“I don’t want to! I don’t have to! You can’t make me!” I probably said something like this as a child. I know I’ve heard children say things like this all my life. A child will promise you anything if it means he can get his way. Many adults even promise they will do this or will not do that, if God grants their prayers. In 2016, I heard a future president say, “I would like to promise and pledge…that I would totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election if I win.” I’ve been trying to understand this kind of thinking. I keep returning to a piece of ancient wisdom, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” A child turns over the checkerboard, throws the cards in the air, or stomps out of the room when he loses. A man graciously concedes. A child shouts, “It’s not fair!” A man says, “I did my best.” It seems to me living without principles other than “anything for a win” is childish, and dangerous.
I once criticized a friend-of-a-friend on Facebook for his childish reasoning and I was unfriended for it, so I realize accusing people of acting like children can get me into trouble. So, I’m not accusing anyone of acting childish. To be clear, I’m accusing everyone, including myself. We all do this. We all have a solipsistic streak. Like little children, we naturally tend to “look out for number one.” Yet, we still think it’s important to look out for others. We even give people awards for doing so. When a nun spends her life serving the poor, she wins a Nobel Prize. When a soldier throws himself on a landmine to save his platoon, we posthumously award him a “Medal of Honor.” Wouldn’t it be wonderful to live in a world where people just act like adults, becoming good Samaritans when they see a need, rather than trying to “win” at every opportunity. That friend-of-a-friend proposed that we bomb Iran and make the sand glow. Yet, when I asked, “what next, after we kill millions of innocent people and start World War Three?” I was expelled, but not the child. That’s how pervasive childish reasoning can be.
Humanity is in a sense held hostage to our desire to get our own way, to win at any cost. Dictators have sold their visons of utopia – national greatness, religious dominion, building an empire, founding a thousand-year Reich – based on winning. And all these visions have been products of childish reasoning, accepted by children, acted on by children. Unfortunately, when children have access to guns and bombs, not to mention propaganda and political power, the end game of childish reasoning is often horrifying. If the millions who suffered and died could talk, perhaps they would plead with the rest of us, as a parent pleads with a toddler, “please stop and think about the consequences.” My mother used to ask, “How would you like it if somebody did that to you?” “Do unto others” requires adult reasoning. “Do this or else” only requires the mind of a child.
We are in a race against childish people, including ourselves, the self-absorbed, who reason and act like winning is all that matters. As adults we need to think about what we might win. Proverbs 11:9 cautions, “He that troubles his own house shall inherit the wind…” After all the winning is over, will this be our epitaph? A scene of humanity in ruins and a few children shouting, “we won?” We must decide what we want. Do we want to give in to our childish impulses or live up to our name, homo sapiens?” The verse goes on, “…and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart.” We have two alternatives: become wise or inherit the wind.
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My most recent story, “The Meek Shall Inherit…” is based on a dark thought. Together with “And a Little Child…” and “In a Twinkling…” this story completes a “COVID-19 Trilogy.” These stories are my way of coping. In short, writing has kept me from going completely insane. I don’t plan to dwell on the dark side further, but who knows? As long as the Doomsday Clock stands so close to midnight, there are thousands of predictions to explore. If you’ve read this far, you can take some solace in the fact that the future will be what we choose it to be. Like Dickens, all any author can do is throw a little light on a few shadows.
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