Monday, March 21, 2005
Good question...
When Reed was baptized a year ago, St. Luke's gave him a board book called Baby's First Prayers. The book is a favorite of both Max and Reed. My hunch is that they love it, in part, because it has a nifty plastic handle and clasp adorned with three-dimensional plastic animals. But no matter. We read it and read it often.
The book features prayers for daily living, from sun-up to bedtime, and its themes are straight-forward and non-sectarian: God made the world and everything in it. God is with us always. For these things, we are thankful. Not particularly complicated or controversial stuff, at least not on the surface.
But Max is trying to figure out how the world works and how various things relate to one another. A couple of weeks ago as we were reading together, Max asked, "Did God write this book?" That might have struck me as an odd inquiry had we not been discussing the rather curious phenomenon that everything comes from God. It is, after all, the ultimate mystery.
This evening Max once again asked me to read him Baby's First Prayers. After we'd finished it from cover to cover, Max asked, "Mommmy, how did God make me?" I've been readying myself for "Where do babies come from?", but Max's formulation was slightly different. As I began to stutter through a response, Max turned and walked out of the room. He appeared to care not one whit about my answer. Perhaps, at some level, he already recognizes this truth:
Sometimes it is the question that is most interesting.
The book features prayers for daily living, from sun-up to bedtime, and its themes are straight-forward and non-sectarian: God made the world and everything in it. God is with us always. For these things, we are thankful. Not particularly complicated or controversial stuff, at least not on the surface.
But Max is trying to figure out how the world works and how various things relate to one another. A couple of weeks ago as we were reading together, Max asked, "Did God write this book?" That might have struck me as an odd inquiry had we not been discussing the rather curious phenomenon that everything comes from God. It is, after all, the ultimate mystery.
This evening Max once again asked me to read him Baby's First Prayers. After we'd finished it from cover to cover, Max asked, "Mommmy, how did God make me?" I've been readying myself for "Where do babies come from?", but Max's formulation was slightly different. As I began to stutter through a response, Max turned and walked out of the room. He appeared to care not one whit about my answer. Perhaps, at some level, he already recognizes this truth:
Sometimes it is the question that is most interesting.
1 Comments:
And aren't you glad that was the case tonight?
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