Child | Children | Identification | Love | Obedience | Perspective | Position | Purity

RAG DOLL LOVE
There is a natural, logical kind of loving that loves lovely things and people. That’s logical. But there is another kind of loving that doesn’t look for value in what it loves, but that creates value in what it loves. Like Rosemary’s rag doll. When Rosemary, my youngest child, was three, she was given a little rag doll, which quickly became an inseparable companion. She had other toys that were intrinsically far more valuable, but none that she loved like she loved the rag doll. Soon the rag doll became more and more rag and less and less doll. It also became more and more dirty. If you tried to clean the rag doll, it became more ragged still. And if you didn’t try to clean the rag doll, it became dirtier still. The sensible thing to do was to trash the rag doll. But that was unthinkable for anyone who loved my child. If you loved Rosemary, you loved the…