Curious

Early on in the Good Friday service Annie pattered down the pew to me. We didn't need to exchange words; I knew she was coming to sit in my lap, and she knew I would scoop her up in my arms. But the silence didn't last long.

She wanted to know where Papa was? I told her he was sitting in one of the front pews so he could get up when it was his turn to read. But then she wanted to know where are the front pews? Where IS Papa? She looked through the bulletin. "Which part are we on right now? Which part is Papa reading?" I told her we would have to wait and see.

So she turned her mind to other questions. Why are there candles? I told her the candles bring light, which is something that reminds us of who God is. "But God is not in the light," Annie told me, eyebrows peaked in confusion. "He is in the mountains!" I wasn't sure where this idea was sprouting from, but it wasn't really the right time to delve into a long explanation.

She wanted something to play with, but I had nothing. She was feeling chatty but I told her it was time to listen to Pastor Irwin, who was going to talk to us for a little bit. She was quiet for a moment, then thought of another burning question: "What is an Irwin?"

Pastor Irwin finished his short homily, and Annie was listening to the readings now. "What is 'guilty'?" she asked, picking up on a word she heard. "What is a vow?" And then, "Why did she say, 'eating body and blood'? We don't eat blood!" I told her that Jesus told us to eat His body and drink His blood. "But we don't like blood!" she protested. Well, no, but we need Jesus' body and blood to feed us. "But we don't eat his whole body, do we? We don't eat his tummy, right?" I explained that it was like a picture -- we don't eat His actual body, but He gives Himself for us and we need Him to survive. "Oh, Nana showed me a picture of Jesus dying on the cross," said Annie, at last finding a word in my mysterious whispers that she could relate to. "But we don't eat blood. We don't like blood, because blood is too spicy."

During the songs, Annie's hearty whisper disappeared, and her volume climbed. I asked her to be quiet, and she seemed shocked at this request. "Why do I have to have a quiet voice? I want to sing with you!" After all, everyone else was allowed to make noise. So I began telling her the next phrase of the song so she could sing it along with me. Then she would announce after she sang a phrase, "I sang 'mingled down' with you! I sang 'rich a crown' with you!"

She also noticed the ways people around her were participating in the song. "What does it mean when we close our eyes?" she asked me. I told her it meant we were thinking about the words of the song. Her follow-on question was, "Why are mama's eyes closed?" 

As the evening went on, the lights dimmed till we were sitting in darkness, apart from the light shining on the cross and the candles, which were being extinguished one by one. Annie was interested in this, and took note that we could still see cracks of light coming in through the blinds, the last bits of daylight and the shining of the streetlight in the parking lot.

Then, we came to the point in the readings when Jesus died. We sat in darkness, and a drum began to beat a wild, accelerating song, evoking the earthquake that shook the world at the death of its Maker. All the people were silent, except for Annie. "What is that noise?" she whispered to me, and I told her it was a drum, reminding us of the earthquake after Jesus died. I wondered if she would be scared of the unfamiliar noise in the darkness, but a grin began to form on her face. "That is a silly noise!" she said. And as the drum faded into silence, a giggle began to bubble from little Annie, which I quickly hushed, not wanting to disrupt the story, the mood, the remembering we were all partaking of together.

Easter Sunday morning found Annie and me together again in the pew, this time as the church was filled with light. Annie was still filled with questions. "I want to see Jesus dying on that cross," she told me, looking to the front of the church. She was apparently aware that the cross was somehow central to the celebration, and she kept returning to it. "When will Jesus die on the cross?" she asked. I told her He already did! "But when will Jesus die on the cross again?" Never, Annie, never again. "Is that the cross that Jesus died on? Why did Jesus die on the cross? What is that lellow thing on the cross?" No it isn't the cross Jesus died on, and He died so that we could live, and that lellow thing is a white cloth representing Jesus' grave clothes that he left behind.

Her curiosity also extended to God. "Why can't we see God?" Because He is a Spirit, and just because we can't see Him doesn't mean He isn't here. "But I can't SEE Him!" She kept repeating this, working it over in her mind, and then a few minutes later I saw an opportunity. The door was open, and a breeze slipped in. Annie said, "I feel the wind blowing my hair." I asked her if she could see the wind. "Yes," she answered. "I see the wind blowing in the trees." Well, maybe it takes time to understand the idea of a spiritual world. But she did ask me if God was a man, so perhaps she has an inkling that there are real beings who aren't men.

And, when she was not fixed on the cross, she was watching Daddy. "Look! Daddy is playing his trumpet!" I told her it was a trombone. "No! It is a trumpet!" she insisted. Well, I told her, it's actually a trombone. "Oh, a trumpetbone," she said. When I smiled at her she got a twinkle in her eye and said by way of explanation, "I call it a trumpetbone." Okay, I agreed. Later when she was pointing out that Daddy was taking a break, she said, "Why is Daddy not playing his bonetrumpet?"

May I be as bold and earnest in my curiosity, in my observation of the world around me, in my quest for truth. And Annie, may you know the truth and be set free by it.