THIRTEEN
LIGHTS AND WINGS
Sonja drove in from Colorado Springs on Saturday evening, and as we
huddled in the living room over glasses of Pepsi, I filled her in on the rest of
what Colton had said.
“What have we been missing?” I wondered aloud.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s like he just pops out with new information all
of a sudden.”
“I want to know more, but I don’t know what to ask him.”
We were both teachers, Sonja in the formal sense and I in the pastoral
sense. We agreed that the best way to proceed was to just keep asking
open-ended questions as the situation presented itself, and not fill in any
blanks for Colton as I had, inadvertently, when I suggested the word crown
when Colton was describing the “gold thing” on Jesus’ head. In the coming
years, we would stick to that course so carefully that Colton didn’t know the
word sash until he was ten years old.
A couple of days after the conversation about the markers, I was sitting
at the kitchen table, preparing for a sermon, and Colton was playing
nearby. I looked up from my books and over at my son, who was armed
with plastic swords and in the process of tying the corners of a towel
around his neck. Every superhero needs a cape.
I knew I wanted to ask him about heaven again and had been turning
over possible questions in my mind. I had never had a conversation like
this with Colton before, so I was a little nervous about how to begin. In fact, I
had never had a conversation like this with anyone before.
Trying to catch him before he actually did battle, I got Colton’s attention
and motioned him to come sit with me. He trotted over and climbed into
the chair at the end of the kitchen table. “Yes?”
“Remember when you were telling me what Jesus looks like? And about
the horse?”
He nodded, eyes wide and earnest.