Transparent Christian Magazine

Grey and I sat on the back porch and had a discussion.

My legs were crossed in front of me; his extended outward, unable to touch the ground.

“You be the little person, and I’ll be the big person,” he said.

“Ok, sure.” This will be fun, I thought: Impersonating a three-and-a-half-year-old to my three-and-a-half-year-old nephew. I was curious what his interpretation of a “big person” such as myself would be.

“Can I have my fruit snacks?” I ask.

“No, you can’t.” His tone is quite stern, and he furrows his little eyebrows.

Since we’ve been noticing his heightened curiosity and almost continual questioning these days, I answer, “Why?”

“Because you can’t.”

“Why not? I want my fruit snacks.”

“Because you have to go to bed.”

“Why do I have to go to bed?”

“Because it’s bedtime.”

“How come?” I continue to provoke.

He smiles, pausing for a moment, and he’s had enough. “Ok, I’m the little person and you’re the big person now.”

We repeat a similar series with the role reversal. After a while, he begins a dialogue with himself about superheroes and monsters.

What was I thinking? How could I have forgotten superheroes and monsters in my impersonation of a three-and-half-year-old boy?

Why do kids ask so many questions? Why do adults find this strange, if not agitating at times? In Frank McCourt’s memoir Angela’s Ashes, Frank as a child provides commentary on his questioning nature:  “I know that big people don’t like questions from children,” he writes. “They can ask all the questions they like, How’s school? Are you a good boy? Did you say your prayers? But if you ask them did they say their prayers you might be hit on the head.”
Is there something about children’s questions that reminds us we’ve lost our sense of true curiosity, causing us to lash out at them for “asking too many questions?” Is it really possible to ask too many questions?

In another chapter the author, his father, and his younger brother attend Mass on Easter, and young Frank is full of questions once again: Is the baby in the crib dead? Why is the man hanging on the cross with all those holes in his body? Why are the people eating wafers and drinking wine? His father shushes him repeatedly, telling him he’ll understand when he grows up…but will he? Do we understand and simply withhold information from child’s ears for the sake of it, or is it that we do not fully understand ourselves and have stopped seeking to do so?

Sometimes I find in myself the same impulse seen in Frank’s father. Sometimes when in conversation with my husband about spiritual matters, my head says, “You should know this or that spiritual truth,” so I don’t ask. This is my stubborn pride, telling me I’m 23 and should have all the answers by now. I’ve been in the church all my life, a believer since age 10, so I shouldn’t still be asking what are sometimes seemingly simple or fundamental questions…or so I fool myself.

The truth is we serve a God who welcomes the curious to stand at his throne and fire away. How could we take for granted the open relationship we’ve been welcomed into with our Creator? And how ridiculous to think that we have searched out the Unfathomable One? Yet, as we grow older, it is far too easy to think so. Our world tells us we are supposed to have it all figured out, that success is knowledge and that it comes through our ability to use it to “get ahead” — but this is not the way of our God. He is the One who welcomes us into eternal journeying, with questions and all.

God, change my heart to know I can and should be curious unto You forever, for You are the Infinite God, whom no one can fully understand! As it says in Romans:

“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?
Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay him?
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.”

Allie Davis