For We Have This Treasure

We spent last night in Chicopee, MA.  This town, just north of Springfield, became famous some weeks ago when a woman from the area won the mega-lottery. She bought her lottery ticket in this vicinity.  Maybe we ought to buy a ticket (it would be my first) at the same place she purchased her’s before we leave this morning?  I wonder what that woman has done with all that money?  We seldom hear what happens to lottery winners after the fanfare of winning is over.  

There are other forms of riches than money and I think I  prefer them, though I don’t know for sure, because I’ve never experienced great monetary wealth.  Kazantzakis wrote of a wealth seldom considered these days:  “Whatever fell into my childhood mind was imprinted there with such depth and received by me with such avidity that even now in my old age I never grow tired of recalling and reliving it.”  Now that is a wealth worth having—the treasures of a life lived that can be spent and re-spent without affecting the supply.  We ought all to be rich in this way.

Again, Kazantzakis, recalling his childhood writes, “God always came…as long as I remained a child.  He never deceived me—He always came, a child just like myself, and deposited His toys in my hands:  sun, moon, wind.  ‘They’re gifts,’ He said, ‘they’re gifts.  Play with them.  I have lots more.”  I would open my eyes, God would vanish, but His toys would remain in my hands.”  Do we not have this treasure, too, and still, and even now, in our older years, playing with the “toys” given to us?  We are no longer children, but we still receive the “gifts” to play with if we choose to do so.

Childhood builds up inner wealth and provides us with something that can be spent over and over again without diminishing the supply.  This is why it is so important for children today have a “childhood,” to receive the gifts of God, and the love of parents and family, so that every child can say with Kazantzakis, “I thank God that this refreshing childhood vision still lives inside me in all its fullness of color and sound.”  Such a childhood makes one rich!