"Parents encourage these explorations and discoveries by presenting their children with toys. Toys provide a safe, or at least safer, means of carrying out experiments on the world than wandering out into the streets and forests. Instead of sending our two-year-old down to the fire stations to climb all over the fire trucks and pester the firefighters with questions, we buy a small fire truck and let him rescue people from under the dining room table. Instead of sending our three-year-old to the woods to look for bears and badgers, we buy her a few stuffed anmials that will give her a feel for these creatures without the danger of her becoming a meal for them.
In the process of this exploration we learn that there's more to the world than size and shape, color and texture; there's meaning and purpose, good and bad. There's someting just beneath the surface of everything, something invisible and inaudible but just as real, maybe even more real, than what we're seeing and hearing and touching. Stories are our primary means for exploring these beneath-the-surface, behind-the-scenes relalities that are as present and immediate to us as anything we have access to through our five senses. Stories are as important as toys."
Leap Over a Wall: Earthy Spirituality for Everyday Christians - Eugene Peterson
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