Living out loud …

Slinging my backpack over my shoulder, I tossed my empty paper coffee up into the trash can and headed out of the Starbucks.

Crossing the busy intersection at the light, I headed east through the small town of Murphy on a three mile trek home that would put me back into Parker, Texas.

About a quarter mile down the road I turned north, walking down a side street where the quiet was interrupted only by the sounds of birds chirping and a yapping dog registering its displeasure that I was walking by his master’s home.

I departed that road where it curved West and instead took the narrow dirt road running alongside a small field, passing by a small creek, and disappearing at the old cemetery before delivering me onto another field. Crossing the field, I came out at a city park that delivered me onto the back streets of a housing development.

As I headed up the street lined with refined brick homes, I heard an indistinguishable noise somewhere ahead of me.

The farther I walked, the clearer the sounds became.

Laughter.

Shouting.

Excited voices.

The further I went, the louder and more jumbled the sounds and voices became.

Suddenly I realized the sounds were the voices of children coming from the playground of an elementary school just now coming into my view.

The closer I got, the louder the voices became, until it was a roar of children laughing, playing, singing, shouting, talking.

Children doing what they do: living loudly!

The explosion of noise coming from the playground was the natural expressions of children actly freely.

They play loudly.

They talk loudly.

They cry loudly.

They sing loudly.

They laugh loudly.

They simply live loudly!

Something we tend to lose as adults.

There’s something to be said for a little refinement, for a little maturity. But in the process, we often bridle back living freely, and so we become more quiet. We put a hush onto our lives.

We stifle our speech.

We laugh when when think it’s appropriate.

We only cry around certain people, in certain settings.

We sing only in the shower, in the car, and at church.

We don’t play nearly as often, not nearly as hard, and not nearly as well.

And in doing all these things, we think we’re grown up.

Sometimes we’re simply bigger, but not better; older, but more inhibited. We’ve learned and experienced more, but forgot how to express both as people who are free in Christ. We’ve put away childish things, but also put away some childhood lessons.

Like living out loud.

“But Jesus said, ‘Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.’ And he placed his hands on their heads and blessed them before he left,” Matthew 19:14-15.

Scotty