I think I may have touched upon this subject in past columns, but I feel that, in light of certain recent events, it bears reiterating. Now, I’m not the world’s most religious person, and might even appear to some to be downright pagan in my unreasonable worship of trees and nature. But, on another note, I have always liked the biblical passage that exhorts us to “become as little children.” The exact passage includes the caveat “unless,” which gives me pause. Unless what, I must ask.

As adults, we often think that it is beneath us to marvel openly at the wonders that exist in nature and that children find so delightful ”“ a frog jumping into a pond, a bird singing from a branch, a caterpillar inching along, squirrels chasing each other around, or a snowflake landing on a mitten. Perhaps part of the secret to resolving some of the world’s ills lies in our being able to reclaim that lost child within each and every one of us, and returning to that place of simple delights and fascinations. I don’t know, I’m no great philosopher, but it seems to me that if we all focused more on the good and simple things, we might, we just might, have a chance to conquer the bad, or at least to weaken its hold upon us.

And there is so much out there in the world that, sometimes, I just wish I had more time to see it all, to take it all in, and to appreciate the myriad processes at work beyond our collective field of vision and that are nothing short of mesmerizing. The more research I do, the more amazed I am at the intricate web that is this thing we call life. I am not speaking here of the heights to which the human species can rise, or the depths to which it can plunge without warning. Notice sometime the fact that children do not concern themselves at all with these things, so caught up are they in the process of absorbing the world around them, a world in which all things are new and wondrous and intriguing. I am talking about the millions of things that go on unseen by most of us and whose surface we merely scratch when we see something like a hummingbird drinking nectar or a raindrop slide off a leaf.

Do we ever stop to ask ourselves just why any of this happens and what other events or causes might lead up to what is visible to us? The debate between the theories of evolution and creation aside, sometimes I just gasp to think that any of them simply happened over a long period of time, intricate, complex and indecipherable as they all are to the untrained eye. At the very least, I always experience a renewal of my respect for the processes in nature, most, if not all, of which got us all here one way or the other.

And then, I return to the crux of the issue, which is whether or not I should even concern myself with the why’s and how’s, or should I simply be, like a child, entranced by their obvious beauty? For isn’t it the thinking part that, while it can and does often lead to good things, also often gets us into trouble? Might it not be preferable to simply walk this life’s path, brushing our hands across all the soft things growing alongside it, rather than try to figure out how they got there? But isn’t all that, too, part of the childhood experience, the freedom to ask questions and to wonder? First and foremost, though, must come that wonderful, innocent time when there are no questions to ask or anything at all to wonder about. There is just something beautiful to look at right in front of us, to smile at and take delight from, and if only we could look and look and look at it forever ”¦

Sadly, there are far too many little children, among others, who are no longer capable of doing this, so let us, shall we, do it for them. Let us thrill to the wonders around us, absorb them in childlike innocence and then turn to each other in a spirit of peace to share the excitement of the moment. Let us laugh at a kitten’s antics and toss bread crumbs to hungry pigeons, allowing ourselves the shiver of delight when one creature accepts food from another. Let us tilt our faces up toward the falling rain or snow and toward a star-strewn sky where wishes may very well come true for all we know. And let us begin each day preparing a small place in our hearts and minds to hold all the impressions of the wondrous things we’ll see or experience as we become again, if only for a moment, “as little children.”

— Rachel Lovejoy, a freelance writer living in Lyman, who enjoys exploring the woods of southern Maine, can be reached via email at rachell1950@yahoo.com.