Illustration by Trent Shuck

My daughter used to make me bacon and eggs. The recipe only called for a rock and a couple of sticks, and when she served it to me, I ate it hungrily. In between third and fourth helpings, she’d sit in her plastic car and ask me to push her. There was no defense against those big, brown, two-year-old eyes, and her sweet voice pleading with me, “Gin Daddy, gin!” Her innocence was irresistible.

It may be hard to believe, but that same kind of sweet innocence somehow manages to sneak through the brick walls of the high school where I work. My students and I were discussing Lennie–the same character we were discussing in a different class that ended with a screaming parent.  Lennie is very much out of place in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men.  He’s basically a seven-year-old kid in a hulking twenty-five year-old body.  And when he walks into Crooks’ room smiling, he’s told to get out.

“You got no right to come in my room,” Crooks says sharply to Lennie. “This here’s my room.”  Crooks is black, beaten down by racism and its isolation.  He’s hardened and protective of what little “rights” he has.

Lennie is a very white, big teddy-bear of a man, and his reply defuses the whole situation.  He tells Crooks with a smile that he just came to look at his puppy.  There’s no resisting that smile, and eventually, Lennie is allowed in the room.  Crooks finally gets a chance to sit down and talk with another guy. A racial barrier is shattered and community is born.

My students and I finished reading that passage, and I asked them a question.

“How did Lennie get past the barrier Crooks had built around his heart?”

Hands shot up, and I pointed at Zach, headphones looped over his ears.

“There’s a light there. Maybe it’s a symbol of something, like A Raisin in the Sun.” There were some “oohs” and “ahhs” in response.

“Azalea, can you give him a high five?” I asked, and then I wrote what he said on the board.

Another hand went up. It was Rachel’s.

“Maybe the light represents innocence. Maybe Crooks let him in because he’s innocent.”

“Awesome!” I shouted, and I wrote “Innocence has power” on the white board.

A few days later a colleague of mine was crying in the hall. She was slumped over in the middle of an English teacher huddle. Someone with a much more sensitive “emotional radar” than mine stopped her, and the tears came before she could finish asking, “Are you okay?”

I stepped out of my classroom to see what was happening.  Other teachers were gathered around to listen, offering Kleenex and hugs. Then, I saw Sean walking toward us on his way back from the bathroom.  He’s a rather unpredictable kid who will say anything to anybody. If a student starts to cry during a discussion, more often than not, he gets up and offers a hug. And he doesn’t care about awkwardness.  No matter how heavy the situation might feel, he’ll stand in front of whoever’s hurting with his arms open wide.

So far, students have accepted his kindness graciously, but there have been times in class when he’s gotten up to offer hugs and I’ve grimaced, waiting for someone to say something mean, turn away from him, or even throw a punch.  Whether it’s intentional or not, he refuses to follow the herd.

Sean was on his way back from the bathroom when he saw us. I saw the wheels turning in his head as he looked at the huddle of English teachers. As he got closer, his eyes landed on the face of the woman crying. I tensed up. What was he going to do? Without hesitation, he broke through our protective ring, like Lennie breaking through the walls around Crooks’ heart. He walked into the middle of all of us, looked my friend in the eyes and made one simple observation.

“You look like you could use a hug,” he said.  Sean broke a pretty solid social norm. Didn’t he know kids are not allowed in crying teacher huddles? There are so many women who would’ve graciously said, “No thank you” and watched him walk away, but my friend reached out with a smile, tears still filling her eyes, and received what he came to offer. And her reaction wasn’t just a polite gesture; her face lit up when he hugged her. She genuinely felt loved, and I genuinely was in shock!

Sean walked back to my classroom to finish some journals, and my friend pulled me aside to ask his name.

“What a sweet kid!” she whispered.

After 20 years of teaching, I’m still learning to “see” kids well. When Sean hugged my friend, it was weird to me, but my friend saw past the awkwardness and found wonder in his innocence.  It leads him past barriers most would never cross and equips him to love people in ways most can’t. That same innocence was Lennie’s ticket to bring community to a man withering away with loneliness. To him, there were no racial barriers. And to Sean, a huddle of teachers around a crying woman was another chance to love someone. Social norms? What social norms?

Jesus once challenged His followers to become like little children (Matthew 18:3). Maybe that was because their innocence frees them to focus on what matters. Right now, campaign signs are being posted in yards and then stolen, social media screams for us to take sides, and political walls tend to stifle community.  But remember my two-year-old daughter?  She just wanted to serve her daddy some breakfast and get pushed in her plastic car.  She didn’t care about political maps or social norms.  Love and be loved–it was that simple for her, just like it was for Sean and Lennie.

Life will always carry its own kind of complexity.  We can’t ride around in plastic cars anymore, but maybe looking at life through the innocent eyes of a child can bring some clarity.  We can still focus on the simple idea of loving and being loved, and along the way, maybe we’ll make some friends, no matter which side of the political aisle they prefer.

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