The sequence, main event:
Girl goes to Santo Domingo. She sees many things but one day her attention is arrested by a peculiar sight: a girl like herself walking around on tin cans. She observes that the girl is having fun and in a micro-second decides that yes, it is fun.
Second step:
The girl from Ojeda then concludes in a flash: "I can do that too! I can make my own pair of can stilts!" While the creation process is getting under way, the local environment is very positive. Other kids laugh and want to try walking on tin cans. It looks intriguing and no body is saying that the play is below their dignity or social class.
Home with the energy to share the experience:
When Nancy returns to Ojeda she remembers how to make the new toy and goes about doing it. The other kids watch and learn. Soon there are five and upwards of six children walking around, experiencing a new kind of motion.
Raw play:
Just as a digital camera has the ability to take raw images which have not been compressed or touched up by a computer program to look "just so", these children are experiencing "raw" play. Their game has no coach, play book or sports industry to sell, manage and promote the "new and improved" tin can stilts. When children delight in the simplest of toys and create their own play moment, are they somehow in tune with the Spirit of God?
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me":
Jesus once transferred a child's game to a real life situation: "we sang a joyful song but you would not dance; we played a dirge but you would not cry." He observed how people lost the joy of childhood and replaced it with an artificial, managed kind of war game, which led up to a catastrophic engagement with the Roman legions. His first words to Nathaniel were the playful: "I saw you under the fig tree." And when the Spirit of God confronted Saul on his way to Damascus, the self-righteous Pharisee ended up learning how to "walk on tin cans"... to be considered a fool for being so enthralled about a former prisoner who met his death on a cross.
