Tuesday, 27 May 2008
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i was pouring water into bright cups for the kids around the table. they munched on their cookies, in sweet silence compared to the yelling 5 minutes pre-cookie time. chomp chomp chomp went their chompers around the light brown dough, eager to reach the chocolate chip bits. we always encourage the kids to say thank you and please and excuse me, particularly when their little fingers and chubby hand grab at the cookies. manners have always confused me. the ps and qs are etched in me (good job mum) so the niceties spuuurt from my lips with relative ease and little thought. on occasion i pause and think gosh, do i really mean this 'thank you' or 'sorry', am i really thankful? am i really remorseful? i believe that to have good manners is certainly better than having none at all, or having - heaven forbid- bad manners. but i also believe that they are a start, a habit, of cultivating gratitude. and sometimes they are a saving grace, prompting us to be thankful when we aren't. sometimes they are the beginning of healing, like the sorry that comes out because it needs to be said and should be said, not because we are really one hundred percent sorry, yet. perhaps it is that sorry that allows civil discussion and conversation to flow once more. but sometimes we should abandon all practiced manners to the wind and follow our hearts.
like the boy whom, upon receiving his little plastic cup of water, that i filled up half-way in anticipation that it would be spilt, looked up at me in the eye and said "I love you"
and bowled me over. completely.
i love you too, i said.
such sweetness and warmth filled my heart.
children, who have lived a mere fraction of our lifetime, have a knack of seeing and speaking from the heart. God help us do the same. to betray conventions and social norms when passion and honesty would result in greater joy and delight.
photo: on the way home from work, grumpily, in traffic, i spied these two monkeys racing across the bridge..
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