“A child can ask questions that a wise man cannot answer.” – unknown

We were driving in the car the other day and my six-year-old daughter asked, “Did God make the word orthodontist?” She was wondering because her new friend at rock climbing camp had to go see one. I responded that God made people and people who speak English made the word orthodontist.

This question is the latest in the wonderings about God and how the planet works. Last week’s topics were: Why did God make homelessness? And why did God make drugs? This is one of the many times I wish I had a more rooted theology so I didn’t have to think so hard when faced with these interesting questions. Theology like my father’s Presbyterianism which kept him so grounded in his 40 year career as a pastor. Sometimes I wish my heart would settle for just picking a group and joining so I could hide under the collective cover.

But I’ve found some consolation reading Holy Envy by Barbara Brown Taylor where she recounts her time teaching World Religions at a small college in Georgia. What struck me is not only how she came to love all the religious traditions but also that she came to see that none of us believes in exactly the same way. I resonated with both of those sentiments. No two people believe exactly the same way even if they do pick a particular camp. And I’m an equal opportunity pursuer of wisdom – after eschewing religion for many years because I couldn’t do Presbyterianism in exactly the way my parents had and then coming back to it via meditation, and adopting some Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Hindu and other faiths. I’ve come to walk a path that isn’t just obedient to what my parents did, nor rebellious against that but reflects my inner life. For me, sitting in meditation to find that center again and again works to experience Truth and recognize it in others.

In my conversations with my dad when he was in his late 70’s, he said he’d become a big tent person – someone that believed that it didn’t matter what door you came in as long as you had faith. That to me feels like the sentiment I want to convey to my kids. As my daughter tries to puzzle out this key issue of what God does and does not control in this world, free will and the ills of the world, I say as little as possible so she can start to own her answers. She piped up a little later after considering the question of drugs and said, “I know why God made bad drugs, to give us choices.” Not wanting to wade into the complexity of addiction, I just complimented her for making her own deductions about the experience of life. And I smiled inwardly because I believe God does give us choices starting with how we choose to believe.