We have clearly lost something when we are no longer free just to be, when we must always be active, doing some things and refraining from doing others. Something is missing when we have to force our pauses, carve out our spaces, and then feel we have to justify them. As a result, recreation often means engaging in more pleasurable work, not freedom from having to work at all.
--Gerald May, The Awakened Heart
Of all the people I know, my grandchildren are the most free to just be. And when they are with me, they give me opportunity to be the same. In fact, they have a way of slowing life down--way down--and, unless I miss it by insisting that they hurry up and be efficient, they create space for me to just be as well.
It has been said that for us to truly experience heaven on earth, we must become like little children. I've wondered what it is about children that we must become like, and since I became a grandparent, I've come to believe that one of the qualities is the ability to be really present in the present moment. Something we find as adults that we have lost.
It is the simple things that make me happiest now. You have dreams as a young person, you long for this or that experience, and then as you get older you find that one of the greatest pleasures in life is sitting on the back patio with a child and letting the present moment with all its fullness unfold--in conversation, in the sights and sounds, and in listening to the thoughts and observations of a child.
