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”I prefer to talk to children of whom I dare hope that they will turn out to be rational beings…” (Søren Kierkegaard)
At a small parking lot in my town I enjoyed the scattered sunshine on a comfortable white bench. A beautiful little girl had a stop there too with her handcart loaded with circulars to be distributed in the neighborhood.
”Do you like it?” I asked. ”Yes, but this is the only exercise I get apart from my daily bike ride to my school in Fensmark.” - I remarked, “But 3 or 4 miles are at least something.” Her name was Josephine and she was 13 years old, I was told.
”May I give you a small memory?” I then gave her my ”famous” little card with the Danish flag. I told her its story, of how I once visited a public school in Tennessee, read “The Princess on the Pea” for the children, let them tell me about their own banner, and I of course told them about the white cross in our flag and also about the brutal Vikings who through a missionary by name of Ansgar in 826 was told a story they´d never heard before, indeed about a man who died on a cross…
Josephine exclaimed, ”Oh, it´s Jesus!” - ”You´re right, and now you know why we have a cross on our flag.” - ”Yes, it once fell from the sky in 1600 and something”, she suggested. “Well, it was in 1219 at a battle in Estonia, the legend says ”, I insisted, but I told her what a joy it was for me to tell the American kids about the cross and that Jesus dies on that cross for our sins.
“I do read the Bible sometimes when I´m bored”, the girl said. I encouraged her to keep doing that and told her how the Bible came into my life when I was 14. We were now close to be on very friendly terms. “I still have something for you”, I said. ”Would you like to have a small New Testament to have in your pocket?” Oh, she would be delighted to. “I´m soon going to have a new jacket with an inside pocket and I can put it there”, she smiled.
I promised to pray for her. We went on each our way. The gracious December sun had never been so gracious…
Dec. 30, 2011 – jn
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