Children are often our primary mystical teachers.

As I write this I am standing behind the counter at the cleaners. It’s a lazy Saturday morning and my coworker and I are waiting for our breakfast to be delivered. I’m reflecting on the little moments of joy here this week.

A four year old came in a week ago with his grandfather and was enthralled with this bell. He began to ring it. “Stop that,” his grandfather gently said. “They must hear that all the time.”

Actually, never. We never hear the bell, I told the little boy. Please ring it.

He commenced an unending invocation of all that responds to the little bell’s voice—the room and our ears set vibrating to a pulsing rhythm.

Bells wake us up. They call us. They tell us to pay attention to the space we are in— they make us aware of that very space! The instrument becomes not just the small half sphere of metal but the resonance of the room– air particles vibrating, eardrums vibrating, all of us connected viscerally through the air that always connects us but now the connection is imminent, audible, witnessed.

And then there is the little green bike. A two year old boy who has visited twice in the last week just loves to sit on the couch holding this little green bike. We even sang “The Wheels on the Bike (Bus)” semi-together. This little bike sits most days for hours untouched, while we handle credit cards and plastic bags and phone calls. But for 15 minutes when my little friend and his mom stop in, this small green bike gets loved. Time stops and it is simply beautiful.

Finally, my friend the credit card machine is a great teacher. She recently was moved on to a dial-up connection, which means she needs more time than usual. As I look at the screen during the 20 seconds it takes for each transaction, I am struck that the word that flashes across most is “receiving.”

She spends most of her time receiving. Would that we all consciously did so, little 20 second bursts of being open to the presence of God in our midst. “Slow down,” we might whisper to each other, like the child wishing to ring the bell or hold the bike.

“Slow down and let me receive this gift that is simply here.”