November 24, 2003
Children
My old friend and mentor Canon P D Quirk lives in one of those long-time neighborhoods that’s gradually getting a new lease on life. Families with children are moving in, remodeling their houses, and most of all, the environment. There are children everywhere.
We were having coffee and a Danish in our local bookstore’s comfort zone the other day, as we often do, when he asked, “Don’t you think it’s altogether possible that kids were different during Jesus’ time than ours?” He’d never married, but did have a few nephews and nieces that were all grown by now. I was not accustomed to his ever talking much about children. He went on.
“Looking around and watching most kids behave like they do nowadays and recalling Jesus saying they’re what the kingdom of Heaven is like just doesn’t make the idea all that attractive anymore.” Then he recalled one of his favorite theologians. “Mark Twain always said that if Christ were here now, there’s one thing he wouldn’t be, and that is a Christian.”
“Children are quite probably the reason,” said Quirk. “Kids must have been different then. Nowadays, they’re hardly civil and don’t change all that much for a couple of decades. Otherwise,” he continued, “why would the Church need to waste so much time and spend so much money on what is rightly called Youth Work? “