Christchurchkidsart

Welcome to the Kids of Christ Church Art Blog for March 2011.

OUR CHILDREN ASK THE QUESTIONS WE HAVE STOPPED ASKING: “WHERE IS GOD?”

Even though I am in Maryland enjoying my new granddaughter, “Alex,” I am in touch with you all electronically via cell phone and the Internet.

Tonight I received an email from Sandie Nelson, hoping to give me advanced notice of a question her wonderful granddaughter, Elizabeth asked her.

Sandie suggested that Elizabeth ask me since we are such good new friends here at Christ Church. I would like to offer my limited, but best response to Elizabeth’s very important question.

This is one of those questions that many adults have stopped asking. Becoming a child to enter the Kingdom of Heaven is sometimes a hard, but potentially joyful moment.

After all of my years in ministry and following Jesus, this question is still fresh and open to further reflection for me. Here is where Elizabeth's question found me tonight.

Dear Elizabeth:

Your question is exactly the same question that the first disciples asked Jesus even before they were friends. That seems pretty amazing that you and the disciples who ended up following Jesus would have the same question just as they, too, were meeting him.

Elizabeth, your question also asks that I admit a certain way of looking at Jesus that not everyone will necessarily agree with. I believe that Jesus is God, the best and truest experience of God that I have ever found in my lifetime. So, wherever we find Jesus, I would say that we have found where God is.

Did you know that one of the names or titles that was given to Jesus was Immanuel. That word simply means "God is with us."

So, I guess I could ask you the same question about yourself:

"Elizabeth, where are you?"

If you told me to come and follow you around all day and night, week after week, month after month, and year after year, you would be asking me to do what Jesus told his early followers to do. "Come and see."

If I followed you around all of the time, I would really get to know you, wouldn't I? I would really know all about you which is another way of knowing where you live. What makes you happy; what makes you sad; how you treat other people and how other people treat you. I would get to know about your friends, your family, what is important to you, and who you love.

Imagine if I got to know you that well? If I did, than I would be able to come close to answering someone else's question about you: "Where is Elizabeth?"

So, I will offer to you the answer I have been able to come up with so far in my following Jesus and just trying to see where he is. In the beginning, since I was not around when Jesus was born or lived his life, I depended upon hearing the stories about him that were told by those early friends and followers.

I heard the stories in church, but my grandmother also told me these stories from her memory. When she told these stories, I somehow thought that she had actually been there with Jesus and his friends. I wasn't sure, but finally I realized that she, too, had followed Jesus as his early friends had done and added her feelings about Jesus to her telling about him.

Elizabeth, I continue to hear these stories told by his friends, but I am also learning to look for God in the same places his friends had found him.

Wherever someone is hurting, God is there.

Wherever someone is hungry, God is there.

Wherever someone is thirsty, God is there.

Wherever someone is lonely, God is there.

Wherever someone is sad, God is there.

Wherever someone is seeking to ease the pain of someone who is hurting, God is there.

Wherever someone is seeking to feed the hungry, God is there.

Wherever someone is seeking to give a cool drink of water to someone who is thirsty, God is there.

Wherever someone is seeking to comfort those who are sad and broken hearted, God is there.

Wherever someone is loving, forgiving, and caring for someone else, God is there.

Wherever someone is seeking to make peace without hurting any of God's children, God is there.

Wherever someone doesn't see or hear or touch or smell or imagine such a God, God is there.

Wherever someone either calls him or refuses to call him to be with them, God is there.

God seems to be nowhere, but is really always, now here with us.

I have followed Jesus other places too, but I find these places, in these conditions of life is where I find God the most because that is where I found Jesus in the telling of their stories about him. Now I am finding him on my own and telling those stories to others.

Do you want to follow Jesus too? As you do, you will add more answers to the ones I have offered because Jesus continues to be with us. God is where we are. Come and see.

Your Friend,

Father Bob

Ben offers us a colorful painting. Thank you Ben.

Katie's cross.
Thank you Katie.

Katie made this beautiful birthday cake.
Thank you Katie.

Questions from the Kids in Saint Stephen's Gathering

Last Sunday, October 22, 2006, Karen Dedo asked if it would be possible for the clergy to address some of the questions that our younger members are asking in their Sunday School classes. I quickly and completely offered that such questions would be more than welcome. So, here are some of the kid's questions. I will be offering my responses as part of my Gospel Reflection each week and on this blog. I am also inviting our other clergy to offer their responses through our sermons or when we visit the children's classes on Sunday.

I would also welcome responses from our adult membership or their reflections on when they asked such questions of faith.

Questions from Our Younger Members (October 22, 2006)

What was there before God created the world? What color was it? Was it green? No, it must have been clear because there was nothing.

How can there be forever? How can God be forever? Time can't be forever. It must end somewhere.

How come people used to talk to God and see God but now they can't? He's not visible to us.

Why do you say that Jesus was God's son when he was Mary and Joseph's son.