The Child Spirit

I love this photo... I grew up in the same area as the girl in this photo. Her dad was my bishop when she passed, around the time I was diagnosed with cancer at age 12

Today I read a 145 page book, cover to cover.
It is called "Honoring the Child Spirit" by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach in conversation with Michael Jackson...This book was so amazing! Let me share some things that I highlighted while reading this book.

"So many of us lose that childlike innocence. We go from being big-hearted, big minded, to being small-minded, petty-minded? How do we get trapped into believing innocence is bad until we squander our natural treasures, our natural childhood, and become what everyone wants us to be? One of your gifts, Michael, is that you saw early that adulthood has two sides. It can be mature and wise, but it also can be an empty suit, the embodiment of ruthless ambition and the wrong values."

SB: "After all the hatred that has been shown you, it hasn't corrupted you in any way? You have never felt bitter? people become cynical adults because sometimes the scars of the world sink in and the pain corrupts them internally. They cannot afford to remain naive and innocent. The world has taken advantage of their innocence. So they have to put their dukes up in order to protect themselves. How did you rise above that? ---
MJ: "For me, I rise above that because I believe in the truth. I believe in children-- in becoming childlike again."

SB: "You want to empower people to hold on to their child nature and childlike spirit, don't you? It seems that adults start out really big and get smaller. They get diminished through all the pain and trials of life. They start sweet, sweet as kids, but they begin to sour. When a fruit gets detached from a tree, in the first few days it's okay, but then it begins to wither. Kids are so much closer to that natural source, aren't they, and they're therefor sweeter. But how do we teach adults to reconnect so that they don't decay-- so they don't become more materialistic, bitter and forlorn? Not some sort of fictional fountain of youth but some source of nature and paradise they can find on the inside. The fountain of youth is always there. And you believe that you've tapped into it. So you need to lead people to its source. We have to identify how adults lose that Godly nature as they grow older..."

"Our minds create our world. Our thought processes create what we get in life and become. We just forget. I am not saying we just forget. We are created in His image and if you are created in my image, its like looking in the mirror."

"It is what I say is the difference between jealousy and envy. Jealousy is not a bad thing, we think jealousy is a bad emotion. Jealousy is an act of possessiveness to claim what is rightly yours. The problem is not jealousy but envy. Envy is where you want to have that which belongs to somebody else. So jealousy makes us zealously guard the integrity of our relationships. Envy makes us desire someone else's possessions or relationships and live permanently lusting after that which is not ours."

"Love and fear are opposites. The quintessential posture of love is to extend yourself, to expose your soft underbelly. When you hug someone you literally create a space within yourself for someone else to exist. You make yourself vulnerable. But the quintessential  posture of fear is the very opposite. Its to draw in your extremities, to bring in your arms and your legs to protect your torso. With love you expand, but with fear you contract, you devolve back to an embryonic state."

"So, if God is light, to use that metaphor, whereas adults build these barriers that block off the light and the get dark, children are translucent, with no  conscious barriers between them and the light. Gods light shines through them unobstructed."

"Why do we care what other people think about us? Because we grow more insecure as we grow older, we want people to approve of us? Why are children more secure then adults? They are secure because they are connected to the source. And as you become more and more detached, we feel the light sort of diminish inside us and now we need other people to shine their light on us."

So, this book helped me to recognize fear, and how becoming Childlike, as the Savior invites us to do, will help us heal from fear to accept love into our hearts. I know that I want to become more Childlike so I can let go of the things I hold onto in my life that hold me back.

"Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."
--Matthew 18:3