By John Pierce
Our daughter saw her shadow yesterday. Not sure if that provides any revelation about the coming of spring.
She’s not a groundhog and it wasn’t Groundhog Day. And waking up to 63 degrees and hearing the forecast for an 80-degree high on a mid-February day is more revealing.
But not only did she see her shadow, she spoke to her and introduced her to her friends. She was nice and outgoing, Abigail reported to me about her shadow when I picked her up from school.
The call from the school’s admissions office came in the night before — asking if she would play host to a prospective student. Our ever-social teen accepted the request immediately.
“You should consider that an honor,” my wife told her, and then went on to explain that she was being asked to represent the school.
Then parental advice flowed like spring rain: Don’t lose your shadow. Explain to her what is going on. Make sure she is included in conversations. Be nice, because she’s watching everything you do.
Keep away from the boys. (No, that has nothing to do with being shadowed. Just something I try to bring up each day.)
Abigail reported a successful and enjoyable experience of being shadow. The only place the prospective student — a native of Puerto Rico — might have felt excluded (or just bored) was French class.
But one warning seemed to rise above all the others: Someone is going to be watching everything you do — all day.
Thinking back, I was never asked to be shadowed as a student — and I can think of some good reasons why. But warnings about being watched all the time were plentiful in my childhood (and usually delivered in the Authorized KJV that evoked more authority and fear than modern translations).
“The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.” (Proverbs 15:3)
“For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars.” (2 Chronicles 16:9)
Hmmm. Sounds like a bigger deal than having a kid follow you around all day.
Director of the Jesus Worldview Initiative at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee and former executive editor and publisher at Good Faith Media.
