For all the seriousness that has swallowed the world whole, I take off my hat and rub my head with great curiosity and discontent.

I call to mind a child, jumping into a giant puddle. Splashing around, laughing as the water shoots up and soaks his shorts. The adults stand by and watch. Some are irritated saying, ‘control your kids!’, some are laughing, some don’t even notice.

It makes me smile. The innocence that young children can have. And I pray, for their sakes, that they hold onto that as long as possible.

I pray that children can remain children, with the beautiful kindness and curiosity, for as long as they live.

I hope for a world that allows for that, and a world that returns to innocence.

I have known that joy. That jump in a puddle, dance like no one’s watching simplicity.

I have known, even in my adult years what it’s like to play.

It is a wonderful thing for an adult to re-learn how to play.

To be kind enough, compassionate enough towards one’s self, that you can let down your guard and be silly.

There is a flirtatious energy in play. As if I am courting my own innocence. Inviting it out to play.

There is deep wisdom in the levity that the child engages in play with. The adults may ‘shush’ them and tell them to quiet down while more serious matters are attended to, but the child knows a joy that the parent cannot.

Maybe that levity is meant to be outgrew. Maybe the adults need to outgrow it in order to be the politicians, and lawyers, and doctors that they believe the world needs. But maybe the children play in order to remind us that the world is above all a playground.

Maybe we’d all be better off if we could take off our serious hats and laugh a little more.

I call on my inner child and invite him to speak:

Come on you big dummy! What’s got you so down? Have you forgotten what we came here to do? Do you remember what I bring to the table? You’re not wrong, there are matters to attend to, but it is so you can return to play. It is so you can celebrate life. It is not naiveté, your desire for play. It is your response to the weight of the world. Do not feel guilty about play. It is your right. Share that with the world. Do not hide your joy, express it so that more may learn how to access their own!

I guess, if I am to listen to what he’s saying, there is a role for me to play in creating space for play. Creating space for non-judgmental exploration of the imagination.

That seems like a noble task. Returning people to freedom. Or at least encouraging and demonstrating the way. I’m sure that I alone cannot return anyone anywhere. It seems like choices like that must come from within.

But I can role model behavior. I can celebrate the child. The return to innocence. The return to joyous play.

It’s serious work, returning people to play. Oh, the irony!

Maybe this is my reminder to myself to not take things too seriously. But at times the world feels so heavy that my happiness feels like a crime. Is it wrong to experience pleasure if the whole world cannot experience it too? I think of Che Guevara promising coffee for all or coffee for none. Should this too be the same?

Should I not be allowed to play until the sex trafficked children are freed?

How can I guiltlessly experience freedom knowing that captivity exists?

It seems that I do not have the answers today. I feel a sort of guilt about burying my head in the sand while the world burns. Maybe I didn’t come to play. Maybe I came to fight.

God, I hope I can align the fight with the play. I hope that I can encourage the world to reconnect to their innocence.

I do not wish to ignore the plight of the innocent man. I do not wish to be so ignorant of my privilege that I lack empathy for those who suffer. But I do wish to love.

Perhaps love looks more like a fight in the days, weeks, months, years to come.

I hope that isn’t true.

But maybe this is me growing up. Confronting the injustice of the world.

Maybe my childlike heart is to be reserved for the privacy of those who know me intimately. Maybe I’m past that.

Today I have more questions than answers. And that is okay.