What Experiences do you Want?

My son often comes out with questions or comments that tip me off-balance for a moment, in a good way, I mean. This morning on the way home from Mass he asked me, "Mom, what experience would you most like to have?" I knew what he was driving at, and I knew that an answer like "the salvation of the world" wouldn't cut it for him. It would have to be a real experience; something he would be able to see. I really had to think about this, and allow myself into that part of my heart that holds my desires. It's not until he asks me something like this that I'm able to realize how little I live within my desires. So I told him I'd like to gather my friends together to sing, at my friend Suzanne's house. (That's so I wouldn't have to clean my own! Just kidding.)

I was still meditating on that when he told me what his for top desired experiences are: to get married, to own his own computer, to play with his friends, and to sing.

And he's been singing all day about a sweetheart named Cotton Candy: "When I kiss you, you just melt! And if I lick you, you turn into sugar -- my sugar!" (We recently won a candy gift basket at a Chinese Auction, in case you are wondering.)

How many fewer smiles I would have without my son.