Theology 101
We’re tramping through the woods this morning. Hunting deer.
“I’m a hunter,” Sören says. “You be the deer, mama. Then you die and we eat you.”
“Uh. Okay, hunter.” At least I’m just blandly dying—rather than my own son stalking and premeditating killing me. (I’m learning to take what I can get.)
The vast forest of our quest is the lilac hedge between our yard and Miss Heather’s, a two-foot swath of unblooming, leafy spindles. Sören pushes aside the curtain of heart-shaped leaves and we duck in. It’s cooler in here. A nice change in the still, summer air.
“Come on, Deer. Let’s go over here,” Sören says. His pudgy forearms press the branches to an open V. He steps through, those pipey pant legs bunched at his ankles. His bed is full of sand this summer. Detritus of the park and playground spilled from the cuffs of his perpetually too-long jeans. We break out into the light of the yard, dragging twigs and curled leaves onto the grass. A sharp branch scratches my temple on its thwack back home.
“I think we’re getting close, Mama. My home is right back here.” We duck into the bushes again and hunker down by a pile of browning grass clippings and the graying top of a gas station coffee cup. I usually snap at Sören not to touch the bits of trash that end up snagged in our yard, but lack the commitment to don latex gloves and routinely clear it out.
A siren leaps from a police car down the block. It screams at Miss Heather’s windows and turns toward Central. While Sören and I are looking toward the roses, a fire truck from Johnson St. Station trundles after the siren, its own horn honking like a rabid goose, the tires and brakes wheezing and panting at the neighborhood curves.
We have a habit, part superstition on my part, of pausing to pray whenever we hear a siren. So, we pray.
“Dear Jesus, please be with the people who need help. Give the police officers wisdom.”
“—And the paramedics! Mama, and the flyspiders!—”
“Yes, and give all the helpers the skills they need. Please keep everyone safe. Amen.”
The sirens fade and Sören moves off up the hedge to explore the back side of Mrs. Darlene’s lacey parsley pot. I hunch after him, but before I can remind him not to pick the leaves, another siren blares up the street. Two more follow and none of them completely fade.
“Sören, should we pray again?”
“Why, Mama?”
“Well.” I pause.
“Mama, why?”
Well, why? Because we didn’t do a good enough job the first time? Because God’s forgotten about our first one? Because God won’t help people unless we’re asking him to do so that very minute? Maybe. No. No.
“Well, because…it…uh…”
Helps more if we pray more? Is better to pray through the whole blanket of a crisis? Keeps me from imagining what terrible pain, bodily or otherwise, some other woman, mother, child, or human might be experiencing right now? Maybe. Maybe. [Guilt.] Yes. [Guilt.] I don’t know.
“Come on, Deer,” Sören says. “We’re almost there. Let’s go.”
I’m mildly disappointed that my son lacks the knee-jerk compassion to pray whenever it’s suggested. And, mildly alarmed that I don’t know if, indeed, we should pray again. Or why. I begin to worry about being dumbfounded the first time Sören asks an intentionally theological question. I watch him gather twigs and start making a little mound under the leafy canopy, and I doubt the spiritual grounding he’s getting from us. Is he getting even the slightest idea of what our lives are founded on? Are seeds of compassion, love or understanding being planted anywhere in his open spirit? The sunlight dapples his shoulders and makes him squint when he looks up at me.
“Say ‘Knock, Knock,’ Mama.”
“Knock, knock, knock. Is anyone home? Can I come in?”
“Oh, hello, Stranger!” he says. “Come in! Would you like to stay for supper?”
