"What's your name?"

On Monday i met one of my dearest college friends in Columbia. We went down to the river walk and were sitting on a bench near the water just catching up on life. As we were sitting there this father with 2 children, a baby in a stroller and a child maybe 3 walking, were walking down the path near us. As they were about to pass the older child stopped and left her dad's side to wave at us and say hey. She kept coming over and asked, "What are your names?" My friend and I were pleasantly startled by this very mature gesture from such a young stranger. We told her our names and asked her her's and she sat down on the bench across from us. She asked us several questions and when her dad told her it was time to go, she instead got up and came over to our bench and sat down between us. Neither of us knew what to do. We talked to her for several more minutes about normal stuff; what we were doing, her baby sister's name, trolls under the bridge...ya know...the usual.
She finally left and as she walked away I realized how surprising her actions had been to me. A person, a child, reaching out to two total strangers, asking their names, approaching them, sitting with them, it was so out of the ordinary that it almost seemed unhuman. Each time I think of it I hear the words of Jesus in my head, "be like these little children." A child has so little self-awareness-they are other aware. They do not care about status, appearance, or their own insecurities- the very things that keep us at a distance from others. This is exactly how Jesus interacted with the world-no care for the opinions of others. He operated outside of everyone of our known confines and hidden rules. I wish I was like him. I wish I was like that little girl, with a faith in God so deep that I didn't operate by the rules the world does because I didn't need them. If only I had the faith of a child.