One of the religious values I was taught was the importance of being reverent and solemn. A devout person, a spiritual person, could not be too careful and quiet. They could sing too loud, laugh too hard, and dancing was frankly out of the question. There was inherent in this notion of religion an age of responsibility when one was expected to "put away childish things" and become a responsible participant in religious life.

So I struggled to understand what I had been taught when I read the story of Jesus calling to him children and advising the adults around him that unless they became "like one of these" they would never enter the kingdom of heaven. In Children Running Through, Rumi has the same insight. Genuine spirituality may be found in song and laughter, not just in prayer and contemplation.

I believe that children are spiritual. They have a simple spirituality brimming with joy and unclouded with adult seriousness. Which brings to mind a traditional Shaker song.

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.

In the tradition of Rumi, Muslim dervishes dance in circles as part of religious practice. They turn and turn until they come out right. It is in seeking not to be complicated, but to be simple, that opens up the spirit. The value of the jar, it is said in Zen, is in its emptiness. We touch spirit when we stop trying to be fancy and smart and figure everything out.

My own spiritual experience is that I have a habit of filling my jar with distractions like attachments to material goods, physical desires, and by staying so busy with my hands and my mind that there is no room in my jar. To admit one is wonderfully made is also to seek one's greatest gift, which is to be open to what one should be doing today in compassion for self and others. That is the opposite of being a busy and serious grownup, it is the intentional effort to be empty and to attempt to see the world with the wonder of a child's eyes.

With children, every day is a new discovery. When my eldest son was a toddler we encountered a turtle lumbering across our backyard in Michigan. I invited him to watch while I carefully picked the turtle up. It withdrew into its shell and hissed at me and my son roared with laughter. I set the turtle down gently and it emerged and headed slowly down to the river as my son watched in wonder. My son looked up at me with love and delight.

Spiritual insight and laughter are related if not at times one. Laughter has always helped me abandon self importance, seek emptiness, and find room for wonder, awe, and spiritual awareness. Children making faces, as Rumi puts it. Making faces has no purpose save sharing smiles with each other. The adult fear of appearing childlike is a trap that sometimes prevents us from experiencing joy.

Those who know me well know that I have never been afraid to tap what my family calls my "reptile brain." There is a part of me that wants the people around me to be laughing, at my expense if necessary, and I rarely neglect an opportunity to try to make it so. Much to the chagrin of my adolescent sons in public. I believe laughter is not the opposite of reverence, it is in fact a kind of reverence for celebration. It banishes seriousness and replaces it with the joy of being human. Children laugh easily and often. Perhaps that is one reason why they can enter the kingdom of heaven.

Catching each other in compromising situations is a venerable Peterson family tradition of laughter, dutifully recorded in the bottom image on this page. I am taking a well earned nap after a long hike on vacation and in my arms is a small stuffed bear given to me by my sons, dubbed Bowie for his flamboyant glitter vest. It is not dignified for a middle aged man with a Master's Degree and professional licenses to be seen clutching a child's toy in slumber. Which is why yet to be named rascals in my family put that bear there and snapped that picture: it looks funny. The poor little bear seems to be asking, "Why me?"

If they say Bowie ended up there any other way, that's my story and I'm sticking with it.