and what they need to hear, they will. What the children will most certainly understand is that they can talk to us about anything, especially the subjects that become fundamental parts of our identities.
For our children and within our congregations, two of the most crucial topics to be honest about are death and grief. Death is coming for us all, and even though we hope for the resurrection of the dead with Christ, grief is mighty powerful. We will all experience many kinds of loss, some of it accompanied by guilt, some by the pain of victimhood. More than anything, we need a God who will tell us the truth about that, weep for real, beg for that cup to be taken from him, and demonstrate that, even on the other side, wounds are still there. That is truth telling I can trust. Children of God do not need empty promises or the stifling attempts at comfort that prove the other person is uncomfortable such as, “Don’t cry” or “God will make something good out of this.” We need caregiving that tells the truth and is comforting because someone is in solidarity with us.
I was a teaching assistant for a freshman core class that encompassed Theology 101 among other subjects. I witnessed college freshmen who were so disturbed by reading the Bible and realizing for the first time that there are, in fact, two different creation accounts in Genesis that one young woman actually developed a kind of tic, a shiver. We talked about the different sources in putting the scriptures together. The assertion that those words were written in a way other than by holy dictation broke her. The faith community that raised her had reinforced repeatedly that the Bible was the unquestionable Word of God, so to read it as literature or more specifically as a compilation of multiple faithful sources raised serious questions about her home congregation’s trustworthiness.
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