5  | 

I found this helpful Thank You! Your vote will be tallied soon!

So 4 is the age when they start asking the big questions. You know, about the past and the future, your soul, the nature of time, what happens when you die, where were you before you were born. No sooner had Larkin turned four than she began probing these metaphysical mysteries. "Dad," she'll ask me, "why do people only grow older? Why don't they grow younger?"

The big questions aren't always easy to discuss with your just-turned-four-year-old. Partly because you've managed to reach age whatever without having answered them fully for yourself. But also because whatever answer you do come up with, you want to put it in terms she can understand.

Last Saturday afternoon, Lark and I went to a children's singalong held at the family room of a local Baptist church. There was nothing religious about it, just a guy with a guitar, stuffed animals and hula hoops - and a bunch of dads, like me, taking their toddlers out for some fun. But as we drove away afterward, Larkin asked, "Daddy, why do people go to church?"

There were a lot of reasons, I told her. "They want to be part of a group with other people they like. They go to sing, to listen to speeches, and to pray."
"What is pray?"
"It's kind of like a quiet conversation. You know how when you and I have a conversation, we're talking out loud, with each other? When people pray in church, they're having a silent conversation with God."
"But who is God?"

I sighed - something I do when presented with a hard question. "He's who you're sending all those quiet thoughts to. He's a spirit, sort of like a ghost. He's invisible. People believe he's the one who created the world and who makes things happen. That's why they pray when they want good things to happen. Like if someone you love is very sick, you pray to God that he gets better."
"But why do people think God could make you better if you were sick?"

Another big sigh from me. I should say here that in faith terms, I'm a confirmed agnostic, while Molly is an ex-Episcopalian-cum-quasi-Universalist-believes-in-spirituality person. We don't go to church, and we don't have any particular plans to with Larkin. Still, I found myself not wanting to put the whole belief dilemma out there for her -- not wanting to say, "Honey, some people believe in God, and some don't." That issue will settle itself in her life, in due course, and I didn't want to confront her with something she's not ready to understand yet. Still, I needed to find an answer that would make sense to her even as, in a different way, it made sense to me, within my own belief system. Why do people think that God can make the sick better, and moreover that he will listen to us? It felt a little bit like a college theology exam, or a job interview. I was even, strangely, a little bit nervous.

"You know how we were talking yesterday about what time is?" (This was the same weekend she asked the why-don't-people-grow-younger question.) "And we talked about how people always say, 'Remember a long time ago when I used to do this,' or 'Remember last summer when we did that?'" 
"Sure," she said. "Like last summer we went to Michigan!"
"Exactly. We can always go back in time in our minds, because we've been there. But we can't go forward in time in our minds, because we don't know what's going to happen in front of us."
"You mean, in the future?"
"Correct. And that means the future is a big mystery, right? The truth is that some good things are going to happen in the future, and some bad things are going to happen, too, but we don't exactly know what or when. Are you following me?"
I looked at her in the rear-view mirror. She nodded.
"People really really really want the good things to happen," I continued. "So when they pray, they're having that quiet conversation and focusing all their thoughts and their hopes and energies on the good things. And God is where they focus all that.  He's where they aim their hopes for the future. That's praying."

I sighed yet again. My answer struck me as jumbled and perhaps evasive. I didn't think I'd gotten through to her. We came to a stoplight, and I looked back. Larkin was concentrating intensely.
"It's like 'go away, bad stuff!'" she said. "Right, Dad?"
I was surprised. That was pretty good. "Yes it is, honey. Exactly like that."
"BAD STUFF, GET OUT OF HERE!" She was flailing her arms and shouting, a big smile on her face. "GET AWAY FROM OUR GOOD STUFF AND LEAVE US ALONE!" 

I had to laugh. Sometimes a child extracts the pearl of truth from your messy oyster of an explanation, and holds it up gleaming. And so, with the ageless imponderables temporarily kept at bay, we proceeded to go home and dance to Larkin's favorite CD, read Angelina's Birthday, and make a Bert-the-Bulldog face out of Legos on the family room rug. Amazing, how life goes on, even with the Big Questions hanging over us.