Satan's favourite plaything

Bruno is an odd child. And apparently “odd” is the official diagnosis. He’s difficult to manage, becomes overly focused on trivia and reacts quite… well… oddly to things at times.

But he’s sweet and endearing, as they all are in grade 1, with big brown puppydog eyes and knobby knees that magically attract scrapes and cuts.

The other day, I was sitting in the playground during morning tea, when a desperately melancholy Bruno wandered up, scuffing his shoes in the dirt, a lone tear trickling down his face, fists jammed into his tiny pockets. He plopped himself disconsolately beside me on the bench and heaved a sigh full of pathos and misery.

Ever the loving and helpful Chappy, I wiggled closer to him and leaned in.

“What’s up, Bruno?” I asked gently. He looked at me with such melancholy, such eternal sadness, that my heart ached for this poor, lost child. His lip trembled as he revealed to me the pain in his soul:

“I miss my pets.”

Well, I thought, here is a wonderful opportunity to minister to this little, heartbroken child; to apply thoughtful and insightful questions, to sprinkle the conversation liberally with messages of love and God’s kindness and to draw him out so that he would share his feelings with me. And so I said the magic words…

“Tell me about your pets”.

That was my first mistake.

For thirty five minutes, I sat and listened as Bruno told me how desperately he missed his four dogs (one had just been run over by a car), three cats (two had been eaten by the dog), two horses (none eaten or run over), eighteen chooks (all with names), nine ducks, four guinea pigs, three budgerigars (a yellow one had died and mysteriously come back to life a few days later as a blue one), six fish, two parrots, three bunny rabbits, a skink and a family of possums that lived behind the shed.

Thankfully, Scripture Union and my training as a minister allowed me to listen thoughtfully and with intent even though my eyes had begun to glaze over as he named all eighteen chickens for me, described in minute detail the differences in the ducks’ personalities and pondered the mysteries of a budgie’s afterlife.

My second mistake was inviting him to tell me more, to let me in on whatever else was troubling him (as something clearly was); to pour out his heart to me and to share the secrets of his soul.

“What else, sweetie?” I said, my voice tinged with just enough care to elicit more of his story.

He looked up at me thoughtfully, cocked his head in the way that only a grade one student can and said “I can control my father’s mind…”

It was a looooooong day, I can tell you…..