Gift of Questions
Friend and contributing editor of High Country News Michelle Nijhuis has a lovely print piece on NPR today, Away in the Secular Manger. As each new generation arrives, the questions we can evade most of the time about what we, really, believe reappear in an insistent and unavoidable way. For Michelle, the first year might be the easiest.
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December 21st, 2009 at 6:56 pm
I am watching the evolution of the third generation of our family’s non-believers. He’s 7 years old now, asking questions like “if everyone has a mother, than shouldn’t the first mother have had a mother. But how can that be. It hurts my brain.”
He doesn’t ask about god or the first Christmas. He knows the stories. The various creation stories. The various winter celebration stories. He knows that different people believe different things when it comes to all things “god.”
He’s never been to an actual church service, although he might when my 94 year old Catholic mother finally passes away. He understands death as the final human event, and he participated in our ritual when we sent his grandfather’s ashes into the sea. He understands the power of ritual, apart from its religious associations.
What causes him to wonder, to experience awe, are the questions of science. What makes him feel secure are the roots of family. What sparks his creativity is the vitality of this planet’s various mythologies.
I brought up two compassionate, ethical, moral children (now adults) without a belief in in god. If they feel the awesomeness of the divine around them, it is through the natural world and their connection to it. And through their example and teaching, my grandson is sensing that divine as well.
Some people find comfort in faith. That’s OK. It’s just not us.