I was probably about four when I first told people that I was “the world’s best friend.” I’m not certain where that came from, but I do know that I have always revered Jesus.  I think of him as my Big Brother.  I still walk and talk with this Brother. 

    I left the University of South Florida after two years.  I wanted to study more about the actual life of Jesus. I enrolled in Toccoa Falls Bible College in Georgia.  It was here that I studied both Greek and Hebrew in an attempt to learn more about the history of Jesus and His personality.  The following story altered the course of my destiny and brought me face to face with a memory of our mission on Earth. 

    In the New Testament there are several accounts of the classic story of Jesus speaking to the multitudes.  The first significant point is that there were multitudes; 5,000 we are told.  That’s an amazing crowd to gather via word-of-mouth.  As an entertainer, I’d love to gather 5,000 people to hear my stories and music.  And today we have the advantage of multi-media resources to help.  The Dude, Jesus, had quite a reputation as a teacher and storyteller.

    In my favorite account, Jesus is telling stories and the little children creep closer and closer to better hear him.  It is this gathering of the children that causes the disciples to rebuke the mothers.  They tell them to “get their children back.” Jesus is furious at His disciples.  I can only imagine that they were very full of themselves.  There they were, traveling with a man who could gather large crowds.  Jesus chose not to rage in the presence of the children, as he had in the temple with the coin changers.  However, he was seething.  In the Aramaic and Greek languages, we have different words to express various intensities of emotions.  Jesus was angry in the temple.  He was enraged at his disciples’ response to the little children.  In the early interpretations of this story, Jesus turned and spoke to his disciples through pursed lips.  “Let the little children come to me, for such is the Kingdom of Heaven.  If you want to understand what I’m saying here, you too will become again as these little children.”  The emotion with which Jesus spoke these words lets us know that he really, really meant what he was saying!

"Become again as little children." The words filled my heart and gave me a single focus for living.

  I would spend my life helping others regain the attributes we had as little children.  I would help all to remember that we are all children together on our beautiful planet.  I would embrace the curiosity, creativity, compassion, love, freedom, and spontaneity of children.  Jesus went on to say that we would not only become again as little children and “believe as children,” but we would, in fact, “be led by children.” 

    I graduated from theology school and went on to obtain a master’s and a doctorate degree.  The focus of my studies was PLAY and Playfulness.  I traveled the world teaching about the Power of Play.  At some point, I left the university and built a beautiful playground in Oklahoma.  I sucked in a big “believing as a child” and left the tenured comfort of university teaching.  My Grand Mother, Grand Father Spirit reached down and held me through passages of stark fear, false pride, vulnerability, surrender, spontaneity, dreaming awake and sleeping, rejection, failure, passions, cancer, abandonment, betrayal, and bliss.  I visioned the possibility of a world at peace, a world playing together via satellite.  I began teaching the world, as I knew it, to play.

   The point of this story is simple.  “Become again as a little child.”  What we call the “unconscious mind” is THE CHILD WITHIN, our pure essence. 

     This child is attached by a silver cord to the All-That-Is.  This little child inside each of us is our walkie-talkie to God.  When we pray, we are like children tip-toeing to reach the counter top of Control Room Central.  Our Creator views us all as children.  In truth we are all “baby girl and baby boy.”  This was what Hawaiian Hooponopono Lomilomi massage therapist, Allen Alapai told me about his grandmother’s teachings.  “Until the day she died, she called herself baby girl.”  Baby girl or baby boy lives in our heart.  Our heart is the heart of a child.  We do not live as children in our heart’s alone.  We have a roommate.  The roommate of baby girl or baby boy is the Giver of our Breath, the Breath of Life, our Creator by all names.  Our roommate is always present and gives us, always, unconditional love.  We are made in the image of God.  It is all in our hearts.  Our job is to open our hearts.  We are here to FEEL! Life is to be felt.  This requires an OPEN HEART.

    The relationship between a child and a grandparent is the most revered and beloved in our family.  We are most like our grandparents.  A peach tree tells the story.  The peach tree gives birth to a child.  It is a peach.  It is nothing like the parent tree.    Within the peach is a seed that gives birth to its child.  This child is like the grandparent tree.  We are the same as a peach tree.  We are most like our grandparents. 

    We must know ourselves to be grandchildren together.  Our Divine Grandparents, The One True Giver of Our Breath, wants us to come together as one family on Earth.  Let us feast together, and sing together, and dance together, and hug each other.  Let us call for a worldwide reunion.  Let us come to the Throne of The Beloved from the place of the “child within.”  Let us leave adultishness, and demanding, and whining and war behind.  Let us stand on our tiptoes at the storehouse of Infinite Supply and offer all that we have in exchange for Peace in our heart, Peace of mind, and Peace on Earth.

    Our child within acts intuitively, spontaneously, trustingly, creatively, lovingly, curiously, and freely.  It requires no logic to act.  It acts in the moment.  It is our “gut feeling,” our intuition.  Name this child within. I call the child in me, Cloud.  Let this child be free to explore and laugh and sing and eat what is healthy and sleep when sleepy.  Let our logical brain sit on the shoulder of the child like a playmate, confidant, and friend.  The child within needs no bosses, only protectors and friends and playmates.

Most people think with the MIND rather than FEEL with the heart. 

   We build walls around our hearts.  We must learn to turn off our minds.  The task seems daunting, but it is not so.  In order to turn off our minds and live inside our heart, we must become aware that our minds are the “thoughts of others.”  Our minds are a collection of the thoughts of mother, father, sister, brother, uncle, auntie, preacher, teacher, etc.  We must forgive these voices and remember that they are, in truth baby girl and baby boy.  They are trying hard to please all the voices they gathered up in their own minds.  We must say “forgive them, Creator.” Forgiveness is relinquishing the need to punish anyone who talks in our heads. The true protocol for our relationship with our Creator is to remember that we are baby boys and baby girls.  We must play, play, play.When we open our hearts we do not get into the flow.  We ARE THE FLOW!

   Our destiny is to cross each other’s paths.  We are to love each other.  In the old Hawaiian way a family sits together and performs the ritual of Hooponopono.  That means that all speak until each is in balance with the other.  This is to put things right with each other.  It is a daily ritual.  We must find ways to roll away the boulders of our hearts and be resurrected into the children that we really are.

The motto of the child within is  “Live the Question, Dream the Dream.”  

  If we are to dance awake the dream of our world at play, a world reunion, we must be lead by the child.  We are all children together.  The Earth is our true mother.  Let us make a circle around our Mother Earth, and sing Her the songs of our youth.  This is the HIGHEST GAME THAT WE CAN EVER PLAY!


P.S.  I’ve just been whisked away in the ranch golf cart to visit Goondock, and be sworn in as an official Gooney.  Goondock is the children’s village here on The Ranch.  Our horse trailer serves as the main clubhouse.  Only Goonies may enter.  The village walls are bound by horse corrals and pasture fences.  Goondock Station has a lookout nest on top and is daily manned by its proprietors....Shane, age 8 and Melony, age 10.  I am proud to say that I am both Sworn To FUN and an official member of  The Gooney Race. 

 

This is the Gooney Oath:
I will never betray my Goondock friends. 
We will stick together until the world ends. 
Through Heaven and Hell and nuclear war. 
Good friends like us stick together like tar.
Whether I’m in the city, country, forest, or boonies,
I’m proud to say I’m a fellow Goonie!

 

To Be Led by a Child © copyright Scout Cloud Lee. For more information about Scout Cloud Lee visit www.gatherinsight.com or click here to email to email your question.