Article June 6, 2005 Issue

LOVE THE CHILD IN EVERYONE

By Mary Trammell

PARENTS, children, wives, husbands, friends, neighbors, co-workers, even fellow church members—we've all wondered just how to do it. How to love each other without waffling under the stress of circumstances. How to commit, as the master Christian said we should and could, to a level of caring so totally spiritual that it transcends every conceivable kind of barrier—political, social, racial, gender-related. A love that cuts even across enemy lines.

Maybe the answer isn't all that complicated. Maybe committing to pure, irreversible love for anyone and everyone is something so simple that even a child can do it. And can teach other people how to do it, too. Actually, just a few weeks ago, an adorable set of three-year-old triplet girls taught a whole planeload of us traveling from Fort Lauderdale to Boston, something very special about true spiritual love.

The triplets, dressed in the kind of ruffly pink dresses that little girls love to wear, entered the cabin crying inconsolably. A tearful debate followed over which of the girls should sit in which of the three seats this family of five had purchased, in the row just behind me. The problem seemed to be that only two laps were available (Mom's and Dad's) at any given time for the three children. And so any way the dear, endlessly patient parents tried to arrange the seating over most of the three-hour flight, one or the other of the triplets was left wailing and kicking in her seat with no lap to sit on!

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