I Wonder. . .

Quote du jour For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together. For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad. ~Edwin Way Teale


Happy Equinox! If you were outside Sunday evening as the rains came, you could feel summer taking it's leave and autumn rolling in on a wave of chilly Canadian air. Almost overnight the trees around us have started to paint themselves with autumns hues, the birds are flying south and the acorns dropping like mad. And yet humans are pulling back together after our summer travels - to schools, to sports, to book groups and to church. So here we are.

Some of you will have encountered the 'wondering questions' in your curriculum or packets. In the last two paragraphs I'll give some ideas about how to present them and how to use them; in the next ones I'm going to muse a bit on the philosophy of wondering. (Which is code for saying if you don't want to read my musing - and I'll never know so you can't offend me - skip down and pick up some suggestions!)

I was having a conversation with some group leaders last night, and one of them underscored how necessary it is to avoid 'herding' children to conclusions. As a faith tradition of inquiry and reason we don't expect an pre-established theological conclusion and commitment from every adult who comes through these doors - nor should we from our children. As with adults the role of our covenantal faith is to hold space for a diversity of belief and to hold space for questions and for the unknown. Life is a mystery and often the job of religion is to make it less mysterious. As Unitarian Universalists we don't attempt to make life less mysterious as much as we try to make it less lonely. We worship together and we socialize together and we inhabit uncertainty together.

That sounds a little abstract and maybe (to me) just a little too bleak for our younger kids. So rather we 'wonder' together. Those of you leading children in all age groups have opportunties to ask the children and youth what they think, and the way you ask makes an enormous amount of difference to the way the child perceives the question. In the Montessori Godly Play curriculum by Jerome Berryman, the wondering with children closes every narrative. We have adopted a similar wondering opportunity here. Why? Because we bring children and ourselves to church to engage with existential questions. Who am I? What am I here for? What does it all mean? And those simple questions can be far deeper and far more layered than the topical questions on belief or non belief in particular theological constructs. Since we don't have an agreement about the existence of diety, the nature of afterlife, or the origin of the differentiated self, we all wonder. We come up with more questions, discard and test a new set of answers, or inhabit our personal answers with a certainty that does not impose itself on others. We wonder together because we understand that what each of us believes about religious truth and meaning is a part of the whole.

How DO we wonder with children? We present the questions as open - not demanding answers. To do this, I often wonder with a 'far away' look, that the children are invited into wondering. Or you can wonder to your feet as you ask the question and then sweep the room with your gaze to include the children in that wondering. What I suggest you do NOT do is to indicate with eye contact, body language or speech a need for an answer. When you ask a wondering question, ask it as a meditation. Give the words weight, and give the question time and space to sink through the layers of consciousness. Silence gives the introverts time to find the words and the extraverts time to reconsider the first words that come to mind. And wonder does not demand an answer. Sometimes the children will want to speak, sometimes they won't. Both are fine.

If the children respond out loud, let them answer without editorializing on their answers. And if they begin a dialogue with each other around the question, let them. If they ask what you think, tell them, and invite them to ask other adults in their lives. Sometimes children need others assumptions to test their own against. If they sit in silence, let the silence hang for a while. Give them time to ponder the question before asking another. Some questions may never have an answer. That doesn't mean we can't ask and wonder about them.

What questions do you have?

I wonder. ..

see you in church!

Rebecca