Fear and Trembling

Look Again

Here is a day.
Just a regular day.
Nothing special, right?

Wait.
When something looks like nothing,
look again.

You wake up in a warm bed.
A warm bed, just for you.
Look again. There’s a treasure.

Then breakfast. The same as always.
But it’s food, when your tummy is hungry.
And someone made it for you.
Look again. There’s a treasure.

Then the way to school.
The same old way.
But up there is the sky.
There’s a dog. There’s a digger.
Here are your own two feet.
Look again. So much was there.

Then home. You hoped for pancakes.
No pancakes tonight.
That’s a little sad. It’s okay to say so.
But here is your chair. Your spoon.
The people who sit with you.
Look again. Look how many good things!

Some days have hard parts too.
That is true. Looking does not make them go away.
But the good things are really there.
And they are yours to find.

So tomorrow, when it looks like nothing,
what will you do?

Yes.
You will look again.

A note for the grown-up

For the grown-up reading aloud: this comes from Søren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling (1843), written under the pen name Johannes de Silentio. The narrator goes looking for the person of deepest faith and finds a man who looks like a tax collector: he walks home enjoying the buses and the children playing, looks forward to a dinner his wife may not have made, and is just as content when it isn’t there. That ordinary delight is all this primer borrows. The book’s famous claim, that faith can stand above right and wrong in the story of Abraham and Isaac, is dark, still argued over, and left out. Keep the hard-days page honest: looking doesn’t erase bad things, and the pancake page lets the child name the letdown before finding the good.

Arms on the Bed

Lie on your bed.
Kick your legs. Move your arms.
Are you swimming?

No!
You’re on a bed.
Swimming is in the water.

You can say how swimming goes.
Kick, kick. Reach and pull.
Saying it is good.
Saying it is not doing it.

You can watch the big kids swim.
You can clap for them.
Watching is good.
Watching is not doing it.

You can look at a swim book.
It shows you where your arms go.
Looking is good.
Looking is not doing it.

Doing it is in the water.
Doing it is wet and cold.
Doing it is a little scary.
And that’s okay.

Some things you can’t do yet.
That’s okay. Say it true:
I can’t do that one yet.
That’s brave too.

So, with a grown-up close,
in the shallow part,
put your face in the water.
Kick, kick.

Now you’re doing it.

A note for the grown-up

For the grown-up reading aloud: the narrator of Fear and Trembling says he can describe the movements of faith but can’t make them, like a man hung from the ceiling in a swimming belt who goes through the strokes without swimming. The primer keeps the plain half of that: describing a thing isn’t doing it, and honestly saying you can’t do something yet is its own kind of courage. The water beats are there to keep it safe. The doing happens in the shallow end with you beside them, never alone and never in deep water to prove a point.

The Same Old Game

Some kids play every game.
Tag. Blocks. Hide and seek.
All done before lunch!

Then they ask for a new game.
They played them all.
Now they are bored.

Other kids play one game.
The same old game.
Hide and seek, all day long.

They hide in new spots.
They count slow. They count fast.
They laugh so hard they fall down.
One time the hider is a bear.
One time the hider is a pirate.
The same old game
lasts the whole day.

Who really played?

New games are fun too.
You can try new games.
But you don’t have to rush.
An old game can still be big.

So pick a game you know.
Play it all the way.
The same old game,
one more time.

A note for the grown-up

For the grown-up reading aloud: near the end of Fear and Trembling the narrator pictures children who have played all their games before noon and ask impatiently for a new one. He asks whether they are more advanced than children who stretch the familiar games out to last the whole day, and suggests they are missing the seriousness that belongs to play. His larger point is about faith and love, which he says every generation has to learn from the beginning instead of rushing past. The primer keeps only the playground picture. It isn’t against new games; the fence is that trying new things is fine, and the lesson is not to rush through what’s in front of you.