From the Editors January 2, 2012 Issue

Shelter the childlikeness in you and others

The Editors

A frequent drama plays out on the stage of the African savannah. Several different “deer-like” species gather on the plain to graze—Topi, wildebeest, Thompson gazelle, impala, and Grant gazelle. As lions approach in the distant grass, a Topi and a wildebeest round up the herd of assorted animals into a large oval, and post themselves as sentinels at each end. On the side opposite to the approaching lions, the animals are ushered away—mothers and young first—in an orderly exit. The two presiding sentinels are last to leave. 

“All nature teaches God’s love to man . . .” wrote Mary Baker Eddy, who established this Sentinel to stand watch over thought for the benefit and salvation of mankind (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 326). It, too, watches out and watches over the world to prevent attack, to save and cherish God’s most precious creation, to coax human thought to rightful freedom. And the fact that nature evidences the preservation of the little ones and those who nurture them, teaches us to preserve the spiritual quality of tenderness and childlikeness in our young, and in all of us. Attentive daily prayer for the thought of the world, beginning with our own thought, forms such shelter. 

The great value of innocence, purity, meekness, and wonder is diminished by the encroaching effect of materialism. Spontaneous joy, expectation of good, receptivity to all that is lovely, characterizes the child of God. These qualities are too easily dismissed in the quest for worldly success, accumulation of material assets, and intellectual or social sophistication. This sort of disregard for that which has enduring value, at its worst eventually evidences itself by viewing children as property, and even as sexual objects, shortening the sweetness of childhood and its perpetual contribution of goodness.

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