My preschooler, like many small children, is a natural philosopher and theologian. He is endlessly fascinated by origins, death, meaning, God, and mystery, and never holds back his questions.
Some recent wonderings include:
Who made God?
Who am I?
How is dead different than asleep, and do you wake up from dead?
What color is God’s skin?
Before I was an egg and a sperm, where was I?
Am I a bad guy, or a good guy who makes bad choices?
And the classic quandary, if God is everywhere, is God with the poop in the potty?
As we field these consistently profound and occasionally silly inquiries, I’ve noticed a few things about the asking, lessons in the love of ultimate questions.
First is the utter fearlessness of asking giant questions. The deepest, most impossible questions most often arise in adulthood during periods of anxiety, in the aftermath of loss or trauma, or in times of transition. We are often skittish of deep contemplation of our origins, death, morality, meaning, and God. This is vulnerable territory, and our association of questioning our being and meaning with times of change or suffering makes us hesitant to venture into reflective territory. But for young children, these questions emerge as easily and joyfully as other, more mundane curiosities, and generate playfulness and wonder. They’re unchecked, bubbling up from daily life, and completely free of judgment, foregone conclusion, fear or shame.
Then there is the relentless repetition of all of these questions. Little kids are infamous for chirping, “Why? Why? Why?” to the point of irritation, but occasionally the repeated questions are less a reflex and more of a continual reflection. We’ll have a conversation full of deep pondering. Days or weeks will pass and suddenly, we’re rehashing the conversation with a new layer of application. A new story, toy, experience, song, or show will prompt him to revisit. When we recently had our first animal funeral, death itself was thoroughly re-examined and made much more complicated. He had some ideas about the thing from the stories of Good Friday and Easter, some awareness of deceased family members. But to grieve a lifeless rabbit brought home the idea in new ways, and spun us into countless conversations of connection and meaning making.
As we revisit and re-evaluate and find more and complex ideas around these ultimate questions, it is also not unsurprising that some of conclusions and reflections would change. With more explanations than a conspiracy theory buff, origin stories of humanity and God and the world multiply. God has brown skin or perhaps no skin at all. And of course, my child is himself; he is Spider-Man; he is grown; he is a baby; he is a good guy and a bad guy and a priest like mama and an organizer like daddy. The answers change and converge and evolve with each iteration of questioning, again, with no judgment on his process.
Joy and courage, repetition, complexity and evolution.
In a conversation for adult formation recently, my friend, theologian Zac Settle looked at the classic Confessions for an example for asking ultimate questions. Augustine, he says, writes this volume of questions around identity, meaning, truth, morality, and the nature of God all in the form of prayer. Joyfully grounded in the grace of God’s knowledge and love, open ended and reflective, often inconclusive, at its best, prayer does not ask for arrival, but orients us toward connection with God, growth, and a deeper way of listening to the Spirit. The instincts and wisdom of young questioners is echoed in one of the greatest thinkers and saints of the tradition.
What would it be like to happily and confidently ask our biggest and strangest questions? Can we give ourselves permission to circle back to ask again, and to accept new and shifting answers? How might we live the questions as our prayers?