The modern world is like a packed, noisy McDonald’s restaurant. Imagine yourself sitting in one of its stiff, uncomfortable chairs and eating its unnourishing food. Like a child whose parents are preoccupied, you feel vaguely lonely, bored, edgy.

Looking across the room, all at once you see a funny man. His head is cocked sideways and he’s making faces at you. You realize he’s trying to get your attention.

Amused, flattered, warmed inside, you ease out of your chair and start making your way across the room. As you draw closer to the man, he drops his bizarre antics, straightens up, and flashes a radiant smile. It’s as if he is greeting an old friend. You feel you have never seen such a beautiful, welcoming smile, a smile that touches and warms the deepest place in you. Smiling back, you know that never before in your life have you felt so good, so happy, so natural, so yourself. You’ve found an instant friend.

You go up and introduce yourself, and he tells you his name.

"Hello," he says. "My name is Jesus."

Another excerpt from The Mystery of Children, by Mike Mason. I know, it’s getting to be a habit. Either I need to transcribe the whole dang thing or you need to go out and buy it right now. Truthfully, I wish I would’ve written this myself. The world — and adulthood — IS like a noisy McDonald’s. Uncomfortable. Unnourishing.

When I speak at churches, people always chuckle when I reveal my theory that Jesus invented noogies, wedgies, and wet willies. (It certainly explains why children were attracted to him like a magnet.) This side of Jesus — the side that encourages us to Escape Adulthood and the side that Mike Mason paints so well — is the side that intrigues me the most.

I’m pretty sure that if more people got to know this side, the world would be a much better place.

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