What's a Dad to Do? When I Can't Answer Her Questions Anymore...

Part of the joy of being a father to young children, is the ability to answer nearly any question that my children can ask. To them, I am an expert on everything. I fix bikes, clean fish tanks, and perform reconstructive surgery on Barbie dolls. To my children, I can make everything better--until recently.

Daddy, why did God make us so that we could be hurt? It was one of the first problems I couldn’t fix, a question I couldn’t answer. A few hours before, I was that hero delivering the perfectly sized Tinkerbelle band-aid to a routine bloody knee and stirring the perfect chocolate milk. Now, after having dedicated half my lifetime to studying theology, she unearths the single question that still baffles me.

And she knew it. Those bright expectant eyes that were accustomed to having all her questions answered by daddy gave way to disappointment. Soon after, she added more questions. And why is it that in the Bible God talks to people like Mary and Joseph, but God doesn’t talk to me? That’s a wonderful question, I said. She looked at me suspiciously. I think I should ask Fr. David, because you don’t seem to know very much!…… And with eyes welling up, she said, “I wish God would talk to me.”

Why does God seem to be absent in the face of suffering or in the everyday moments of life? Why doesn’t God speak to us more clearly when we struggle with life’s persistent questions? As men, we prefer clear, logical answers to our questions. We like rational analysis. Yet, to be a believer means to live with the mystery of unanswered questions that often defy the logical mind. This is difficult for all of us, but especially for us as men. Faith is less about knowing for sure, than it is about carrying a mystery.

In the end, Jesus did not come to answer the question of suffering but to fill it with his presence. So we don’t know why children are born hungry, but we will feed them. We don’t know why we were made to be hurt and to hurt others so easily, but we will ask for forgiveness and we will forgive them. We don’t know why so many are neglected, and judged, and ignored, but we will love them. In the end, the silence of God on these is the space for us to speak. I invite you to ponder how we as men of faith might respond to these great questions and mysteries at Holy Family’s Annual Men’s Spirituality Evening Retreat on May 4, 2012. Click here for more information.