Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

- 1 John 3:1

I always look forward to routinely informing my client every Monday that I will be working with him that day. It's become procedure now, but I never tire of the inevitability of his reaction, as if I had told him for the first time. His eyes widening with wonder; his entire body bursting with joy; even the frame of his wheelchair, coextensive with his body, seems to shake animatedly; his voice quivering with delight, "Oh Yeah!" Today with exclamatory flourish he enthused, "Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!"

So many people in our tired world feel they are a disappointment to their families, loved ones, work place, themselves, and even to God if that were possible; as if the world would be better off without them. The Bible offers a welcomed corrective - God has lavished his unfathomably great love on all His children; and my client's lavish affirmation - step by step, week after week, mystery upon mystery; attaches legs under that truth and walks with me in my unbelief.  

Today we made use of the C-Train to go downtown for a computer class. We entered the crowded train entombed in a dead atmosphere of drowsiness. As we were traveling downtown-bound my client pointed excitedly to everything he could see, face pressed against the window; "Oh! Wow! Truck!" Or: "Oh! Kewl! Zoo!" And as the train ascended up the ramp over the Bow River he peered down at the world racing by; "Whoah! Goodie!", pealed with laughter, giggling to himself the whole time. I don't always know what's so funny in his world, but he manages to find the humour in everything. With a spirit of hilarity, he refuses to let us take ourselves too seriously.

I looked about the train packed with commuters, heads hung drowsily, bobbing up and down with the monotony of sameness. Like the other lifeless commuters, my client had been on this identical train route many times before, but somehow the landscape didn't have the same deadening effect on him. His spiritual alertness is extraordinarily rare among those who have given up on themselves and the monotonous world they inhabit; a readiness to lavishly affirm the mundane; an extravagant love the world, lulled into sleep, doesn't know.