Even pre-COVID, my children asked a lot of questions about the future. They are pretty good theologians. Theology is simply talking about God. Everyone can do it, including 2-year-olds.
Tiny theologians can ask questions both simple and profound. Sometimes I dust off, so to speak, those religious studies degrees and break down the theology of, say, the incarnation (“God comes close”). Sometimes I stroke the forehead of one of my kids and whisper, “Baby, I don’t know, but I love you, and so does God.”
Questions about the future are the hardest. The future, battered and changed by these present days, will still contain the holy. Time is no straight line for God, but more of a circle. Past, present, future: God is already there.
This message is an excerpt from “Bedtime theology” by Lisa A. Smith in the November 2020 issue of Gather magazine. Today we remember Jonathan Edwards, teacher, missionary to American Indians, who died in 1758.
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