Notice the cross hanging from the green necklace? This is one of Sylvan's most prized ground scores. He found it around the base of a tree in a park we frequent. He also found the green necklace part which is actually an extremely stretched out elastic hair band. He fashioned them into a necklace.
He wears this out and about and we have gotten some very interesting questions and comments:
What church do you go to?
It's a fine thing to see a young man believing in Jesus Christ.
Jesus died for you and your sins.
Bless you.
Sylvan has come up with his own questions inspired by his necklace:
Why is there a body on this cross? Who is it? Is he in pain?
What is God?
What is church and why do people go there?
Why did Jesus die?
What are sins?
I answer him as honestly as I can from my experience. When I was six I may have known some of the surface answers to the questions he holds. I went to a catholic school. Doctrine was fed to me in a forceful way that left an unknown taste in my mouth. The taste was not necessarily unpleasant. I believe now that it caused and still causes me to seek and yearn for answers that go deeper than just accepting what someone else says is truth.
My early religious experiences shaped me to be a deep questioner of life. I remember standing in line to confess my sins and knowing deep in my child self that I was not a sinner. I can tap into that feeling of my young self. A knowing that there is truth, beauty and goodness in this world. That we, as humans, are not inherently bad. That is what I try to convey to Sylvan when he asks the questions that have so many different replies.
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