Waving to Strangers
In my part of the world, there is a well-loved local amusement park named “Oaks Park” that has been running for almost 120 years. I myself have many happy memories there; playing mini-golf with friends, riding the Tilt-a-Whirl with a boy for the first time, and laughing at my sister, Zena, on the skating rink (for the record, if Frankenstein had a baby with a penguin, it would move a lot like Zena does on roller skates.) It has been fun, as a mother, to bring my children to this same amusement park where I spent so many of my own carefree, young days, and they love it as much as I do.
The kiddos and I recently took a trip to Oaks Park to support a friend whose school band was performing there, and after the concert, we explored the park to enjoy the rides. My youngest, Gesumina, who spent the first four years of her life eating, sleeping, and breathing “Thomas the Tank Engine”, insisted we ride the Kiddie Train around the park about 7,000 times, so we did; boarding the little train over and over, riding in a loop around the grounds, and waving like maniacs to everyone we passed by.
There seems to be some sort of unwritten rule about amusement parks, that adults who are normally compelled to be stoic and reserved out in the “real world” are allowed to smile and wave gleefully at perfect strangers as long as they’re aboard a carnival train. And the funny thing is that the strangers almost always smile and wave back. It’s as if all the adults have silently agreed that, within the safe confines of the amusement park, it’s ok to let our guard down for a while. We have permission to abandon that polished, sophisticated, grown-up façade we work so hard to maintain and just experience the joy of being childlike and silly.
As we rode around the park waving at strangers and feeling that little ping of giddiness every time they waved back, I thought about how hard it is to hate someone when you’re being playful together. Silliness creates a bond in people, a happy one, that has a surprising power to override the differences that might otherwise estrange us. When I smiled and waved at people I didn’t know from the train, I wasn’t thinking about whether they were the same religion as me, or wondering who they voted for, or whether they support the same causes I do. I just knew that they were there at the same amusement park as me, feeling lighthearted and silly, and if only for a moment, that alone was enough to unite us.
Kids are masters at this kind of unity. I have always marveled at how my children can so effortlessly find playmates everywhere they go; at the playground, or the beach, or the zoo, they somehow manage to recruit all the other small people into having fun together. There are no prerequisites for friendship, no discernment about what kind of kid is the “right” kind of kid to play with. It’s enough that they all happen to be shorter than the grown-up people and they all want to be silly. Playing together creates an instant connection through joy, and it seems to me that people who are full of joy have very little room leftover for hate.
I wonder if Jesus, who had a radical affinity for children, noticed this too. In Matthew Chapter 18, as the disciples are quibbling about who will be the greatest in Heaven (typical grown-up thing, right, to be competing for status, even when we’re dead), Jesus directs their attention to someone unexpected:
“And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them, and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:2-4)
Jesus was pointing us towards something important here. Children, their hearts so full of mirth and laughter, are much nearer to the kingdom of heaven than we grown-ups, whose hearts are so weighed down with division and malice. Perhaps there is great wisdom in mimicking the ease and deftness with which children so effortlessly create bonds through play, without first pausing to consider if their playmate is “worthy” or not. I wonder if a shared experience of joy is the first step to disarming our enemies, and ourselves?
I’m starting to think that our big grown-up world with all its big grown-up problems could benefit from a visit to the amusement park. We can ride the scrambler together, and I’ll buy you a cotton candy.
