Poem September 4, 2017 Issue

Welcoming the children

Robert Tokheim

Who or what exactly are the children that we see?
Is their origin in embryo or in maturity?
Is it just supposititious human life we’re seeing,
Or representatives of God—the very origin of being?

Will we listen as a little child, with hearts receptive?
Will we greet the new and drop the old, the views deceptive?
Will we welcome innocence, and love the childlike thought—
Embrace man’s purity and sweetness, in the way that Jesus taught?

Then let us reach out lovingly to our community,
Enfolding every childheart in sacred unity,
And know that humble guilelessness and consecrated prayer
Enable us to see God’s tender love is everywhere.

Let us discern Love’s precious child in everyone we see.
And recognize what’s always true—for them, and you, and me.

—Robert Tokheim

See Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 582:28–4 and p. 323:32–6.