Nativity Catholic Church
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Put Me Down! Every once in a while, when the “little lambs of God” start to get restless in the middle (or beginning!) of Mass, I’ve heard the disturbing refrain rise above the solemnity of the Liturgy: “PUT ME DOWN! I don’t want to be held!” This little ditty out of the mouths of babes is not “disturbing” because it breaks my concentration during the Eucharistic Prayer nor interrupts my waxing eloquent during a homily, but rather because it makes me want to stop and say to the little types: “Don’t say that! You don’t know what you’re asking for!” When I hear their cry, I want to leap from the sanctuary and firmly, but gently explain to them that there will come a time when they’ll be so desperate to be held, so full of need for love and warmth and affection that they may not be able to find it in any satisfactory way. So often each of us simply needs to be held closely by someone, to be loved in the most tender and gentlest of ways, to know deeply that we are important enough to someone that they are willing to draw us to themselves in an intimate embrace. So often this desire burns within us like a fire, yet so often many people spend their days never realizing a quenching rain upon that blaze. So many people go to bed each night feeling unloved, uncared for, and devoid of the kind of human touch that boldly says: “You are loved!” At times, I suppose, we believe that the “adult” thing to do is to go it on our own, make it by being strong and independent, “tough it out” through any lack of affection and intimacy that we may experience. Even when others try to reach out to us in a compassionate embrace, we may find that we are yelling back at them, not unlike the toddlers in church: “Put me down! I don’t want to be held!” When we find ourselves doing so, we are as foolish as these little ones—but at least for them, they don’t know any better. Sometimes we play this “grown up” game with God. In a host of ways, through words and actions, we often are saying to God that same thing: “Put me down! I don’t want to be held!” We assert our independence from God’s arms and try to go it alone. Sometimes, in our struggle with God, we may even try to make a bigger scene than the two-year-old wrestling with dad in the church pew! God wants to love us so much—yet it seems that we find ways to move away from that love. One of the most tender images of God in all the Old Testament is found in the writings of Hosea the prophet. In chapter 11, Hosea offers and utterance from God, who speaks of the “childhood of Israel”:
When
Israel was a child I loved him….
I fostered them like one Hosea knew the people’s struggle with wanting to go it alone, and it appears that God is all too familiar with our demand to “put me down! I don’t want to be held!” During this Lenten season, I wonder whether or not we will hear and see God’s attempts to take us up in God’s arms, to draw us with loving cords, to raise us up to God’s smiling cheeks, and to wrap us in God’s loving embrace? I wonder if we will allow God to be intimate with us…or whether we’ll join the chorus of our children: “Put me down! I don’t want to be held!”
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