Each December our church hosts the SERRV Shop, tables of handcrafted items from around the world.  Yesterday I bought this figurine of Jesus blessing the children.  The $15 it cost will support the family of an artisan in Peru.

This morning I spent an hour with a four-year-old boy while his mother worked in the church kitchen.  We talked and played.  We gathered the animals in my office — frog, mouse, duck, gorilla, pig, dinosaur — and gave them names.

I enjoy spending time with children, even though I have none of my own.  I need children in my life.  I believe a non-parent like me can appreciate children differently than parents do — our appreciation grows out of absence.  Emily Dickinson wrote about us:  “To comprehend a nectar requires sorest need.”

Jesus had no children either, at least none we’re aware of.  He loved them, though, and at times he reached out his hand to bless them.