on "Claiming Childhood"

Henri Nouwen from The Return of the Prodigal Son:

"Becoming a child is living toward a second innocence: not the innocence of the newborn infant, but the innocence that is reached through conscious choices."

"The Beattitudes offer me the simplest route for the journey home, back to the house of my father... the joys of the second childhood: comfort, mercy, and an ever clearer vision of God."