when we were children (2013) 9'

when we were children
text by David Lang (after Saint Paul)

I am done with childish ways
I did away with childish things
I do not act like a child anymore
I felt as a child
I gave up childish ways
I gurgled and cooed like any infant
I had done with what belonged to the child
I had the intelligence
I had the understanding of a child
I have finished with childish ways
I have made useless the things of the babe
I have no more use for childish ways
I have outgrown childish ways
I have put away childish things
I left those infant ways for good
I no longer used childish ways
I put an end to childish ways
I put aside childish things
I put away childish things
I put away the things of a child
I put childish ways behind me
I put the ways of childhood behind me
I reasoned as a child
I reasoned like a child
I set aside childish ways
I set aside the things of a child
I set aside those childish ways
I spake as a child
I spake as a little child
I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child I spoke as a child
I spoke like a child
I stopped doing things like a child
I stopped those childish ways
I talked and felt and thought like a little child I talked like a child
I thought as a child
I thought as a little child
I thought like a child
I understood as a child
I understood as a little child
I understood like a child

I used to speak like a child
I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child
I voided those things that were of a little child
I’ve put an end to childish things

and have put them aside
and I made plans like a child and reasoned like a child
and when I have become a man argued like a child
as a babe I was reasoning
as a babe I was speaking
as a babe I was thinking
as children do

but, when I became a man
but now that I have become a man
but when I became a man
but when I became an adult,
but when I grew up
but when I was made a man
but when we grew up
just so
my childish speech and feeling and thought have no further
significance for me
my speech, feelings, and thinking were all those of a child now I am a man
now that I am a man
now that I am an adult
now that I am become a man
now that I have become a man
reason like a child
since I became a man
the thoughts of a child
think like a child
thought like a child
we quit our childish ways
we thought and reasoned
when I became a man
when I became an adult
when I grew up
when I was a babe
when I was a child
when I was a little child
when I was an infant at my mother’s breast
when we were children