Joy to Spare

I would imagine that most boys and girls spend most of their time indoors. Surrounded by the creations of men. My boys have plenty of enjoyment at home, what with fascinating stories to be read and endless toys to play with. But they tire of these activities and begin seeking strife, food, and television to entertain themselves. Instead of giving into such poor amusements, we prefer to get outside. To most of us apartment dwellers, getting children outdoors means going to the playground. The man-made steps and slides, the carefully contained play areas ("No! The sand stays IN the sandbox!"), the enclosing sidewalk. The plastic bucket and shovel combined with the natural sand and sky make for longer contented play than the totally man-made environment of home. But the playground that God created, which we call Earth, is infinitely better. When we leave all toys behind, when we leave the sterile, manicured garden or park, and tromp around in the dirt, leaves, sticks and spiders...

Lately I have been engulfing my children in the natural world as much as possible. We have reaped much joy from our experiences in our God's creation. Not long ago, when I first begun intentionally getting the boys out in real nature (beyond the playground), Big Bro had very little interest in bugs, flowers, trees, clouds, or mushrooms. He treated the great outdoors as nothing more than a grand-scale sandbox. Dig, dump. Tear, throw. I tried to have him study a flower for a moment, but his attention lasted less than a second. Today the boys, together, for at least ten minutes, watched intently as a snail scaled a cliff, watched as its antennae/eyes recoiled and changed course as they encountered roots and grass. Yesterday they both waited patiently, gazing long at a lifeless pea-sized gray ball, until the roly-poly wriggled back out from its defensive position. It didn't take long for my sons, still "fresh from God," to recover from their training in attention deficit ...