Jasper’s choice

Tuesday, May 3, 2022 (Feast of Saints Philip and James, Apostles)          

(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)

Jasper’s choice

I say to you that whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father.

Jasper sat up in the far corner of the big bed where he naps with Margaret. The room was dark, but I could see the hallway light in his eyes. He was smiling.

Jasper is always smiling, actually.

He said, “Grandpa, can you get my ladder?”

I went to get his ladder, but by the time I got back he was sliding off the bed. His foot caught the board on the side of the bedframe, and he looked up at me. “I guess I don’t need the ladder, Grandpa.”

He went back to his construction site on the two foot high folding table. Yellow excavator, yellow bulldozer, yellow skid steer, yellow dump truck. Jasper talks to himself, and although his words aren’t that clear, I think he’s building a road. Sometimes he talks, and sometimes he makes engine noises. He’s very clear with those. Growwwwrrr!

I think Jasper makes good choices in his young life. He nearly always chooses to say, “Yes.” He accepts direction, and he settles into most situations without difficulty. Until recently, he tried any food we gave him, and liked almost everything. Lately, he seems to be eating mostly apples and grapes. His eyes light up often.

And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

Occasionally when we speak to him in a strong loud voice (usually when we are afraid for him somehow) he shuts down. You can watch it happen. What might exaggeratedly be called paralysis rolls down his body – all silence, not sullen, but broken-hearted. Of course seeing that breaks our hearts too. But apology is not really the point. Jasper’s autonomy is being tested, and now he has another moment within himself to decide if he is still OK, he is still “good.”

This is not easy for him. His confidence in himself is only just now taking root. Erik Erikson describes the task of Jasper’s “terrible twos” developmental stage as learning “self-law” or autonomy, while at the same time learning to recognize and reject false (though it seems so real) shame.

Freedom of choice

There is no choice to be good

because we are, period.

Created in God’s image.

Sustained in Love’s tender care.

Divine at our core.

We are good.

There is no choice about that.

 

The choice is whether to claim one’s goodness,

to accept that we are loved no matter what.

The choice is whether we ask for help

to accept the truth more fully.

The choice is whether to do good

knowing that it earns us nothing,

yet at the same time liberates us in joy.

These are our choices.

 

Jesus, I choose to beg for your help

that I may more fully accept your love of me

and that I may more fully accept the good person that I am. – Clarence Heller

We rejoice when we’re with Jasper and Miles. We are made larger when they are jumping up and down, loving life, and saying so. In Reflections on the Psalms C. S. Lewis wrote, “Delight is incomplete till it is expressed.” Oh, yes. For us too. Lewis describes being in “perfect love with God – drunk with, drowned in, dissolved by, that delight which flows out from us incessantly in praise.”

Give God the glory,  and thank you Jasper and Miles for teaching us so well.

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one come to the Father except through me. And if you know me, then you will also know my Father.

(1 Corinthians 15, Psalm 19, John 14)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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