Â鶹Éç

From Reverend Sharon Grenham-Toze, Anglican Priest and Prison Chaplain:

The launch of the 500 words competition this week sent me right back to my very young days. All I wanted to do from about the age of 5 onwards was write. It was mostly rather sweet poetry at that age, which became gradually more earnest and cringe-worthy as I became a teenager. Since then I’ve picked it up here and there, dabbled a bit, but work, kids, being a grow-up got in the way, and I’ve had very little head space to write much for quite a long time.

It’s not just writing either – I used to play the guitar, I was once very good at drawing, and I got a karate brown belt in my early 20s. Somehow it’s all slipped away, and although I have a very full and enjoyable life now, and new pastimes have emerged, still, I’ve been thinking about how we let the enthusiasms and passions of our childhood recede into the mist.

I’ve just finished reading a book by Kate Gross, who sadly passed away just before Christmas. In it she describes her journey and thoughts as she approached the end of her life. She reflects on how she rediscovered the things she used to love to do at 10 years old  - and by reconnecting in that way she made much more sense of herself and her years, short though they were.

Psalm 39 begins, ‘O Lord you have searched me and know me’ and later says ‘it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb’. The psalmist is trying to express in religious words the amazing wonder about the course of our lives, from their very earliest days. We might say that the soul and spirit we have as a child is the foundation of what we are as an adult.

So as well as encouraging the young ones to explore and express in things like ‘500 words’, perhaps we should also get out the pen, the paintbox, or the running shoes again. Rediscover the kid whose imagination was boundless. As the song goes at the start of Simon Mayo’s show ‘Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think!’