The Littlest One: Alan J Segal

Its 7:55 am, I'm waiting to make a conference call, and my (alleged) mind is wandering to writing a piece for the Spice issue focusing on children. Yesterday I turned 65, far from a child - in most respects. I finished reading the latest email version of my high school reunion committee's publication. There was some interesting "stuff" in this issue. What caught my attention were not the plans for our 50th reunion or the review of classmate Dr. Andrew Weil's latest book by another classmate, but the list of schoolmates who have died. Their childhood certainly gone forever and fast disappearing from the collective memory of their circle of friends. I remember most of my classmates as a group of very precocious twelve and thirteen year old males. My high school was an all male institution until ten years ago. Central was known for its scholarship and the fact is we earned an honorary bachelors degree upon graduating with a B average or better. Most achieved that degree. Kids! Did we appreciate our education at that time? I doubt that most did.

Kids! I was standing in the meeting room after church services ended several weeks ago, studying the wall where pictures, announcements, and stories of past exploits of various groups and committees were posted and a little person strode up to the wall. He stood next to me, studying the wall with great interest. He couldn't have been more than five or six. The silence between us was palpable. He stood there holding his nametag - Michael. "Hi Michael, can I help you?" I asked. He responded, very gravely with, "The tags are in order, did you know that?" "Nope, I didn't know that." "What does that say?" he asked as he pointed to one of six or eight groups of nametags draped over a hangers. "Delores," I responded. "Did you know they're in order?" "Yes, I did; you just told me that. My name is Alan." "I'm Mikey. I'm the littlest one." We shook hands in the manliest of fashion. He then very carefully looped his nametag over the lowest peg, and walked away without a word. "Mikey, I'm the littlest one." Littlest what? He wasn't the littlest person; there were several infants with us that morning. He wasn't the littlest in stature; he proved that with the gravity he brought to the conversation.

The answer to my question waited until I had a quiet moment with my wife. "Mikey told me that he was the 'littlest one'. What is he the 'littlest' of?" I wondered. Pastor Joy, as my wife likes to be called, then told me the story of the three boys who had just become acolytes. All members of the same family there were two brothers and a cousin, all who had jumped at the chance to be involved as acolytes. Mikey was the youngest and the littlest. Joy told me that he is doing a bang-up job. I have no doubts about that!

After I was informed of the statistics of children who are involved in church staying with the church or joining a church after their teenage or college "crises" years I understood Joy's elation of having Mikey involved. I was told that the more children are involved in church, the more parents are involved in church life. Seems like a win-win to us.

I don't know if he knew how important he is or how important his affiliation with and engagement in the activities of the church are. I'm not sure that it matters if he does understand those propositions now. What's important is that he feels comfortable in that community. What's important is that he feels comfortable enough to tell me that "I'm the littlest one" and be very, very proud of that.

That is the kind of memory that you take with you for your entire life. When Mikey is 65, and reading about his peers from his high school graduating class I am sure that his memory bank will take him to that wonderful time when he was five or six and standing in church and announced to a stranger "I'm the littlest one."

I think he was the "biggest one" in that church. On his shoulders and on the shoulders of his peer group rest the future of the Anglican community. I was delighted to have met the future. I'm so tired of staring at the past and feeling as though all my memories are fading and going away. Mikey will carry with him our Sunday morning meeting and perhaps tell a friend of his, and perhaps our shared memory of that event will live past my lifetime.

I could ask no more from him. He is fulfilling the destiny of every child and every child of faith. I looked at the future and it seemed in very good hands.