Another Noah

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We (me, my wife, and our partner,
Adrienne Wall) own a small photography company. 
We live in Huntsville, Alabama, and operate in North Alabama, North
Mississippi, and Western Tennessee. 
Since we specialize in Day Care Centers, we meet a lot of kids, and we
can confirm, with Art Linkletter and Bill Cosby, that Kid’s Say the Darndest Things.

For example, a couple of months ago my
wife and I were at a Day Care Center, a large one, with over a hundred children.  The center is run by two delightful women
both of whom love to teach so they each have a regular morning class.

We were set up across the hall from one
of them who was teaching a Bible lesson to a class of four year olds.  One of her students was named Noah.   A number of the children had made comments
before the lesson started, but Noah had been very quiet until the director
began telling the story, from Genesis, of Noah gathering all of the animals to
go in the ark.   Noah, the four year old,
remained quiet until he heard the teacher say, “And then Noah gathered two of
each animal on the earth, to go in the Ark.”

At that point a little girl called out,
“What about snakes, did he catch two snakes?”

The teacher said, “Yes he did.  Noah even brought two snakes into the ark…”

That’s as far as she got in the story
because Noah, the four year old, shouted, “Whoa, hold it.  That wasn’t me.  That was another Noah…”

The teacher lost it,
and so did we.  Since then, the phrase, “Whoa,
that was another Noah,” has become part of my thought process.  For me, it is a graphic example of the tendency
we all seem to have to disavow any connection with behavior that doesn’t fit our
definition of acceptability.   As that
story illustrates, we begin forming our area of acceptability at an early
age.  By the time we are in our twenties,
it has become us – our clearly defined self, and that belief system determines
the course of our lives; unless we are willing to take a serious look at the
things that we have chosen to be our truths - the “snakes” in our lives.