Math as a Spiritual Matter

If we think of one aspect of spirituality as having to do with making a connection to that which is beyond ourselves, many things have a spiritual dimension.

One of my children began asking about which numbers are real....a gazillion? a billion?....

This led to the child saying that numbers are interesting.....not regular numbers like 1 or 9 or 100, but numbers like 101. It was as if at that point the limits of the imagination were stretched to the point of fascination with that which is known to be there, but which can not quite be known.

It gives me another hint/question about what it might mean to enter the realm of God like a little child.

I got to talking at work about my child's questions. It's led to wonderful conversations. Not religious conversations per se, but conversations that, at least for me (and I can only speak for me) have spiritual impact and theological implications. This is especially gratifying in light of my post related to all the time I spend at work vs with people from church, and the idea it led to that I ought avail myself to connecting more with people at work.


Quite a lot has come from a conversation with a child. Not that I should be surprised, right?

New Connection - Born Again

Reflecting on a child's response, I became concerned that they might have misunderstood the part of last week's story that says that one who does not receieve the kingdom of God like a little child will not enter it. Did I or the text ever say "as a child" rather than "like a child"? Did they hear "as a child" and think it meant "when a child" rather then "like a child"?

Such a scary responsiblity this buisness of teaching children sometimes seems.

The brighter note here is the connection the line of thought brougth me.

It's not that one has to receive the kingdom of God WHEN a child in order to enter it.
One can recieve the kindgom of God LIKE a child at any time or age.
We can be like a child at any age....we can be BORN AGAIN.
I hadn't thought of it that way before.

So far I haven't gone back to the biblical texts to check out how well that interpretive connection holds up. But in my mind the connection seems meaningful, helpful, worth further exploration.

Parenting on SOF

Listening to the podcast of the Speaking of Faith broadcast "Remembering Forward" in which Krista Tippett reads from her recent book, also titled Speaking of Faith, I enjoyed hearing her say,

"I know of no richer source of theological enlightenment than parenting."

She said a lot more interesting things, on this topic and others, but I'll leave it to you to pursue the links above if you wish.

Another Speaking of Faith program "Spirituality of Parenting" is one that has a discussion guide available. Anyone interested in using it sometime?

When Will the Story Come Back?

Yesterday a child asked, "When will the story come back?"

They meant the stories that Aron has read from children's books during Sunday morning services.

We started doing that with the intention of doing it as often as possible. That hasn't turned out to be very often lately. It's hard to find the time to identify a workable book relevant to the text or theme for each week.

Here's an encouragement to up it on the priority list.