Elliott likes to count as fast as he can. He picks out a number and then goes after it, sometimes beginning from zero, other times from somewhere in between. When he reaches a nine, he draws it out and the pitch goes up, just like every other kid I've ever heard count. Are we hard wired to factors of 10? He's asked Ryan or I a few times in the last two days, "What comes after the last number?" Our basic answer, "the numbers keep going on, Elliott, they just keep going and going," seems to satisfy him, but I can see his head exploding around the idea that some things really do go on forever, unlike walking home from the sledding hill which just feels like it is. My analogy to numbers being like space didn't help much, either, as space is about as vague as infinity. But he keeps asking us, which is encouraging. It's when we stop being amazed by numbers and space and questions that we get discouraged. I remember trying to fall asleep as a child and imagining the stars and then trying to see a picture of what would be beyond the stars. Another world? More stars? A white expanse? There was no getting my head around it, and that was what made it fun. It was baffling, playful. And it always put me to sleep.
Joining Elliott in the wonderment of numbers that go on forever is a comfort compared to a more painful unanswerable question: how the life of a loved one can slip out of our reach -- whether that life was after decades of fruitful living, or just as career and grown children are thriving, or after only weeks of nutrition in the womb. And yet I think the easy, even fun, unanswerable questions prepare us for the painful ones. We will never get our head around them, as many times as we ask. The questions come to us without prompting, without reason and the pain startles us long after our good byes. But the presence of an unanswerable question also means that in the midst of loss there is also mystery. And there God dwells, despite our faithful creeds and achingly beautiful hymns. Despite our careful sermons and quiet resolve to live as we confess. When we allow God this place to reign -- in the unanswered places of our human lives -- then we are part of the mystery, caught up in what God is doing.
Our pastor in Chicago had a picture of Earth taken from the moon on his wall next to his desk. Whenever he was discouraged by the tedious and messy work of leading a congregation, the picture reminded him to take a breath and be amazed. "Whoa," he would say, his eyes big and jaw dropped for effect, as if he'd been stopped in his tracks. It was an expression that was part shudder, part gratitude, but always a moment that returned him to God. It was the same expression he used to describe what happens at baptism. There are words in the liturgy and drums and singing and a big Amen! at the end but really it is all mystery and we its ever questioning, ever grateful, witnesses.
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Amy's Aunt Lois writes:
ReplyDeleteWhen Amy's cousin Addie was four, she and her pre-school pal Kendra would count in the back seat of the van. They would singsong "21-22-23-24-25-26-27-28" then the inevitable held-out "twenty-niiiiine." Together, they would ask, "What's next?" I'd say 30, and away they went "31-32-33-34-35-36-37-38-thirty-niiiiine." I thought the delay was because they'd come to tne end of a their accustomed pattern and hadn't mastered the new pattern yet. Still, they bragged to their pre-school teacher that they had counted to 100 on the way to school!
Death - and baptism - are like getting to the end of the pattern we are acquainted with. We singsong our way through life until - oh, no! What was that new pattern? Each time we must be reminded that those who lose their lives will find them. And it's a mystery as profound as what is the last number? There is no last number. They just keep going. There is no mystery to death. Those who lose their lives will find them. Death, where is your sorrow? Grave, where is your sting? There is a moment from the next pattern we are still trying to learn!