When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 1 Corinthians 13:11 (KJV)
The word 'childish' has simply become this awful word that we use when we want to put someone down as being immature. It seems to denigrate all those things that go with childhood: wide-eyed wonder, a sense of fun, even a sense of irresponsibility....For me the child in me is my soul. If you lose that I think you lose your soul. And I think that one of the worst things about growing older in our society...I do think St Paul has something to answer for - an assumption that you have to grow away from being a child in order to become an adult, instead of the child in you becoming part of the adult that you become.
- children's author Michael Morpurgo OBE in the June edition of
Third Way Magazine
