Go outside and play....

Mothers for my generation were often heard to say to their children... Get out of the house and go play. Outdoors was seen as the natural place to send children to play, to settle sibling disputes or to get out from under parents feet and off their last nerve. Outdoors could be depended upon to supply entertainment and amusement whether digging for doodlebugs under the barn, climbing trees, catching lightening bugs or watching spiders weave webs. Dirty was the usual description of children who spent time outdoors and no one seemed to get too upset about it.
I had three sets of clothes. My Sunday dresses, two of them, were reserved for church, funerals and weddings. School clothes were taken off as soon as I got home and replaced with outdoor clothes. Since we were not allowed in the dark ages to wear jeans to school, only dresses, mama kept us in jeans, flannel shirts for winter, shorts and tops for summer as our outdoor wear. It was assumed we would go outdoors when we got home to feed the chickens, tend the hog, and hang around until mama and daddy got home from work and we did.
Adam, our youngest child, never needed to be told to go outside and play. When he was two and being potty trained, I heard him calling for me outside. There he was, standing in the middle of the little creek that ran through our backyard, calling, “I need potty, mama!” It was already too late but I gave him credit for self knowledge. Later in his childhood, he roamed the neighborhood with his pack of boy buddies exploring the park, climbing rock cliffs and chasing crawdads. Our family catch phrase for him was, “Where’s Adam?” knowing he was off somewhere having the times of his life.
Science is finally catching up with what our parents and grandparents already knew. Being outdoors, getting dirty, living with animals is good for you at the most basic level for your immune system. The increase in asthma, according to a recent study, seems to be linked to our increasing isolation from the great outdoors and all the clean dirt that is there. Eating dirt as a child was actually good for you. Who knew? Inside dirt, however, seems to be different. Inside dirt, composed of dust mites, roach and other bug detritus, mice and rat leftovers, do not stimulate your immune system but tax it.
My eighty four year old mother gets out everyday that the weather allows. She digs in her flowers, feeds barn cats and walks Rufus the Basset Hound. On Wednesday she was complaining about her knees hurting. She had been digging rocks out of her flower bed and rolling them down the hill. Some of those rocks were small boulders! She asked Michael to bring her a load of manure up so she can dig it in her flowers bucket by bucket. Her garden is tilled and ready for spring planting. As a child, she roamed the woods on the family farm and spent her time outdoors helping her father farm. This connection with the outdoor world has sustained and nourished her in ways that transcend modern medicine.
The Psalmist sang, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.” Rainy days, warm days, sunny days, cold days, country, suburbs, city... all the earth is full of God and for our health’s sake, our soul’s sake, go outside and play. Get dirty. Get wet. Sweat a little. Look for doodlebugs or creekwalk. Fly a kite or sit on a park bench. Walk your neighborhood and say hello to your neighbors. Get out of the house and enjoy God’s earth full of goodness and grace. Help prevent asthma for generations yet to come!