Creativity

We have a budding industrialist in the Eicher home.

Enoch has just constructed a factory - a motorcycle manufacturing plant no less. For me the highlight of it is a paint-shop where the worker sprays paint on a motorcycle suspended in the air (centre of photo above). Enoch helpfully explained to me that it was red paint being sprayed on and that the non-red portions of the motorcycle were parts that had not been covered by paint yet.

It is such a joy to see creativity. I remember Mum exclaiming "how original" when she saw us kids doing something - and never understood what the big deal was. I think part of it is recognizing that our children are 'not us' - they have minds and hearts of their own - and to see something totally novel, something completely different from what we have thought or experienced is such a great thrill.

Last month Enoch made a church. It was very small. And he chose to have the meeting around a table - remarkably capturing the central theology of our fellowships - namely that we gather around the Lord's Supper (even though we actually do not have a large table in the middle of the home we meet in). The number is also just about how many we meet on a regular Sunday - though we have a lot more space in the home of Jolly and Suma - our gracious hosts.

I was all excited about this nuanced representation of theology in lego bricks - when my balloon was quietly deflated by Enoch's next comment. He was making a proper church - where there was enough room for everyone in a big building. Having just read that the US now has 'church campuses' that are 4 miles in circumference - I wonder if our son has picked up something in the air that didn't come from his Mummy and Daddy.

And that's just it. The amazing development of our kids into people of their own right. If young Enoch decides to 'rebel' and join a mega-church when he 'grows up'? Well - then his old man will just have to grin and bear it. And thank God for making each one of us able to choose.

In the mean time - we revel in the evidence of our kids creativity - Asha's music, Enoch's jokes, their games and our times together talking and sharing and reading and praying. You have to be a parent to understand the joys that your parents had in you.