What do you treasure?
In an effort to keep my car clean this year, I’ve been limiting snacks and toys during the short journeys between school and home. Crafty boys, however, have already found creative ways around my new car limits.
First of all, they are loud as anything without a snack. They talk over each other and play noisy pretend games that often involve character voices. These voices are also often in the “nails on a chalkboard” vocal range. So, snacks gradually made their way back into the car for my sanity alone.
Second, they have defined and redefined what “bring one toy” means. This morning, for example, they brought out theses books that used to hold a bunch of figurines connected to the book itself but now instead hold their “treasure”.
Each child has their own definition of what “treasure” is. This kid, for example, has a box that contains (among other things) a bouncy ball, a slap bracelet with his school’s name on it, an index card with ten hole punches that he earned in Kinder, some plastic superheroes, a paper cross door hanger he made at school, and a bag of confetti that he got during meet the teacher (the confetti had a purpose but before I could ascertain what it was he had already swiped it away to the treasure box hidden in his room).
Their treasure fascinate me. It’s been a long time since I’ve treasured simple objects like those. They are so passionate about them too. They’ll even fight for their treasures as they demonstrated this morning – yelling at each other for daring to come close or even breath in the vicinity of these precious items.
So what do you treasure? What object or person or ideal do you hold close these days? What would you fight for?
And if there is nothing you can name, should there be?
My prayer this morning is for the clarity to know what our “treasure” is. May we understand what we are meant to fight for and what we are supposed to hold close. My guess is God has some pretty strong opinions on this question, so let’s open our hearts to ask.
