STUMPERS

Ken Beidler

I am staying home during the day with our two children while my wife teaches at a local university. By the time she arrives shortly after five, my spirit lags. Recently, after greeting her, I tell her that she has to answer all the rest of our son’s questions for the remainder of that day.

At three, the irrepressible query was "Why?" Now there is a greater complexity of inquiry, both in the question and the range of subjects addressed. Sometimes he turns philosophical. This morning he asked me how many ladders it would take to climb to heaven.

Typically the subjects are more earthly. Right now with the change in fall weather, I field a lot of questions about trees and leaves. I wish I had paid better attention in my high school earth science class. When I am dogged by question after question of the earth science variety, I long for next year when his kindergarten teachers will have the job of satiating his appetite for knowledge. I just hope he remembers to raise his hand and take his turn.

Several years ago, I went on a sabbatical from my work as a pastor. I spent four days with the community of Benedictines at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota. I joined their religious community for prayer three times a day, a prominent part of which was the singing of the psalms. I was struck with the honesty of this ancient book of prayer and with the frequency with which the writers of the psalms ask searching questions.

In our corporate worship we tend to focus on psalms of praise, but a closer look reveals that the psalmist is as likely to utter a plea of help to God in the form of a question as to burst out in unfettered praise. Psalm 13 is a good example. The first two verses contain five questions, beginning with the poignantly existential, "How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?"

In a week, the monastic community will read through the entire litany of these human and spiritual questions laying them before God. When faced with yet another question from my son, I try to remember that this questioning nature is a part of the spiritual and existential DNA God has woven into our being.

In my effort to understand the relevancy of this spiritual curiosity, I have started to develop categories for my child’s questions. There are the searching and unanswerable variety with a turn toward heavenly things of the "ladders to heaven" kind. There are the transparently self-interested questions. These concern life or death matters like when will he be allowed to watch another video and when will he be able to have more ice cream.

A particular favorite right now is the "What if" question. The other day we were crossing a bridge across the Schuylkill River here in Philadelphia where we live. Ever since the tragic bridge accident in Minneapolis our son has been aware of the perils of crossing bridges. As we waited at a traffic light on a bridge, my son asked me, "What if the bridge fell in the water?" I have learned to try to cut off this line of questioning right away.

My best strategy is to begin with a sweeping and confident statement that that this will not happen. "Don’t worry, the bridge will not fall down."

But usually he will press ahead on the conversational path he has chosen and say, "But what if our car fell in?"

I realize that I am committed at this point. "Well, the car would start to sink, but I would get both you and Ezra out. Papi is a very good swimmer." I, of course, doubt my ability to perform this superhuman act but it seems prudent to try to bring this progression of questions to a swift close.

To which he replies, "But what if you couldn’t get us out?"

Well, there is the stumper isn’t it! It is the question with a hundred or more variations. It is the question posed by natural disasters, AIDS patients, the unfortunate victims of stray bullets and drunken drivers. My inclination is to protect my young son from the sometimes troubling end to which these "What if . . . " questions inexorably lead.

Yet the truth is that we inhabit a troubling mystery in relation to the suffering in our world. Even a four-year-old is already becoming attuned to this mystery.

Listen to the Psalmist continue in her line of questioning: "How long will you hide your face from me?

"How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?" (Ps. 13:1-2)

While it seems reasonable to me that we shield our children from some awareness of the sufferings and evils of this world, their own questions lead us there. I instinctively turn the radio off when there is a story with explicit details related to a crime particularly involving children.

I do not always have the option to practice parental censorship. Recently as we followed a bus down the street, my son pointed out the picture on the back of a bus. In an effort to end violent deaths, city officials are attempting to raise awareness about the danger of guns. In the public ad, there is an oversize gun ominously pointed in the direction of a young girl.

How might we as parents welcome and not suppress this mysterious reality of suffering from our children’s awareness and help them live in trust and hope?

The Psalmists’ honesty and pathos remind us that these moments of human questioning in the face of our suffering belong in the spiritual life.

This sad and complicated earthly city is our dwelling place even as we long for the heavenly city where. . . .

God will be with them;
And will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away." (Rev. 21: 3-4)

We might take a cue from the singing monks who daily construct a ladder to heaven with their prayers, not skipping any of the rungs to get there but stepping resolutely on each. Whether that rung be lament, self-pitying cry, protest at God’s abandonment, a plea for understanding or praise.

We trust that all of it, cried out in our childlike stutterings, will arrive on heaven’s doorstep as an acceptable song.

—Ken Beidler, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is a Mennonite pastor, free-lance writer, and stay-at-home dad.