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| Photo by Irina Murza via Unsplash. Creative Commons License |
When
Children Ask Tough Questions
reflections
by Troy Cady
A friend posed a question
some days ago about helping children process the problem of suffering. Two
questions related to this include:
1. “If God is good,
loving and all-powerful, why is there still so much suffering and pain in the
world?”, and
2. “Why doesn’t God
answer my prayers?”
I offered my friend a
preliminary response, but then realized I didn’t speak to her specific question—which
was whether anyone knew of any books that could help children process these
questions. So, I am circling back now and adding these thoughts. I decided to
share them here in case they may be of benefit to anyone else.
Grace and peace,
Troy
………………………
Dear
friend,
I am
so grateful to you for starting this dialogue. I realized later that I didn’t
actually address the question you were asking, which has to do with books that engage
this concern. Sorry about that!
In my
opinion, the Godly Play story-method does the best job at providing space for
this conversation with children. As you already mentioned, however: the big
drawback to that approach is that many people do not have access to Godly Play.
With
that in mind, a few books come to mind that could perhaps equip families in
this. Forgive me ahead of time if you are looking for children’s books. I haven’t
been able to think of any, but maybe this list will be a help. That said, there are books adults could read that
would be a help in nurturing a variety of relational skills that I find crucial
in having conversations like these with children.
A book on practicing the Examen
The first resource I recommend is a short book called Sleeping
With Bread: Holding What Gives You Life by Dennis Linn, Sheila Fabricant
Linn and Matthew Linn. This book does not directly address the kinds of
questions you are talking about but it commends to us a lifestyle of paying
attention to both consolation and desolation in the human experience. When this
kind of “paying attention” to both the dark and light becomes a habit, it can
help us see the grace that is there even in suffering, pain and unanswered
prayer (which are forms of “desolation”).
Of
course, you already know about this under the name of the Examen; I recommend
this book, however, because of its accessibility and simple depth. Even
children can practice it and this book describes the Examen in such a way that
parents could easily find a way to practice it with their children.
Practicing
the Examen in community can help children process the problem of suffering in
that the Examen process itself simply opens up space for conversations to be
had without forcing any artificial responses. It also provides a language for
talking about the mystery of life as a continuous mixture of light and
darkness. It is a function of faith to search for language to describe what we
are thinking and feeling, so this practice does that really well.
Two more books on childhood spiritual
development
The second book I have enjoyed is The Mystery of
the Child by Martin E. Marty, but it is somewhat academic and not all the
chapters are helpful. The reason I like this book is that Marty does a good job
of articulating the “problem-centered” approach to formation vis-รก-vis
the “mystery-centered” approach.
I
suggest that most discipleship materials we have been exposed to over the years
take a “problem-centered” approach to formation. This approach has oriented us
to an “assurance” model, where the primary concern is to be sure that there are
certain (“right”) answers to specific questions. Of course, it is good to lay
foundations, to reinforce truths which are unchanging and rock solid. Children
need such a foundation, if trust is to be established. However…
The
problem with the assurance model is that it can only take us so far in our spiritual
development. On this front, I encourage others to become familiar with James
Fowler’s work Stages of Faith, as he describes that ultimately what we
are aiming for in spiritual growth is a more reflective approach that views
paradox as a pathway to becoming a more compassionate and empathetic person in
adulthood.
According
to Fowler, one does not reach such a “reflective” approach to faith until
adulthood but, in my own work with children, I have seen first-hand that they
are able to enter into the realm of “mystery” even more fully than adults.
The mystery-centered approach to formation
Indeed, the word “mystery” is what Marty proposes as the
basic building block when it comes to childhood spiritual development. He notes
that with a problem-centered approach, we tend to employ strategies of “control.”
With a mystery-centered approach, however, the primary mode is to explore,
wonder, and practice curiosity. The process of formation can meander and the
goal is not so much to train someone to produce a certain, specific answer but
to form in us a practice of wondering that will better help us live into any
number of mysteries as we age, the issue-at-hand included.
Marty
advocates a mystery-centered approach because he notices that when we treat
spiritual formation in a problem-centered way it is not long before we start treating
the child herself as a problem that needs to be solved. In a problem-centered
approach, not only do we feel the need to control the answers, we also become
inclined to control the one who is seeking answers. I have unfortunately seen
first-hand how both children and adults can be marginalized by the problem-centered
approach when their thinking does not conform to the “correct” way a leader
thinks everyone should think. In the problem-centered paradigm, belonging is
predicated on thinking the right way and producing the right answers. Those who
think and say the right things are included and those who do not…end up feeling
excluded, unaccepted.
But
people are not problems to be controlled; we are—all of us, at any age—mysteries
to be loved. This will sound like heresy to many but I advocate an approach to
childhood formation that is less concerned with providing right answers and
more concerned with practicing healthy process.
A good book on healthy process
To those of us who are inclined towards a
problem-centered approach, letting go of our need for right answers and letting
go of our desire for everyone else to share those right answers is perhaps the
hardest thing we will ever have to do in this life. That is also why I advocate
that, to make space for children to wonder about these mysteries, we primarily
need to help the adults in the child’s life prioritize process over content.
I
recommend Edwin Friedman’s insights on “family process” in this regard. His
book Generation to Generation addresses this issue well. He observes
that if we are to do only one thing to navigate such anxiety-laden issues, we
would do well to simply cultivate a non-anxious environment through leaders who
embody a non-anxious presence.
Ministry in the home as non-anxious
presence
This is the secret, by the way, to the Godly Play
process. Godly Play’s value lies not so much in the specific content of the
stories that are told. It has more to do with cultivating a peaceful, non-anxious
space where children (and adults!) can fully wonder about the mystery of faith.
To cultivate this, there are all kinds of non-verbal, environmental factors at
play which we could incorporate into the home. Here are a few:
1.
“Make a circle in which we are surrounded by the story of God and God’s people.”
The circle structure itself levels the relational playing field (putting
everyone at ease) and the surrounding stories encourage a feeling of security,
as if we are being held safe within a story that is so much bigger than we are.
In
this regard, I suggest turning to stories in the Bible itself. There is ample opportunity
to wonder about the problem of suffering that way. Parents could either use a Bible
with pictures in it or they could look up art online that they could use to
accompany their reading. In any case, getting beyond just a propositional understanding
of the matter and encountering it via a story is crucial.
I say
this because the story mode itself helps us get beyond a problem-centered
approach and automatically places us in the realm of mystery. We do find
answers to our questions, to be sure, but the answers come to us in context and
they are of a different order than problem-centered answers. We discover
propositions that are rooted in life—propositions that offer incarnational
interpretations (suited to one’s specific sitz im leben).
Keeping
in mind that most people do not have access to the specific Godly Play
experience, I suggest families can still access the “circle-principle” at home.
“I wonder how each family would do that?” one could ask. Just that wondering
question alone could help families cultivate this ethos in ways that are suited
to their unique situation. That said, here is another practice to encourage
healthy process:
2.
Practice plenty of silence. When I am working with children, we always have
a moment of silence before engaging the story-at-hand. And, as we tell the
story, we pause so there is time to enter into the story by having space to reflect.
I
wonder what difference it would make to help children practice a bit of silence
when questions like these come up? I wonder how we would do that?
Silence
is able to help us listen more deeply, so it can not only help us listen to the
child better but it can also help the child listen for what God might say (or
ask!) in response to their question. I wonder what would happen if we replied
to a child’s question about suffering this way: “Good question! I wonder what
God might say or ask about that?” or “I wonder if God has a story about that?” Then,
just leave a little bit of silence for the child to think about it.
The
child might not be able to come up with an answer, but that is okay, too. The
question itself would plant the idea in their head that God might have
something to say about their question. Children who have no idea how to answer
such a question may simply put the question aside for a while and then circle
back to it later when it comes up again. Silence, listening and patience go
hand-in-hand. With that, here’s another value to practice:
3.
Respond by wondering. When I work with children, I always encourage them to
wonder. Wondering questions are open-ended questions where children do not have
to feel anxious or compelled to provide the right answer. It is evident to me
how some children have been so trained in the problem-centered approach that,
when it comes to wondering, I can see them looking at me as if they want to
make sure they can really say what they think or feel. This is why non-anxious
leadership is so crucial. The leader’s primary goal is to be a non-anxious
presence in order to cultivate a non-anxious environment. The main concern is
process over content, milieu over “learning objective.”
To cultivate
an environment of wondering, we need to trust that the child will learn what
the child needs to learn when the child needs to learn it. True learning cannot
be forced. Anyone who has ever crammed for a test can confirm this. It is one
thing to learn the right answers to meet the demands of a specific moment in
time; it is quite another to learn out of sheer desire. In the former, our
learning is only temporary and causes no long-lasting effect. In the latter,
learning is truly life-changing.
This
is why, when a child asks a question during a time of wondering, the leader is
encouraged to wonder right with them, to put the question back to the child.
The goal is to whet the appetite for more learning. By replying “I wonder what
you think about that” or “Yes, I wonder how that could really be” the teacher
will find out how ready the child is to really find an answer. If the child is
really ready, they will be driven from within to keep seeking. If they are not
really open to an answer (if the question is somehow only superficial for them
at the present time) they will most likely drop the inquiry and move on to
something that more truly interests them.
In
any case, if an answer is really needed, we can trust they will get an answer in
a timely way and in such a form that suits the child’s place in their spiritual
journey. Trust in the process is key.
Why adults get nervous by tough questions
kids ask
My suspicion is that adults grow nervous when hard
questions like these come up because many of us are operating ourselves under an
“assurance” or “problem-centered” model. When we cannot produce neat, clean
answers, it is very unsettling. We worry not only for the child, but we worry
for ourselves.
I also
suspect that those who have spent lots of time and energy coming up with
certain answers know deep down that our answers are not so air-tight as we
pretend they are. There is an internal frustration that builds when the
questions just keep coming, when the questions keep poking holes in our
so-called answers.
There
are, of course, many different ways we try to cope with such a frustration, but
the most tragic outcome is when our own frustration hurts the child’s own
learning. If we are to minister to families well (children included), an argument
could be made that the first order of business is to help the adults in the
household make peace with uncertainty and to model a non-anxious (trusting)
response to hard questions.
The deeper question behind the question of
suffering
This leads me to a final observation. There is a
question behind the question, underneath the problem of suffering. The question
hits right to the core of our being because ultimately what we are asking is
whether the world is a safe place to live. Are we safe and secure? Is there
someone who will be able to take care of us when all human efforts have reached
a limit?
It is
really the pre-verbal question we all have from the moment of birth. In gestation,
we experience the world as a place of complete safety, where we are both secure
and nourished. While it is true we may be aware of chaos without, we all
experience the womb as a place of shalom within—where all that we need is
provided and there is no thought spared for worry.
But
when we are born, it is only a matter of time when we will experience the world
as shocking and dangerous. We are vulnerable, so our bodies automatically muster
whatever is available to survive. From our very first day of life we intuitively
know that we are in need of protection. We are not able to survive on our own.
When
we become aware of how dangerous life can be as we age, we are essentially
drawing on these primordial fears from infancy. “Is the world a safe place?”
And we begin to develop the capacity to extrapolate from our own experience,
becoming aware that—even when we feel personally safe—there are countless
others who, at any moment in time in any number of other places, are experiencing
the world as an unsafe place.
“Where
is God in the midst of all this?” we wonder. If God is supposed to be a parent
to us, why has s/he left us abandoned, exposed like this? Does s/he care more
about some people than others? If so, none of us are safe. We are all
vulnerable.
Why the parent-child interaction matters
In keeping with the reality noted above, we can see
that the parent-child relationship shapes our concept of God more than any
other relationship. This dynamic is so fundamental to human experience we can
observe it embedded even in the ancient code by which the Hebrew people lived
thousands of years ago (and still live by today). It is no mistake that the
fifth “Word” of the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments) speaks to one’s
relationship to one’s parents.
We know
from Scripture that the ten Words were written on two tablets and many scholars
see the two tablets in terms of one’s relationship with God (the first tablet)
and one’s relationship to other humans (the second tablet). At first glance, it
appears the fifth Commandment (about the parent-child relationship) would be
included with the second tablet, but many scholars assert it is a first-tablet
command because when we are children our parent is a godlike figure to us. I
find it interesting that modern psychology confirms this, as well: our concept
of God is directly related to our parental relationship.
I
mention this by way of underscoring that I believe the biggest way we can help
children grapple with the problem of suffering is by helping parents be a “good
god” to them by the way we carry out our mandate to love them and nurture them
with care. This is why it was wise of you to include the matter of “unanswered
prayer” along with the problem of suffering in your original inquiry. Both
issues have to do with one’s sense of safety and security. “Is there a God who
listens and answers?” To the child: if a parent doesn’t know how to listen and
respond, then why would God? Listening
and responding in a spirit of wonder for these sacred mysteries will do more to
“answer” the child’s question than anything else.
Why we need God and why good parenting isn’t
enough
This, of course, does not mean bad things won’t happen.
There is no way that we as limited human beings can keep bad things from
happening. But this is why we need God. Because, even when bad things happen,
we believe there is One who is able to hold us as we are born into another
world…One who will receive us in love to a world where there will be no more
danger, or suffering or pain or death. Somehow, we learn through all this that,
though this world is a dangerous place, we can still trust—and trust gives us enough
hope to carry on. Trust is not predicated on the absence of danger; in some
strange way, it is defined by it.
How
the God of the world to come indwells, surrounds and gives us hope for living
in the present dangerous world is the very mystery we are living one day at a
time. It is a mystery so big, we can never run out of wonder for it.
I
realize that much of this does not directly answer your question, but I share
it nonetheless because, quite frankly, I don’t know how to directly answer your
question. But I can wonder about it and encourage others to wonder about it,
too. Thanks again for raising the question.
Peace and grace to you,
Troy
