There by the grace of God am I. No I didn’t misquote, I rewrote. The original quote, is from a mid-sixteenth-century statement by Christian reformer and martyr, John Bradford, “There but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford”, in reference to a group of prisoners being led to be execution. John saw that with a simple twist of fate, he could have been one of the prisoners or the guard tasked with leading the men to their death. It was an insight whose truth and words lived on beyond John’s times, one that not only was astute at the time, but foretold of his martyrdom under Queen Mary.

 

On my way to the prison today I noticed a small child from our neighborhood. My husband and I walk the three miles around our block most mornings and we had initially met him and his mother while he was waiting for the school bus on his first day of kindergarten. He made quite an impression. His enthusiasm for school bubbled over and the smile on his face and in his voice reached out and touched my heart. I remember asking Kenny as we walked away, where that enthusiasm for life, for all of this glorious life, went as we aged. It was a question that inevitably led to a discussion as we walked together about the fear we pick up as we bump headlong into life.

 

When I saw the little boy on his bike today it was the first time I had seen him on a two-wheeler without the training wheels. I also noticed something else. He was wearing a bike helmet. Now that by itself wasn’t a surprise. It is illegal to ride in our state without one. Somewhere between the first day of kindergarten and today, a mere 1 ½ years, he had lost a bit of his spark. It was obvious in a subtle sort of way. I sensed that he was beginning to fit into the boxes, the ones designed to keep us safe—not straying too far from home, making certain to get off the road as cars approached, learning the rules of the road, and wearing the appropriate gear to keep him safe. At first glance – all the right things.

 

As my car took me further from the moment I found myself transported back to my childhood of helmetless bike rides. I was often barefoot to boot. How did I survive? I rode my bike everywhere in town from an early age. Even though we were more than a few blocks from school I rode it back and forth most days, through the cemetery and past the strange man’s house along the way. Most of us would say that I grew up in a time of less crime, of less to fear. If you look at the statistics you will find that just isn’t so. I didn’t live in a world where there was less to fear; I lived in a time of less fear.

 

Being a good parent though, we wouldn’t dare consider letting our children walk or ride their bikes any distance to school. Something could happen. The number of parents we see on our morning walk, hurriedly rushing past us, sometimes almost running us off the road, on their way to drop off their children at school is testament to the fact that many parents prefer the safety of delivering their tots to the school’s front door rather than allowing them the experience of riding a school bus.

 

As parents and as members of society it might be wise to wonder about what gets lost in translation, what freedoms are stifled, what creative thirst for life is quenched in our pursuit of safety. When we don’t feel the aliveness of the wind in our hair or experience the scrapes and scratches and broken arms of growing up what will replace that exhilarating sense of engagement? What is the loss to imagination—oh what creative stories I told myself about that odd little man. It was perhaps the beginning of a career in writing. What is the loss in adaptability? A broken arm forced me to join the majority for a time and learn to write right-handed.  Besides my 15 seconds of fame, I learned lessons about persistence and overcoming doubt that without the falls may not have materialized.

 

Children today are no different than us. They still need to fully experience life in order to learn and grow.  Our society is being set up more firmly each day to protect and defend us, slowly or perhaps not so slowly, diminishing our ability to evolve and dimming our lights. Sounds like a great rationale for a victim scenario doesn’t it but, wait a minute, who is this society? Society is each one of us collectively. We choose what to believe and how to live our lives. We choose whether or not to lead lives fully out loud and wildly alive or to acquiesce to the fear surrounding us. Our doubt about what our best course of action is, what to do or say, stops us.  

 

I had tea a few days ago with a dear friend. We laughed and talked and caught up with each others lives. I don’t remember how we came to the core question but there it was, “How do I know what is true? How can I tell if what I hear is my mind making things up or if I am actually listening to a higher voice?” My answer, gleaned from years of study, was that the divine voice is inspired. It is never based in fear. It is always based in love—in possibility, learning, curiosity and openness. It is a platform for growth and discovery, the discovery of our Oneness with all that is, the foundation for all-encompassing compassion.  The more empty we become of ego, the clearly we will hear.

 

As our compassion grows we begin to see that we could be anyone had our paths or birth taken a different path, said another way, had God’s hand written a different story for us. This awareness is a big step, and yet it is a baby step in comparison to what is possible.  When we unclog our minds and hearts of the accumulated fear we realize that we actually are each and every person on the planet, the good and the bad, those like us, as well as the one’s in opposition. What would change if we were intimately familiar with that possibility? What if instead of my observing the little children on our streets we realized that we were them, that by our decisions, by what we placed our belief in, we determined the level of happiness, joy and connectivity each child encountered, ourselves included. What if instead of choosing to trust fear we began to trust ourselves and each other. What could change? Who could we become? Wouldn’t it be worth a few scuffed knees or broken hearts to sustain and nurture that young boy’s natural enthusiasm and zest for life?