All I Really Need To Know......

I found out recently that one of my favorite books is having a birthday. "All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten" by Robert Fulghum turned 25, having first been published in 1984. If you haven't read it, now's a great time to try it. As a matter of fact, anything by Robert Fulghum is a treat. He also wrote "It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It" (I love that title) and "From Beginning To End" where he details taking a day to sit in a lawn chair on his gravesite and contemplate the view. I think I'll pass on that one. Frankly, I don't think the view is going to be all that important.

Anyway, back to the birthday book. Fulghum says, "All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school." Now there's a guy who wasn't educated beyond his ability to learn! Here are a few of the things he learned in kindergarten that still apply as an adult:

• Share everything.
• Play fair.
• Don't hit people.
• Put things back where you found them.
• Clean up your own mess.
• Don't take things that aren't yours.
• Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
• Wash your hands before you eat.
• Flush.
• Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
• Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
• Take a nap every afternoon.
• When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.

Makes me wonder how much better off we would be if we just kept it simple. We're not happy with anything until we've complicated it beyond recognition. Take Christianity, for instance. The Bible is pretty clear (at least, to me) on what being a Christian is and is not. A lot of the stuff in Fulghum's list is in there, too. But we complicate it with things like rules and lists and denominations and doctrines and labels. Not to mention, we spend way too much time discussing all the things that don't matter. I don't think God really cares if the hymns we sing were written 200 years ago or last week. Or whether we're standing up or sitting down when we sing them, for that matter. And I don't find any reference about whether the disciples had their hands raised or in their pockets (assuming they had pockets) when Jesus was preaching. Seems to me that God has a lot more to worry about, what with all the wars and starving children, than to worry about whether I had my tie on Sunday or not (I didn't, by the way).

The Gaither Vocal Band has a song with a line that says "Loving God, loving each other, making music with my friends." That's about simple enough for me. I sometimes wonder if God doesn't look at what we've done with worship and just laugh and shake His head - especially during "Responsive Reading".

Till next time .........