Gum, Geckos, and God: A Family's Adventure in Space, Time, and Faith

Gum, Geckos, and God: A Family's Adventure in Space, Time, and Faith

by James S. Spiegel
Gum, Geckos, and God: A Family's Adventure in Space, Time, and Faith

Gum, Geckos, and God: A Family's Adventure in Space, Time, and Faith

by James S. Spiegel

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Overview

James Spiegel never realized what challenges and adventures he would face in talking about God with his own children. Can we hug God? Will geckos go to heaven? Was Jesus fun to be around? Does God know how many spiders there are in all the basements in the world? These are just a few of the questions that Spiegel has fielded in conversations with his sons Bailey and Sam.Every devout Christian wants to understand God and his ways more fully. But even the fundamentals of faith are layered with profound mysteries. In his teaching and writing, Spiegel deals with these complexities every day. But nothing quite prepared him for the honesty, hilarity, and depth of revelation that he has found in conversations about God with his boys.Gum, Geckos, and God is fascinating and fun. As you read, you’ll step into a new depth of Christian doctrine as you come to know and enjoy the Spiegel family and follow their journey of spiritual growth. Here is a uniquely incisive look into the most complex issues of faith in a way that’s absorbing, engaging, and highly personal.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780310297239
Publisher: Zondervan
Publication date: 05/26/2009
Sold by: HarperCollins Publishing
Format: eBook
Pages: 256
File size: 878 KB
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

James Spiegel holds a PhD from Michigan State University and currently teaches philosophy at Taylor University. He is the author of several books, including the award-winning How to Be Good in a World Gone Bad. Spiegel is a frequent speaker at Christian colleges, conferences, churches, and on radio programs. He lives in Fairmount, Indiana, with his wife, Amy, and their four children, Bailey, Samuel, Magdalene, and Andrew.

Read an Excerpt

Gum, Geckos, and God A Family's Adventure in Space, Time, and Faith


By James S. Spiegel Zondervan Copyright © 2008 James S. Spiegel
All right reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-310-28353-9


Chapter One What Is God Like?

One afternoon I sat in the back yard listening to the Chicago Cubs on the radio and watching my son Bailey dig for unknown treasures in the sandbox. The sky was sunny, the Cubs were leading, and all seemed right with the world. Little did I know that I was about to be thrown a curveball. The curve came not from a Major League pitcher but from somewhere much more challenging - the mouth of my six-year-old: "Dad, what is God like?" With that simple question began an adventure.

I leaned back in my chair, preparing to spout eloquently. "Good question, Bailey," I said. I had taught philosophy for twenty years, published many books and articles on philosophical topics, and addressed challenging philosophical questions from bright undergrads. But as I searched the mental file for an answer, I realized that never before had I faced such a daunting task as answering my son's straightforward query. "Umm ... That's a really good question." The fruit of all of my years of studying and teaching philosophy and theology seemed to evaporate. I had no good answer. "What is God like?" I repeated slowly, making my son's question my own.

* * *

One of the best question-askers in history was Socrates. His inspiration came one day when the oracle at Delphi declared him to be the wisest man in Athens. Socrates didn't buy it. He went out to disprove the oracle by randomly interviewing his fellow Athenians to find someone wiser than himself. He did so by asking simple questions: What is knowledge? What is goodness? What is beauty? To his dismay, Socrates discovered that while everyone he interviewed claimed to know the answers to these questions, none of them really did. He was the only one who recognized his own ignorance. Hence came his famous assertion: "All I know is that I know nothing." It is wiser to know you don't know than to think you know when in fact you don't know. So, it seemed, the oracle was correct after all.

Socrates' questions-and his radical idea that there is one almighty God, making Socrates, in his polytheistic culture, appear to be an atheist many times over-angered the city leaders. He was arrested and charged with corrupting the youth and inventing false gods. He was convicted and sentenced to death. But he went willingly to his execution-poisoning by hemlock-in hopes that his legacy would inspire others to live virtuously and revere God. For Socrates, philosophy was properly about living, and dying, rightly in God's presence.

Now, nearly twenty-five hundred years after Socrates' death, I and other philosophers pick up his baton, which has been passed from generation to generation. One of the principal tools of my trade is the Socratic question. What is knowledge? What is goodness? What is beauty? When I pose such questions in class, I see students shift uncomfortably in their seats and squeeze their eyes shut for a moment as they struggle for a response. They have never considered such things before. The realization that we don't know as much as we thought we did is just as jarring to us as it was to the ancient Athenians.

* * *

"Don't you know, Dad?" Bailey asked, laying aside his shovel and looking up at me expectantly. At six he had yet to learn that there were some answers even Dad didn't know.

"Well ..." I said at last, "God is sort of like ... a dad."

"A dad?" my son echoed skeptically.

"Yeah," I said. "Only he's invisible and much more powerful."

"Hmm. That's weird." With that comment, Bailey went back to digging as if willing to let the conversation drop.

Perhaps I should have let it go, but I refused to be intimidated by a little kid who barely knew how to read. I poised myself and contrived an explanation. "Well, think about it. We came from God, right?"

"Right."

"And he takes care of us, right?"

"Uh huh."

"And he loves us and teaches us how to live. Aren't those the sorts of things that a good dad does?"

"Yeah. But I can see you. Why can't I see God?"

I reached over and turned off the radio. The Cubs would have to win this one on their own. "Does that disappoint you-that God is invisible?"

"Yeah, sort of," he said timidly.

"Just remember this, Bailey. You are invisible too."

"What?"

"Your soul, I mean. The part of you that thinks and has feelings is invisible. And my soul is invisible too, isn't it?"

"I guess ..." I was sensing some skepticism on his part, but he squinted up at me, willing to at least hear me out.

"Think about it. Do you see my thoughts?"

"No."

"Do you see my feelings?"

This elicited a look that spoke volumes as to what Bailey thought of the absurdity of my question, but he only answered with "Nooo," drawing out the word like he was speaking in slow motion.

"But my thoughts and feelings are real, just like yours are, right?"

"Yeah." Bailey nodded as he began to comprehend my point. Just then a car rumbled down the street, one of the many mufflerless vehicles that plague our neighborhood.

After glaring appropriately at the offending motorist, I resumed. "Bailey, your soul-it's also called a spirit-lives in your body. We can see your body, but your soul is invisible. And just because we can't see your soul, that doesn't mean it's not real, does it?"

"Right."

"It's the same way with God. He is-"

"The Holy Spirit!" Bailey interjected.

"Yes, exactly!" Smart kid. "He's invisible, but he is very real, with his own thoughts and feelings. And he controls the whole world, even better than we control our own bodies."

"Whoa." Bailey looked down at his hands as he pondered this. Palms upward, he slowly clenched and unclenched his fingers, studying their movements. After a moment he looked up again. "Can God do anything, Dad?"

"Yes. Well, he can do anything he wants to do."

"Can he make himself not invisible?"

"That's something he wouldn't want to do."

"But could he do it if he wanted to?"

"Hmm." I leaned forward in my chair, studying his earnest face. "I'd have to say no."

"Why not?"

"Because to do so God would have to make himself not God."

"Oh." He dropped his head as if disappointed.

I had answered his question, but not his concern. "Why do you want God to be visible?"

Bailey looked up at me with plaintive eyes. "So I can hug him when I see him."

This is one of those moments as a parent when your heart breaks with joy. "Bailey, that is wonderful that you want to hug God. And the good news is that you can."

"How? You said God is always invisible."

"Yes, but I didn't say that he can't put on a body. In fact, he has put on a body, one just like ours."

"Jesus?"

"That's right."

"But Dad ... um ..."

"Yeah, buddy?"

"Uh ... how will I know him when I see him?"

This one made me smile, and Bailey smiled in response. "Oh Bailey, you'll know him when you see him, I guarantee you that. God will make sure that you can't miss him."

"And he'll let me hug him?"

I nodded. Suddenly all my emotions were in my throat and under my eyelids, so I kept quiet.

Bailey stood up and dusted the sand from his pants. "I think I get it now, Dad."

"Get what?" I asked.

"How God is like a dad."

I smiled and pulled my son over for a hug.

* * *

Something people notice about Bailey (now eight) is his keen moral-spiritual sensibility. This first became apparent to my wife and me just a few months before Bailey turned three. We had taken him to his first film at the theater, an animated feature titled Spirit. In this film there is a lot of gun fighting, and as we drove home afterward, Bailey began to ask questions about guns and how they kill. When we thought we had satiated his curiosity, there was a long silence, then came his stumbling query: "Why ... we ... need guns?"

This floored me for several reasons. For one thing, I was amazed that this question came from the mouth of a two-year-old. For another, it struck me how this question, like so many others of significance, takes us right back to the garden of Eden. But mostly, the force of Bailey's question had to do with a realization I had recently come to, through another film, Life Is Beautiful, and my reading of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy.

In Benigni's film, set in Italy during the Second World War, a Jewish father works diligently to shield his son from the genocidal evil unfolding all around them. He succeeds in doing so, through comedic ploys, all the way through their internment in a concentration camp. The night I watched that film, I cried myself to sleep. It obviously hit me hard emotionally, but the reason for this was not clear to me at the time. During this period, I was also reading Tolkien's books, and I occasionally found myself in tears with his descriptions of the Black Riders, who hotly pursue Frodo and his loyal company of friends. As with the film, I wasn't quite sure why I was so moved by the narrative. I rarely cry watching films, and I had never done so reading a book. But now, all of a sudden, I was a flood of tears! Why? The answer came to me that night in the car, driving home from the film, discussing the subject of guns with Bailey. Again I began to cry, but now I knew why. Bailey's simple query showed me plainly something that the Benigni film and Tolkien's books communicated to me only subconsciously: no matter how hard I try, I cannot completely shelter my child from evil in this world.

My son is sure to encounter deep hatred and even cruelty, through no fault of his own. It is also certain that he will himself become entangled in sin to some degree, since the same poison lurks within us all. On top of this-if Tolkien and the apostle Paul are correct-there are unspeakably evil entities, the real Black Riders, that already hate Bailey, though he has done nothing to provoke them. And they are intent on enticing him to become an agent of evil as they are.

With this realization I resolved to emphasize my kids' moral-spiritual training above all else. Nothing can compare to the importance of training my kids to be wise-to understand God and his ways and to live accordingly. The more they can learn about God, the more prepared they'll be to face life's temptations and to outrun the Black Riders who hatefully pursue them. I also glimpsed, all at once, that the greatest practical value of my vocation as a Christian philosopher is how it equips me for this daunting task.

During all of my years in graduate school, never once did I consider how my training in philosophy-the study of wisdom-would enable me to be a better parent. Now I think about it every day.

* * *

I love being a parent, but some aspects of the job-and it is a job-are truly insufferable. Take dressing the kids, for example. Now that is something I really loathe. I'm normally a patient person, whether it's waiting in line or listening to a tiresome person drone on about his job. But nothing tests my patience like putting clothes on a little kid. Man, it gets me uptight just writing about it. I think it's a combination of two factors that make it so hard for me. There's the sheer tedium of the task itself-first this sock, not this way, but that; no, wait, it's upside down. Okay, now, pull-hard enough to get it over that pudgy foot but not so hard that the knee bends and you lose all leverage. All right, good, that one is on correctly. Okay, now the other sock ... And so on. Seemingly endlessly. The same dull tasks, over and over and over and ridiculously over again-like Sisyphus and his boulder. It seems you just manage to reach the top of the hill, getting your child fully clothed and ready to face the day, when the proverbial boulder rolls down the hill and he spills juice down the front and you have to start pushing all over again.

The resistance that you get from the child as he grows impatient with the process is also nearly unbearable. You're trying your best to patiently put clothes on this squirming kid, and he's losing his patience because you're not dressing him quickly enough. The next thing you know, he's moaning and crying, and you want to throw his shoe across the room. But somehow you manage to calmly put it on his foot and successfully tie it. Ah, another small but hard-won victory.

Considering my experiences as a parent, the daily reminders that God is my Father are very humbling. To shield my pride, I sometimes tell myself, "At least he doesn't have to put up with as much whining from me every day as I deal with from my kids." Then it occurs to me that God witnesses not only my spoken complaints but also my private grumblings. A passing thought of resentment about some aspect of my life registers in the divine ear like nails on a chalkboard. And my "private" attitudes of pride and condemning judgments of my neighbors might as well be screaming profanity, as far as the all-perceiving Mind is concerned. These realizations can make you feel pretty immature from a moral standpoint.

But then these darker moments are more than made up for by the seizures of grace that come with parenting. To have a child is to experience a genuinely unique kind of love. People tell you this before you have kids, and you believe them-or you affirm what they are saying in an abstract way-but you really don't understand. I have loved others in all sorts of relational contexts-love of my parents, siblings, extended family, friends, and romantic interests. My love for my wife topped them all. We are wedded soul-to-soul, and I can't imagine having a better life partner. Some of these affections have been more or less natural, but none of these loves has been completely selfless. In fact, for the longest time I had no idea that this was even a possibility for me or any other mortal in this world. Then I had a child of my own.

Before becoming a parent, I used to hear people talk of how readily they would die for their kids. And I would think to myself, "Wow, that's heroic. To give your life for your child-what a noble thing. I don't know if I could ever do that for someone, even if it was my own child." These thoughts seem silly to me now. They reflect a mind that knew nothing of the relational universe in which I now dwell. Every normal and healthy-minded parent knows full well that giving your life for your child, if one had to make such a decision, would not be particularly noble, because no decision would be necessary. The response of self-sacrifice for your own child would be automatic, like blinking or breathing.

In this sense, parental love is its own category of love. In fact, sometimes to me the word love seems too soft or gentile, lacking a certain sense of primal compulsion. It's more like a force of nature, an energy that grips you and binds you to your child so relentlessly that you feel at times almost like an automaton or a mindless servant. But, of course, it is no mere force either, because the affection is so deep and resilient. Combine those features and you have, well, parental love, a power so strong that it can compel even the most ordinary person to die for his kids ... or even to help them to put on their socks.

* * *

What is God like? Perhaps the reason Bailey's question stumped me initially is because, aside from parents, there are very few things in this world to which God can be compared. As our cosmic parent, he nurtures us continually. And as powerful as parental love is, this is a mere reflection of the one who is love.

What awe can be prompted by a six-year-old goofing around in a sandbox. But six-year-olds become seven-year-olds. Their questions multiply, as do the wonders they reveal. Then their little siblings get into the action, and before you know it you're tackling life's biggest questions left and right when all you really want to do is just relax and listen to the Cubs game. Little did I realize what theological realms my kids would lead me into. The conversation was just beginning.

(Continues...)



Excerpted from Gum, Geckos, and God by James S. Spiegel Copyright © 2008 by James S. Spiegel. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

Contents Preface....................9
1. What Is God Like?....................13
2. Where Did God Come From?....................27
3. Where Does God Live?....................39
4. How Much Does God Know?....................51
5. Why Do Some People Not Believe in God?....................67
6. Why Does God Love Us?....................81
7. How Can God Fix Us?....................93
8. Why Is It Hard to Be Good?....................109
9. Do unto What?....................127
10. What Was Jesus Like?....................137
11. How Will We Know Jesus When We See Him?....................149
12. When Will We See Jesus?....................165
13. What Will We Do in Heaven?....................177
14. Who Gets to Go to Heaven?....................191
15. If Heaven's So Great, Why Am I Afraid to Die?....................201
16. What If I Sin in Heaven?....................217
17. The Way Back Home....................229
Epilogue....................241
Acknowledgments....................243
Notes....................245
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