Twinkle twinkle little star...

A couple of weeks ago, I put up this night light in my little girl's bedroom. The first night I turned it on for her, I heard singing coming from her room in the middle of the night. I went over and found her lying in her bed, looking at the star and singing "Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are...". On her face was this expression, this look that tells you she is off in her own dreamland... wondering where the star will take her.

The longer I have been a parent, the more I am convinced that the ability to imagine, to create, to dream, to wish for something more than the eyes can see is a gift that all of us are given. In many ways, that's part of what defines the human spirit. It's a core part of who we are and what we are.

In the pursuit of faith, two elements are key and central, just as hydrogen and oxygen are key elements in the formation of water (I had to throw that in there for people who mock my lack of scientific knowledge :): (1) The freedom to wonder and to doubt and (2) The ability to dream and to imagine. It occured to me, while I watched my little girl sang, that this is precisely what is lacking in the way the church teaches young people to develop "faith". It perhaps also explains why the church in general has trouble reaching youths.

In the church, we are big on teaching "What" we believe: doctrines, rules, statments of faith, etc. We are not nearly as good in teaching "How" to believe: encouraging questions and doubts, giving space for creative, new and individual expressions of faith through the arts, directing resources to allow young people to not only dream of doing something different but actually trying to make it into reality. It is self contradicting and ultimately self-defeating, I have learned, to encourage people to "believe" and then hand just them a list and say "Now, THIS, AND ONLY THIS, is what you are to believe in..." (Think back to your own pre-baptism interview)

Personally, I have learned to look at what I do in terms of speaking, music, writing and photography as "art" and I have adopted a mission statement for those different pursuits of mine: "To give courage to imagine....".

As a father, I hope I can inspire my little girl, so that when she looks up at a star, rather than waiting for someone to tell her everything about what it is and what it isn't, there will always be that part in her spirit that sings, "twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are..."