Somewhere between two and three, he noticed that the moon was out during the day. I'm not sure where he had learned it, but he had figured out that the moon created (I know, I know, reflected is the right answer) light. He questioned why the day wasn't brighter. He questioned why the moon was out early. It was still a mystery to him.
That same year, he figured out that the moon disappeared and that it took different shapes. The stories he created were bizarre and more complex from ages three to four: the moon was made of ice cream and it melted down into different shapes or maybe God ate pieces of it and then replenished it when it got empty; the moon was filled with flashlights and sometimes they burned out; the moon was really a black and white object and it looked more white as it moved in the sky. Regardless of the stories he developed, the moon was still a mystery to him.
Two nights ago, he asked if he could go outside and look at the moon. He stood on our patio table and studied it intently.
"Look. It's one big circle. Part of it is dark and part is white."
"Why do you think that is?"
"The light is all around it," he explained.
Not really. Not like a solar eclipse, but he was right. You could see the entire circle.
"There's a light shining on one side and there's not light on the rest," he explained.
"Where do you think the light comes from?"
"The sun already disappeared, so maybe it's God?"
"That's an idea."
I haven't corrected him. I haven't pulled out the lunar charts. I want to see how far he gets on his own. And when he gets to a point that he understands the moon, I'm hoping it will still be a mystery to him.
photo credit - Nick K.
What a wonderful post. I love that you don't interrupt Micah's most wonderful moon stories and how that space to be evolves. Inspiring. BTW, the lead to this post is gold.
oh wow. this is beautiful. how it should be. bravo.
thank you for sharing..
This reminds me of one of my favorite moments from Zora Neale Hurston's Dust Tracks on a Road where Zora and her sister wanted to prove who the moon loved more. They would stand back to back and run in opposite directions to prove that the moon followed them as they ran. It turned out, they were both right and the moon followed them both...
My 2.5-year-old son thinks the moon is made out of cheese (whoops my doing) and wants to build a ladder to it (whoops coyote's doing).
Dear John,
At the risk of being a spoilsport, and because you know me well enough, I think , to trust my motives, I'm going to (very gently) suggest that maybe using a model here might be better than allowing Micah to reduce/expand a reasonably understood natural phenomenon to the bigger mystery of Yahweh.
Or maybe to just share the idea that none of us can know even a tiny piece of the knowable. None of us can know the divine.
I believe in the model, but I'll save it for an older age. As it is, he already believes it's a light shining. At some point, he's going to realize it's the sun.
At his age, God is the unknowable - not unlike magic. I'm not sure God is the wrong term for him.
Dear John,
I regretted sending that last one soon after I posted it--feel free to delete it.
I just remember being so awfully confused the first few conscious years--took me a long while to separate the knowable from the known from the unknowable.
He's lucky to have you as a Dad.
Dear Doyle,
Please don't regret it. I love your point about knowable, known and unknowable. I actually think I might engage Micah in that distinction - just not with the models :)
Oddly enough, I think it was your writing that helped me see the limitations of models.
Interesting!
From this point on a path separates - one gives imagination of possibilities, limitless reasons, speculation and mystery. The other gives reason, the method of selecting one such possibility. Why they separate or why they need to separate, I know not. I hope Micah can continue on the first and discover the second.
Learning from you now John, thanks for sharing.