Answering My Grandchildren's Questions

Sitting here this early morning, ruminating, especially about family, allowing my mind to wonder back some forty years ago when Michelle and Amy were born, then skipping down the years that followed.  I remember how they came into my world.  Barraging Bettyann and me with questions. As infants, they were not doing the questioning.  It was Bettyann and me.  But in their own ways, their voices were heard and the questions poured forth. Why is she crying? What does she need? How do I do this? Of course, it wasn’t long before the voices shifted and it really was our daughters barraging us with questions in a different way.  Neither had  to be the type who’s inquisitive nature left us exhausted, it was just that they were two years apart in age.  Just enough so as when the question of the old was answered, the younger would ask “why.”

Before the miraculous events at the Red Sea even took place, God instructed Moses to tell the Israelites that they were in the makings of what would become a festival.  To a people yet bound in slavery, God commanded them to celebrate forever the things that were about to take place.  And God added, "Then your children will ask, 'What does all this mean? What is this ceremony about?

LORD's Passover, for he passed over the homes of the Israelites in Egypt'" Exodus 12:26-27. Your children will ask. What I was taught many years ago in my studies in developmental psychology, it is now that each of my four grandchildren are asking questions because they are curious, because they are interested, because they want to know, and because they believe I have the answer. But I’ve noticed questions also form on the lips of one particular grandchild simply because, I think, she loves to ask. Inquiry is an imperative part of a developing young life, and my grandchildren’s lives are immersed in a culture of questions. Yet, I’m thinking, as their grandfather, who gives short and succinct answers, am, like Srie; easily making the mistake that answers are all they are looking for. In other words; hearing the question as a problem to solve with an answer. I'm thinking that a culture of answers is not the answer for foundational living. While nerves and photocytes may explain the glow of the firefly, perhaps the question was more accurately probing the miracle of light. I’m asking myself, how many times have I silenced the wonder of inquiry of my grandchildren, with a “quip from the hip” in place of informing their curiousness.    

It’s been sometime last summer that a study on the faith and belief of today's youth laments the growing inarticulacy of students when it comes to talking about what they believe. The study relates the language of faith to something like a second language in our culture. Acquiring a second language requires listening to others speak, studying the lessons of language, and practicing it until a person’s voice is found. The researchers were troubled as they realized how seldom teens found opportunity to practice talking about their faith. They were astonished by the number of kids who reported that this was the first time they had been asked by an adult what they believed. One replied as if he was caught off guard, "I don’t know. No one has ever asked me that before."

I cannot help but add here: I was so pleased, a few weeks ago when my eldest granddaughter was asked to and without equivocation committed to giving her personal testimony of her relationship with Christ on film.   

Such a study, as this one, mentioned above, offers many angles for analysis for me. But I often wonder if, in the spirit of this information age, I boast in and practice getting endless and instant answers, all the while failing to notice that I am too soon interrupting questions with explanation. I’m asking myself; is this perhaps the abundance of answers stiffing my ability to probe deeply the truths and mysteries of faith and religion?  I’ve noticed over recent years that I have seldom looked for opportunities to practice talking with my grandchildren, let alone acquaintances about the things I cease to wonder at. 

To the children who first celebrated the Passover feast, inquiry must have been abounding with anticipation. The unleavened bread stood out from what they were used to eating, the lamb was prepared with extraordinary care, and the adults seemed marked by a hopeful sense of urgency.  "What does all this mean?" would have come naturally out of eager mouths. Parents and grandparents answered with the stir of recollection, "Today we celebrate the LORD's Passover, for he passed over our homes in Egypt and brought us out with his mighty hand."  Their answer offered within it the weighted truth of the Exodus—and no doubt their eyes were filled with the same boundless wonder I will experience when I go beyond the questions of Grace, Sarah, Claire and Brayden.