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I learnt only recently that anything that a wristwatch can do beyond telling the time is called a complication.

Watched today can give weather forecasts, make phone calls, measure daily steps and heart-rates and proffer access to social media and GPS. These complications are very useful, and make the watch more…complicated.

Many people who own one of these timepieces use only one or two of the extras, and I wouldn’t mind betting that most people use their multi-talented watch only for time-telling.

As we get on in years our once-simple lives become increasingly complicated. This isn’t a bad thing since healthy adults rightly accept and carry a lot more responsibility than children. We know too that many of life’s complications, while at times causing some stress, are what provide our greatest growth and life-giving adventure, making the best stories a few weeks and years down the track.

When Jesus expresses delight that many things are hidden from the learned and the clever and revealed to mere children, maybe he had a complicated watch in mind.

Perhaps we allow our minutes, hours to become unnecessarily complicated as with the best of intentions we fill our days with unwanted complexity.

What’s the answer? What to do?

Jesus asks us to remember the simplicity of the child, since child-like curiosity and playfulness enable us to be receptive to life’s ultimate meaning revealed to those who take time to be still and silent in a disposition of openness and wonder.

Let’s try it.