About a decade ago I glanced into my middle daughter’s room and found her sitting on her knees, looking out the window with her favorite toys lined up on the windowsill. They were all there: Her blanket - which had a personality and a loose seam for a mouth, various plush animals, a number of Disney characters, a group of small horses, and an assortment of other figures. She had turned her little friends toward the glass as if they were all looking out into the front yard together. She was talking with them, perhaps drawing their attention to something in the yard, or maybe holding court on any number of intimate subjects.

I immediately froze and did not make a sound. This was my second child, so I was an experienced enough parent to know a precious and unrepeatable thing when I saw it. I leaned against the door frame, then let my body slide slowly down the frame until I was on my knees.

She talked to her toys, jabbering about one thing and then another. She moralized, corrected, parented, acted out parts. She was lost in the Kingdom of Shelby, a place made up of bits and pieces of her life tossed about in her mind and dreams. Her kingdom was not governed by rules or laws or physics. The glue holding Shelby’s kingdom together was her own frail and developing view of the world. It was an infantile worldview without borders or categories, at least none that you or I would recognize.

I say “was” because Shelby is now a teen-ager, so she has been banished from the Kingdom of Shelby except at night when all the old things return from the deep waters and shadowed forests of dreaming.

All children have their own play world, and they are able to lose themselves in it. The state of play exists before consciousness. It is an indescribable and intensely personal thing for a child to be deep in play. And if they find they are being watched, they will come back from that world and become shy or start performing. Either way, the magic is lost.

Children are so soft. Their skin is fragrant and pure, like baby leaves. Their minds are eager and ready, their hearts are trusting and open, and their eyes will lead you softly to the very bottom of their souls.

Children know God because God can be found in the soft places of the world. In mother’s hands and in father’s soft shirts. In laughter and at dinner and in the goose bumps that rise when lips slide across skin.

It is a terrible thing when soft, childish flesh meets the hard steel of religion. We cut through children like butter. In our collective unconscious there is a swishing sound. It is the sound of the swords of Herod’s men rising and falling on the children of Bethlehem.

O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie.

Take a deep breath now, and free your mind. Do you remember when your spiritual softness was taken from you?

Did it happen at church?

What sort of church was it? Was it a brick building in the suburbs? Was it a synagogue or a mosque or a cathedral? Was it the secret church of one man’s desire, or the feral church of neglected children? Was it the cold sanctuary of science that stole your myths and left you wounded and empty and suckling at the stars? Or did you construct your own lonely chapel, like Saint Frances, barefoot and one stone at a time?

I was wounded along the way. It happens to everyone. Life is hazing. It’s one big rite of passage from beginning to end. I grew tough as leather, deeply protected, calloused, and hard. But I worked my leather with the oil of my hands and with tears and time until I became soft again. And soft, worn leather is such a comfort to have and to hold.

Now I guard children’s hearts against all religions, sacred and secular. I will throw myself at you, church man. Stay away from that child’s mind. Let her be a pagan; let her be a skeptic, a scientist, or a saint. Let her be any or all of these, but for God’s sake, let her be.

I'm in my office reading "Billions and
Billions" by Carl Sagan and glancing occasionally at the picture of my youngest daughter that is on the screen of my computer.

What children bring to the table is pure love, like a fifty pound nugget of gold a giggling rube hefts onto the bar in full view of everyone in the saloon.

All eyes are upon him as one-by-one we leave the gambling tables, the liquor, and the cheap music of the player piano to sidle up to the stranger with the pretty rock. In that instant, love comes over us like the rush of a mighty wind, filling the room and touching us as if with tongues of fire. The irresistible pull of our desire sucks the air from our lungs and leaves us weak, panting, and forever addicted.

The rube says, “This is love. Do you understand now?”

And your soul says, “Yes!” But this is no ordinary yes. This is the yes of your bones, the ontological yes of your being, the yes that existed before all time. This is what you were made for and only now do you see it. You cry out, and your body shakes, and you fall to your knees in submission. This is the world's most powerful drug, the one that all others can only imitate. Once you have tasted it you will pay any price for more, or wander the earth to honor even the memory of it.

This is what children bring to the table. They dance into the room dragging the greatest power in the universe behind them like a toy on a string. All of your petty sophistications are swept aside, and when they are gone you do not remember the substance of them or how they once held power over you. There is no going back. Here you stand; you can do no other.

You know you have handed over the keys to your kingdom, but the transaction is complete. It happened in an instant; it happened before you could draw a breath. And now the power to break your heart lies out of your control and in the hands of a child.