaching and learning. She communicates with a vocabulary and pronunciation that makes it easy to engage for hours upon hours. 
Imagination and play are her work and I find unspeakable joy in coming alongside, for the sheer pleasure of the experience. It’s ‘real time’!
Yesterday I embarked on a learning adventure of my own, every bit as playful and full of imagination as my time with wee Brie. I have been a student of theology for nearly 3 years but this is my first Regent College on-campus course. My program requires I take a certain number of credits on site and so here we are. My husband and I are now residents of the City of Vancouver, apartment dwellers, transit frequenters until the wet weather of deep fall descends.
My prof, Gordon Smith, told a story about his granddaughter’s discovery of her independence; striding on the face of the earth, as he put it. There was an emotional surge in his voice as he talked about the joyful witness of what’s been happening from the beginning of creation, in the life of his wee beloved. Walking upon the face of the earth. Taking it all in. Fully human. No threat to the Creator as she finds her way in the surroundings with which He has gifted her.
Maybe this is what Jesus means when he says we are to be as children before him, imaginative and playful. Engaged with him in discovery. Striding upon the face of the earth in all the freedom he has intended for us since the beginning of humanity.
“Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus; Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free; Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me; Underneath me, all around me, is the current of Thy love.” (Oh, the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus)
