Some years ago I heard a story from a friend about a humorous Sabbath where the “Blessing Of The Little Children [1]” took place and there were no little children to bless. As the story was recounted to me, the elder made some kind of flippant comment like, “You all weren’t very productive this year.” Earlier this week I was talking to a friend of mine and relayed the story to her, and she said that Portland had never been skunked before, always having some little child or newborn infant to bless. So some friends of mine spent a great deal of time helping to prepare a very lovely stage presentation for today’s event, and I even had to move from my seat at the front middle section to open up some seats for some nonexistent children, which put me in a spot I was hoping to avoid as far as making some other people comfortable, but better luck next year, I suppose.

As might easily be understood, I have a great deal of ambivalence when it comes to children. In some ways, children have always presented me with a great deal of fascinating mysteries. For one, for my own understanding of myself, I often try to ponder what sort of understanding young children have of the world outside of them. As is the case with many situations, the sort of intense curiosity I have about the thoughts and feelings of others tends to have an effect on those thoughts and feelings of others. Nevertheless, at times I am fortunate enough for others to realize that my intense curiosity and interest is not a threatening sort of matter, although at times I am not so fortunate. Perhaps I will have better luck in the future in that regard as well.

Young women often prepare for the duties of family from a very young age. Children who are less than ten years old themselves are trusted to look over little ones for sometimes exhausted parents, especially single mothers. I remember that as a child I had a very close friend (who may even be considered my first love) and she and I both enjoyed watching over a little girl whose name I think was Victoria in our local congregation when we were preteens ourselves. I have always found little ones in general to be quite humorous and intriguing, and I suppose I would be a mysterious person myself to little people and perhaps even some larger people. Today, being a day for and about children, ended up being somewhat amusing to watch even if there were no little children to bless.

At least as few of the day’s events had a great deal to do with young people. The children’s choir, which consisted of six children, half of whom were siblings, performed a reprise of two numbers that they had performed during the Feast of Tabernacles as part of the larger festival choir. Then, after services, I got to see a very unhappy girl who wanted to play outside and was unable to without some kind of supervision, and who later got cold and wanted her jacket put on (surprisingly enough, she came to me, which I thought was sweet, and I put on her little zippered hoodie, finding out that she knew the word for zipper). Also, there were a lot of children who were very active in our post-feast game, looking for candy for themselves and even occasionally planning strategically in the items that they wanted to gain for themselves and their relatives. All in all, even if there were no little children to bless, it was a good way to reconvene after the Feast of Tabernacles.

[1] For those readers who have no familiarity with the Church of God culture as a whole, “The Blessing Of The Little Children” is a cultural tradition within our denomination that takes places on the second Sabbath after the end of the Feast of Tabernacles. Following Jesus Christ’s example of blessing little children, this particular tradition was established a means of showing appreciation and regard for the little ones that, God willing, will grow up to become members themselves with their own families. Since the Church of God culture follows the Anabaptist tradition of adult baptism rather than infant baptism, the Blessing of the Little Children offers a way for the automatic calling of the offspring of members through the principle of representation to be recognized publicly even if their baptism will result from their own choice as responsible adults. Originally the little children were blessed at the Feast of Tabernacles, but growing numbers of children made the logistics infeasible and then led to the ceremony taking place at the local congregation shortly after the feast, when enough time has been given for most families to return home.