Pope Benedict XVI wrote that liturgy should be "the rediscovering within us of true childhood, of openness to a greatness still to come, which is still unfulfilled in adult life." The child at play is an image for the kind of openness to life that adults should cultivate--that, in fact, the liturgy is trying to help people discover. In church I am seeking my true childhood.

Our healing will not come in a divine grace that reunites us, bringing you back into my womb for us to live by one wholly integrated will. My grace is to wait, to love you through the detours your life takes, even if you travel far from me; to be present to you in hope and prayer; and to bring you near Love by reflecting love to you. I can help birth your will into freedom and goodness chiefly by being reborn into such freedom and goodness myself.

In fact, play is how humans have found their place in the world over millennia. Play is what gives birth to much of human culture: storytelling, meaning-making, art, ritual, and religion. Through play we learn to be human. Through play we learn to worship.

That you are not mine to possess, that you are not mine to craft and shape, that you are a gift to me, means that you can also be a divine presence to me. When you call to me in your need, that is God's call to me as well. The space I give you to grow and flourish becomes also the space for my own growth and flourishing.

If one movement of mercy is in hoping for its own diminishment, another must be toward its own expansion. The way of charity that the child calls us to--that you call me to--is a way that constantly magnifies, not because your needs multiply but because you call me to be open to the needs of others.