One of my favorite layouts from an old version of Beyond:
"A long time ago, when I was a very small child visiting my grandmother at her cottage on the beach, something happened after which nothing else could ever quite be the same. It must have been a glorious night for someone to have said, "Let's wake the baby and show her the stars."
My grandmother came into the room, untucked the mosquito netting, picked me up, and carried me out onto the beach. That was my first awareness of night, and my first vision of stars and of the Milky Way, trailing clouds of glory across the sky. And my first intuitive flash of knowledge that there is far more to everything than the dailiness of the everyday world. That first sight of the heavens stretched across the ocean and brilliant with stars was, although I was no way nearly old enough to call it that, my first numinous experience. And I will never look at the stars and yawn.
Adults may be weary with indifference, with noninvolvement, but no child is indifferent. Awareness of life and of the world around us is acute when we are children and, if we are blessed, will remain acute all our lives. Let us never stop asking questions, of ourselves, of each other, of God.
When I was a solitary child growing up in New York City, I was, like all children, full of questions. And I found early, as soon as I could read easily by myself, that the best answers to my questions came not directly but through the stories I read. It was in story that I found hints of the meaning I sought: not fact, but meaning. Like everybody else moving out of very early childhood, I wanted to know what it's all about. Why are we born? Does my life make any difference? Does it matter? Does anybody care? Old, old questions. They've been around through the rise and fall of civilizations. But we have to ask for ourselves.
Why do human beings make war? was another of my most anguished questions. Why was my father (who was mustard-gassed in that war to end war) slowly and agonizingly coughing his lungs out? Why are nations still lining up against nations, and often in the name of religion?
Why did my heart ache with beauty when I saw a little sliver of a new moon above the building on the far side of the courtyard, as I stood looking out my bedroom window? Who were they, the young man and woman on the roof of the apartment building on my left? They were holding each other tightly and kissing as though afraid of being torn apart. What was their story? Whose voices were those I heard, laughing uproariously with the joy of being? Whose sobbing was it that I heard, coming from somewhere else in the echoing courtyard? What was this incredible business of life all about?"
Trailing Clouds of Glory: Spiritual Values in Children's Literature
by Madeleine L'Engle (Author), Avery Brooke (Author)
Christmas in Songs: Day 2
Christmas in Pictures: Day 2
Christmas in Kids' Books: Day 2