Me and Lucas, driving down Greenville Avenue last night.
"Dad, why did we go to church today?"
"To worship God with our friends."
"Why do we have to go to the church for that?"
"Because it's God's house."
"Is God in other places?"
"Yes, God is everywhere, but he's especially there in our church, in the bread and the wine."
"Is he in other churches?"
"Yes, honey, anywhere people worship Jesus, he's there in some way. And God can also be in places where they don't worship Jesus, like in synagogues. Those are churches for Jewish people."
Silence from the back seat.
(And I'm thinking: wow, that little boy is already starting to make connections between the universality of the one God and the brotherhood of man. Let him ask one more question, and I'll close the deal.)
"Dad?"
"Yeah, buddy?"
"I have a booger."
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Clearly he was making an important connection between the role of the physical in both the Incarnation and the present sacramental reality of the Church. :)
All kidding aside, it's amazing how many insights children of that age can have into theological realities. It reminds me of my oldest, who was a bit under three when she started asking the various "Does God have hands, feet, etc." questions. I talked about concepts like body and spirit without much expecting her to understand, but following my usual parental principle of 'answer the questions in such a way that the 'whys' disappear'. I was, however, stunned the day she sat beside me on the couch with a doll catalog, frowned seriously for a long minute, then nodded to herself, pointed to one of the dolls, looked at me confidently, and said, "Body. Noooo spirit."
Clearly boogers are God's way of telling you not to push theological issues too quickly, lest you confuse the boy's immature spiritual understanding, for clearly, as all things are under His control, surely this was a Heavenly sign.
Or he has a cold. You know, whatever.
God bless. :-)
Well, there's a Zen parable whose punchline is, "My miracle is precisely this. When I am thirsty, I drink. When I am hungry, I eat."
Boogers fit in perfectly.
Obviously the booger was a sign from God.
Erin, one of my favorites was when my four-year-old son piped up from the back seat, completely out of the blue, with "How do we know what we know?" So we had a good conversation about "pistomology."
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