Friday, August 23, 2019

Keep Asking the Questions... and stay young!



I want to begin by reflecting on a wonderful holiday club that we shared at Zion in early August. The theme was pretty straightforward, we are not robots. We are Human beings, made with dignity and with the ability to make free choices. The word Robot can actually mean Slave, we offered to the children the thought that God didn't make us to be slaves, but rather to be free.

If we are free it should be no surprise then that we have questioning minds that seek meaning and purpose. That search is nothing short of Spirituality. It was wonderful to share our Christian understanding of all that means. You may think we were trying to 'brainwash' the children. You can think that if you like. I prefer to think we were offering them stories and questions so that they could make their own decisions. Lots of them did, both ways so to speak!

I found the children to be wonderfully questioning and willing to engage... They were given  opportunities each day to send in jokes and questions. I must admit they were mostly jokes, and bad ones at that: ie why couldn't they play cards on the Ark.... Because Noah standing on the deck. But there were questions. For instance, 'Why did God put the tree in the garden?  This came after we reflected on the amazing story of Adam and Eve and the choice she made to eat the apple and not to obey the one command that had been given.  Great question. It led to a great discussion with one of the teenage helpers. I remarked that you don't have to read every story as literal truth... (that is not a comment on the world of fake news and facts that we are living in!) but we might look for the meanings that these stories can teach us. ie. The reality that even if we were only given one rule, there is something in us that would want to break it.

So why is that? Or to put it another way, why was there a tree in the garden? Well, why? What do you think? For that is where my sadness begins. As I write this article I'm expecting mostly adult readers, and the sad sad reality is that most of us don't give this sort of question anywhere near enough thought. I fear we've been sedated by a predominantly materialistic consumer society and we've stopped asking questions.  Every day I pass people out running or going to gyms or feeding their minds on endless loops of music or news or whatever else we are in to, but not searching for meaning. In effect we have almost become robots. Or we seem to be trapped by the robots that we feed on every day, our phones and our tablets. We've stopped being children who play and learn and love and question and discuss.

Towards the end of the club we had a picnic on Beesmoor Rd field with some of new play eqpt. It was a wonderful community event. As one grandfather left, he said 'I loved that.' He had been playing on a rainbow coloured parachute, twisting people in circles as if they were in a washing machine. But most importantly he was simply having fun, he was playing like a child again.

So I ask again why, why the tree in the garden, why the love we feel in our heart, why the awe that we still experience in beauty or music... Why?

You tell me... And if you can't answer those most basic questions, how about plucking up the courage to start exploring again.
It was a pleasure to work with some of your children or grandchildren, they had loads of questions, as I expect you do. Surely it's time to start discussing faith again and seeing if we can make some sense of this beautiful shared world that we live in.

Stephen Newell (Minister Zion United Church Frampton.)