Carving Pumpkins and other theological practices.

“It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.”  Tom Robbins

As we assembled in the common room of the residential rehab facility, one of the residents, who’s 37 years old, looked at the table of pumpkins and said: “I’ve never carved a pumpkin before.” “Neither have I,” replied another, and a few minutes later even the Executive Director admitted having never carved a pumpkin.

Maybe its just my perspective on life, but I consider carving pumpkins an essential part of one’s childhood. Trying to navigate a knife in a circle to make a top, removing the top and seeing and smelling the “innerds,” as my sister and I called them, and then sticking your hands in the cold, stringy mixture of seeds and pumpkin . . . was a seasonal rites of passage I still enjoy as a fifty-two year old. To share that with others who have made the courageous decision to come to the rehab facility to turn their lives around made me happy beyond words. Not only was it a moment of “normal” life, but it was also an open door to a childhood robbed of such things.

The Greensboro School of Creativity taught me that life is a wonderful gift, and that we should not waste it by growing up. In fact, with the encouragement and support of others, I have learned to grow down, or to reclaim my childhood in bits and pieces. The tools have been classes that taught me to write stories, others how to hold a brush, and, the most fun and messy of all, one that introduced me to sliding chalk across sandpaper to make a beautiful piece of art.

The pens, brushes, and chalk have been keys to doors long locked, much like knives carving pumpkins. Inside the pumpkin, on the canvas, and in the “once upon a time” is a hidden child longing to play. Some call the child our "true self." Meeting him again has not only been a source of great joy and fun, but has also opened me to the one who created that child in the first place. Like getting to know a novelist by reading her work, an artist by looking at his most recent painting, discovering “me” is to also discover the one who made me.

I once thought the way to know God was to go to seminary and read lots of books. Now I know a more direct, and more fun way . . . just carve a pumpkin, sing a song in the woods, finger paint, mess around with clay. The list is endless, the discoveries countless. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.