Children live in an enchanted world. I don’t mean this in a sentimental way, though. I don’t mean that children live as if magic were real and that everything shimmers and shines with unicorns and fairies. Children can be realists, especially when faced with death and loss. Children can also be extremely imaginative, but they sometimes also have a keen sense of suspicion and doubt. All this is to say that children have varied lives, much like adults. The only real thing we can say about children as a complete group is that they live in a world where they often encounter new things. And because of this, they live in an enchanted world.

I remember the first days that my two daughters saw snow for the first time. I remember the first days that they went a whole day without a diaper (and also successfully using the potty). I remember the first time they had a conversation with another person and the first time they touched a big dog. I remember these things, and I remember their amazement at them. When my eldest daughter first touched snow, she screamed louder than I had ever heard her scream, because she didn’t expect snow to be cold. I remember the noise she made when, after ten weeks away from home with me during my hospital chaplaincy, she heard the door to our house open and knew that she was home. It was late, and she had finally fallen asleep, but she woke up to hug each and every one of her toys. 

Homecoming. Pain. Beauty. Loss. Parents are around when our children encounter these things for the first time, and we can see their reactions to things that we take for granted. And this newness in things gives children a fresh but also deep insight into the nature of the things around us. Their perspective isn’t objective, of course, but all the better for that. They see and experience things, for the first time, through their developing selves, and those experiences form them into who they are growing up to be. 

When I write that children are “enchanted”, I mean it in a kind of technical way. Being “enchanted” means that a person sees the presence of life in the things around them, whether they are traditionally alive (like people, plants, or animals) or not (like clouds, the wind, or the dark). For Christians, being enchanted means seeing God’s presence and wisdom in the created world. The term “enchanted” refers to a way of seeing the world before the materialistic turn our culture took in the so-called “Enlightenment” (which was anything but). Materialism sees the world as mere matter. There is no spirit, no wonder, no loving care in ourselves or inherent in the world. It’s all just dead stuff. An enchanted worldview, on the other hand, sees matter as connected to the spiritual, and for Christians, this means that the matter is connected to the divine.

Enchanted theology has a lot to say about the incarnation and the sacraments, but I want to stay with kids for a bit. There’s this line in Eucharistic Prayer D (which we’re using for Easter season at my church right now) that always reminds me of the way children see the world. It’s this: Joining with them [angels], and giving voice to every creature under heaven, we acclaim you, and glorify your Name.

“Giving voice to every creature under heaven.” Isn’t that a magnificent wish? In praising God, and especially in praising God in the Eucharist, we are giving the life inherent in all things, in all the universe, a voice to praise God with us. I think that’s what we mean when we say that children are enchanted – that all things have a desire to praise God and that children see that. In the newness of their experiences, they see that the created universe is not only filled with life, but is yearning to sing out that life to God. 

I think that, as a parent and as a priest, it’s my job to help children hear that voice in Creation. We adults, in having seen things like budding trees and thunderstorms for decades, forget to listen to that voice of life in all things. How can I, how can we, teach children so that they don’t stop hearing those voices? How can we raise children so that they not only hear them but seek them out? What would it be like to live a life in which we always listen to them and give voice to them – and give them voice in connection with their and our relationship with God?