how do you know ...?

I wish I had thought to take a picture of the storytellers stick I was given after my first week of camp being a storyteller. My storyteller stick stands about 4 feet tall and is woven so the gathered sticks, which are light and flexible, swirl upward. During the second week of being the storyteller for the camp of nine to twelve year old children, since I now had a stick, I explained that when the story-stick was held in the upward position it signaled 'listening time' and so it would be best if they closed their mouths and opened their ears so the magic within the story could be revealed.

What the children didn't know was that each morning when I entered the hall where the children would gather, I pictured the stick as full of the power of the Spirit and called upon this Spirit to be with me as I told the story. Good thing I had the power of the Spirit with me because early last week as I told the story of Jesus' baptism and then told the children that just as Jesus had the experience of being told he was 'the beloved son in whom God was very pleased'; that this experience was also true for each of them: Each of us is the beloved child of God. And since each of us is living, then each of us have been chosen and God is pleased that we are alive.

As I finished telling the story and sharing my conviction of being the beloved child of God, a small hand raised in the air: "how do you know God exists?"

This is exactly what I love about working with young children; they go directly to the heart of the matter. Children have an inherent reverence for story and therefore are able to simply walking right into the middle of the plot: how do you {meaning me} know that God exists? In other words, if you can't tell me how you know God exists, then I think I'll forget the whole thing right now.

Working with young people requires not only conviction {understanding, knowledge and knowing} of what you believe but the ability to think fast on one's feet. The reason I put conviction as the first requirement is that to be trusted as a teacher of small children, you must speak only truth. Children have a finely tuned sense of smell for lies and they will dismiss you as inconsequential to their life if you lie to them. If truth is required for being effective then it is essential that you know what you believe. Also, without conviction of what you believe, it is really hard to be fast on your feet!

So there I am as storyteller with a dozen little faces looking to me ready to hear what I believe and out of my mouth come the words "have you ever experienced love?"

"Yes," his head nods.

"Was the love big and really good?"

A moment passes and I see him thinking about this question, and then he nods and says, "yes, it was."

"That is how I know God exists." I answer. "God is only love - that is all God is, love - and when I experience love, I know that love, the ability to love and experience love, comes from God. When I experience love, I am experiencing God."

I watched him take in my words, and then he seemed to swallow them as if to say, 'well that is worth considering.'

If you have ever worked with children then you are aware that after this exchange which maybe took two minutes, we just moved forward with the story and the experience of the story as if we hadn't been asked one of the most profound questions in existence. This is another great thing about working with children, they keep you rooted in the reality that life is about taking in an experience and then just moving forward: life is about living.

In some ways I was fortunate in being asked the question as the concept of knowing God's existence by experiencing love as well as being an experience of love for other people had been the basis of the class I had taught in church school this past year for the same age group. It was because of teaching that church school class that I used the word experience rather than the word feel when referring to love.

Experience means to have a practical acquaintance with; involvement and participation in. Generally then, experience indicates actions and behaviors that we are engaged by. When love is seen from this perspective of behavior then the words of Jesus, "love one another as I have loved you" not only make sense but the instruction has clarity.

Making sense out of this instruction was the basis of the teaching I did last year and what I came to understand was that the word love expressed in this context indicates goodness as an experience of living. When I experience 'goodness' in life then I am experiencing love. As I explored how this goodness revealed itself, I realized that goodness is not at all abstract. Goodness is quite concrete for we know what goodness is: goodness as love is kindness toward, consideration of, generosity of and toward, patience with , merciful with and the word I love; benevolent toward - the attitude of a warm-heart. These are the behaviors which allow for the experience of love.

I added the italicized words after each descriptive word for goodness to indicate each is an action word. I once read a book titled God is a Verb and it made the deep impression that God as the activity of creative goodness, always expands outward into life.

Therefore if each of us has been created to be an expression of God, then it follows that we also are called to be actively engaged in the behaviors expressing love which move outward and expand life. After all, there might be some child or maybe even a more grown-up person who is wrestling with the question of the existence of God and is asked to consider, have you ever experienced love? I firmly believe that God counts on - is dependent upon each of us - to be the answer to that question.