For Sabbatical the Everly’s bought me a burner phone. A kindness as they tried to protect our time away.

When I told the family, Ezekiel got really excited, “you mean, like a spy?” We ran with this idea. My AppleID was “Secret Sean”. And our family group chat became “Awesome Spy Family”. But Ezekiel took the burner idea seriously. A few days later, he came and asked, “how do you get rid of that phone when you are done?”

A child’s imagination is wonderful. Alas my life is not exciting and the phone did not self-destruct. There were times using Ivy’s old iPhone mini when my “readers required” eyes were ready to burn the tiny screen! But in the end, I just set it on a shelf and stopped paying the bill…

When Jesus tells us to become like little children (Matthew 18:3), we find many traits to emulate: acceptance, out LOUD feelings, trust, play… in Ezekiel I find that his Big imagination is full of possibilities. These ideas are not pipe dreams to be flushed.* They are probable. And he looks to me, not as an aging bore, but as someone who can make imagination reality!

The world wears down this hope. We become aging bores who no longer believe in… anything that would excite a child. But our God longs for children who dream. Children who expect the Kingdom to come! Children who believe our Father can “do more than we can imagine“!

• A google search revealed I am not using this idiom correctly. Pipe dreams are not put into plumbing pipes, but induced when smoking an opium pipe… I like putting them into Mario’s big green warp pipe better…