Safe

Nancy and I were recently at a wedding for our friend Jenn. It was a hot summer day in Colorado’s Ridgeway state park, in a little amphitheater overlooking a picturesque lake with the Rockies towering all around. Idyllic is too weak a word. 

The picture doesn't do it justice

Sometimes, Jenn can run a bit… late. This day was no different. So Nancy and I had lots of time to chat up the other guests. After a bit a lady walked up with her two little girls, maybe 8 and 5 years old, the youngest shoving popcorn in her mouth like a chipmunk who’d just finished a 40 day fast.

The girls were bright, beautiful and played easily together as mom had duties taking pictures. What captured me was the engagement of the youngest. She sat close to me and talked to me like I was the nice uncle who lived next door.

She talked about her toys, games, the popcorn she was eating and the ants who were dragging away the pieces she dropped. At some point she became fascinated with my floppy camo hat. She took it off and put it on. She put it on Nancy’s head. She put it on the lady sitting next to Nancy. Then the next lady. Then the guy next to her.

Now, it’s pushing 90 degrees and I’ve been wearing that hat all afternoon. I sweat like a glass of ice water. I was a bit anxious about her putting my hot hat on the heads of perfect strangers, many of them women who I know spent more than 3 minutes fixing their hair for a wedding.

But here’s the deal, she wasn’t anxious at all. Nor were the people she was trading the hat with. No one scolded her. Everyone laughed and sat patiently with it and waited until their turn was over. I sat and watched in wonder.

Here was a little girl, uninhibited by the strangers around her and unafraid. She was a girl raised in safety.

The world is not a safe place. Some of us learn quickly, people can cut us. Sometimes our bodies, sometimes our souls, but the lesson is the same, people can’t be trusted. She had yet to learn the lesson. And it was more beautiful than the scenery surrounding us.

She was inhibition free. Unconcerned with what was proper or improper. Why? Because somewhere deep inside she understood, “This is a safe place. This is a place where I can be me.”

For so many that's not true in the Church. And that's heartbreaking. And I wonder for how many, that's not true of me.

True safety is found in strength and vulnerability. The power to refuse the floppy hat. The willingness to embrace it.