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.)
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