Glory

On the way home from the grocery store, Brooke and I noticed a beautiful display in the sky. I took this picture upon arriving at home, and by then the cloud-light pattern was not as impressive as it had been ten minutes previously. The remaining majesty of this photo will at least provide some idea of what we initially saw.
Glorious sunsets and sky patterns are common here in photography-land, but I wanted to record this one because of Brooke's comments on it. She drew my attention to it first.
"Mom, look at that."
"Yes, it's beautiful." I said, pleased that she had noticed.What she said next really surprised me.
"Mom, is that God?"
At that moment, the rays were streaming through a hole in the dark gray clouds.
I pondered for a moment."It does look wonderful, like God might look. But it's not God. It's sunlight."We both fell silent, appreciating the sight.
A number of thoughts occurred to me, such as, why does Brooke recognize this as God-like? Isn't it interesting that we think of the clouds opening in exactly that way to reveal God's supernatural presence in the world? And that God's presence appears that way in many movies and novels? Should I explain to her about God being like light? (-- no, I decided, too abstract for her current level). Should I tell her that God looks like us? Again, no - I have never been convinced that our being "made in his image" is a literal reference. I think it equally likely that we are made in his image in our capacity to love.I can only speculate that even the simple lessons she has already absorbed about God have resonated and created these ideas: that God brings light amidst darkness, that God is beautiful. Her attentiveness to nature did the rest, as she saw something unusually glorious and sought to understand it.

VBS 2007

Tonight's post must be short and sweet, as I have just returned from VBS quite worn out. Here is the best anecdote of the evening.
Last night, I taught the four-year-olds the story of Elijah's contest. For those unfamiliar with the story, Elijah challenges the priests of the pagan gods.
"Listen up," he says (or I like to think that he says it that way). "We are going to build two altars, one for your god and one for mine. Then we will ask each of the gods to send down fire and burn up our sacrifices. The one who sends fire is the real God."
Of course, Elijah's God sends the fire, and the pagans acknowledge him as the true God.
Here's the point: in order to illustrate the false god "idol" of the pagans, I grabbed the first animal statue that I found in our house. It happened to be a handsome wooden elephant that we had collected on our honeymoon. I placed that elephant on the altar of the false god, and explained to the preschoolers that these people thought that they could pray to the elephant statue and get fire. They had a good laugh about that silly elephant.
Tonight, another teacher took over with a different story. She began by reviewing what we had learned the previous night. I believe she asked something like: "What happened when Elijah called down fire?"
That was when one of the kids said, "Jesus was an elephant!"
You win some, you lose some.