Turtles and Frogs

The average four-year-old, supposedly, asks 437 questions per day.  Who knows where this curiously specific number came from, but I saw it on a sign at the St. Louis Children’s Museum just last week, so it must be true.  Of course, this is also the same business that believes the fair market value for one stick of string cheese is a dollar fifty, so I do have my suspicions. 

Regardless, it is nice to know that our own residential 4-year-old is quite average on even his most average day, asking more questions than we really even know what to do with.  Some of them are fairly general, “Hey, ya’ know what?” and some are quite specific, “Why don’t frogs die in the water?”

Being as he’s getting a new sister soon, he of course posed that quintessential question, “How did the baby get inside mommy’s stomach?” Like all lazy parents, we went Socratic on him and asked, “Well, how do you think the baby got inside Mommy?”  He considered this awhile and eventually decided that his mother must have eaten a pregnant bug. Granted, that is probably inaccurate, but considering how busy my wife and I have been the last few years, we really aren’t for sure how it happened, either.

The big whopper, though, came when he asked, “What is ‘revenge’?”

He had picked up the term from a recent episode of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  The turtles, as you know, spend a large chunk of their time doing what they can to keep Shredder from seeking just that, so it was a fair question.  We tried to explain the concept as well as we could without giving him any ideas about seeking his own vengeance for whatever slight his sister might commit.  We also tried to end the conversation with the standard, “And it isn’t something God wants us to do.”

He thought about that for quite some time before adding, “Then why is there even the word?”

And that’s a good question, because, why is there such a thing as revenge in the first place if God doesn’t want it around?  In fact, that’s perhaps the number one question many people have been asking for thousands of years.  If God is real, and God is good, then how can evil exist? 

Now, before continuing, let’s just reiterate something most of you already know.  I am not a theologian, so no need to take notes.  However, I personally think that one of the simplest explanations, and, thus, perhaps the best for this question in particular, comes from the world of physics. 

Many of you have probably already heard the argument that suggests that “evil” as an actual thing doesn’t really exist anymore than cold or darkness.

For example, nothing really generates cold, at least not naturally. “Cold” is merely a word we’ve come up with that describe a lack of heat.   The sun makes heat; but Antarctica doesn’t really make cold.  Thus, the colder something is, the less heat it has, not the more cold it holds.

Darkness, too, is not technically there; it’s simply an absence of light.  Using this analogy, the argument quietly moves to the realm of cosmic theology and suggests that evil is not really a “thing”; it is simply the absence of God.  The more evil an event seems to us, the further away that event is from God.

Although a tight little argument and perhaps even logical in its own right, this explanation is also quite sterile.  While this reasoning may, for some, explain “how” what we call evil can exist in a universe constructed by a benevolent deity, it still does not explain “why.”  If God is God, by his nature he could alleviate the potential for evil.  If God is good, why would he allow even a portion of his creation to make choices that lead to poor behavior?

Personally, I think the answer lies partially in that particular abstract noun, “choice.”

Without choice, authentic relationship is not possible.  Without moral agency, humans are simply clever animals, using our giant brains to manipulate the environment toward our own instinctual ends.  Without free will, in fact, it would be impossible to demonstrate moral agency in the first place.

This, then, suggests that God seeks relationship with creation, especially the part that asks hundreds of questions a day.

Forward

Trying to corral little kids into a game of T-ball is often compared to herding cats.  However, after spending three years in “the big T,” as it is never referred to, I think this analogy might be unfair to the cats, which spend much less time scratching around in the dirt.  The main roadblock when it comes to T-ball is the issue of focus.  This is not meant to be insulting.  4-year-olds are great.  But expecting them to stand in one place beneath the hot sun for more than 90 seconds?  That’s insane.

However, it is rarely in good form to identify a problem without offering up at least a few plausible solutions, and so the following ideas might be considered.

For starters, we need to schedule the competition in stages.  On opening day we simply pass out team shirts to the entire league and put everyone in center field. Their respective coaches, who will also be wearing the team-colored shirt, will be placed in different spots in left and right.  A whistle will be blown, and the youngsters will then go find their team. 

  Once the teams are found, the kids will be given their ball gloves and will be told to put the glove on the appropriate hand.  “No, the other hand.  I said the other hand!  It’s backwards, somehow you put it on backwards.  OK, good.  No, there’s no bee in it, that’s just the tag.  I don’t have scissors right now to cut the tag off,  just put the…please put the glove on…pick up your glove! Will you get off the ground, you’re acting like a child!”

Once gloved, the players will pair up and just play catch with each other for a few minutes before repeating this process with every other member of the team.  This will emphasize the crucial yet often over looked component of organized sports:  your team members are the ones wearing the same shirt.

At the end of the day, anyone who doesn’t cry gets a snow cone.

Game two will focus on base running.  One team will line the edge of the infield while the opposing players will just run around the bases until they are exhausted.  This will take about three minutes.  Coaches will be at each base to emphasize some key components:  run as fast as you can, the pitcher’s mound is not a base, and don’t stop to wave at grandma.   

At the end of day two, anyone who doesn’t cry gets a snow cone.

Using this strategy as a template, each week an additional skill could be introduced.  For example, many T-ballers have a difficult time differentiating between offense and defense.  On more than one occasion, in fact, I have seen very eager youngsters leap off the bench to field pokey grounders swatted by their own teammate.  I have even seen kids field their own hit, which might sound impossible unless you have actually witnessed the speed at which a T-ball grounder moves.  

The point is this:  T-ball is a process.  Not only is this often the first time these kids have played organized sports, it’s the first time some of them have even thrown a ball at someone their own age.  Focusing on a new aspect of the game each week might prove beneficial.  Of course, it also might still be cat-herding.  I’m not psychic.

Regardless of the activity—T-ball, jump rope, bull riding—it’s a process, which also happens to be one of my favorite mottos.  One of the most useful epiphanies of my entire career came the day I realized that it wasn’t actually my job to make each of my students into a good writer.  This might sound weird coming from an English teacher, to say nothing of the transition it takes to move from a discussion about T-ball to one about writing instruction, but look at it this way. Some students are already good writers.  On the other hand, writing well can be a real challenge, and some students are simply designed for other pursuits.  However, if I’m doing my job right, each of them should at least be better writers in May than they were in August.

 Accepting that little cosmic reality has made teaching and just about everything else much less stressful.  It’s the arc that matters most; not so much the speed.  To paraphrase one of our nation’s finest writers and orators, Dr. King, “…if you can’t run, then walk; if you can’t walk, then crawl; just be sure to keep moving forward.”

Many of you are parents and grandparents, some of you are teachers, a few of you are students. With the new school year fast approaching, this “moving forward” business is something to keep in mind.  First base to second; second to third; defense on the field, offense up to bat.  Little by little, glove on the right hand, leave the dirt alone.

Chin up, hustle, try not to cry.

The snow cones will be waiting.