The World has shrunken to about the size of a familiar backyard, her billions of inhabitants perfectly represented by the members of a single extended family. We have our skirmishes and disagreements without ever resorting the missile attacks. We co-exist more or less peacefully. We each have our work to do, and we attend to that rather than anybody else’s beeswax, and we seem to be making decent progress.

My grand master plan for world peace would assign at least one preschool-age child to every adult. Few of the world’s ills could persist under the disapproving gaze of a four year old. Instead, the world would be in continual rediscovery, as the grown-up guided their ward through the intricacies of melting ice, clouds, and the habits of dragonflies. Of course, the oldsters would be rediscovering their own world as reverberated back at them in their student’s enthusiasm.

This world seems most habitable when shrunken to about the size of a typical backyard. Every facet from sea to forest is easily observed there with the small hand of a couple of active imaginations. Even this space seems over-large when a single flower or a small sun-bronzed apricot seem to contain unexplored universes. We laugh at ourselves, giggling maniacally, shouting absurd proclamations, filling this small world with a universe of experience. This we will remember later, and might never forget.

©2014 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: Grandchildren