Action and Drama

Sometimes conversations with my son make me stop in my tracks with a moment of wonder. Today something like this happened.

It was a typical unschooling morning; as I cleaned the house and my daughter played a game, my son watched a Star Trek movie. I noticed he turned it off a few times to play outside or otherwise wander away, only to return later to watch some more. When it finished, he came to share his evaluation of it.

First, he asked me if I'd liked Star Trek as a child. Not so much, I told him. He informed me that the ending was really exciting, because that's where all the action was, but in the build up there was a lot of drama. I gathered that, because I know him to be a total "action man," that the drama was not so interesting to him. But I told him "the drama is what gives meaning to the action."

Ok wait, back up. This was a typical unschooling morning, and my daughter played a game and my son watched a Star Trek movie, and as I cleaned the house I was praying with just a bit of tension in my heart: "Lord, you've given me these children to raise. Show me, please, what they really need. I need to you reach into my son's heart and awaken him to his purpose." It is not always easy to unschool, because it involves a heck of a lot of trust in one's children as auto-didacts and in our life as a teacher. Parents don't often spend a lot of time worrying that a typical school day is wasting a child's life (though perhaps they should), but at the very least, I'd like some help cleaning from my movie-watching son, you know?

So, I heard these words come out of my mouth, and I saw them go into my son's heart. Later he talked again about "the drama" of something else. And in the meantime I had a realization that put me into wonder. Something very valuable had just transpired.

Being eight is a time when an action man starts to realize there is more to life than doing; there is also the answer to the question "why". There is this quest for meaning. Why bother to do what I am doing? What import does this have? How can I live without getting bored? What is my purpose? This is the drama of life.

We can go through life doing, ignoring our purpose in our activities. This isn't good. We can go through life with grandiose drama, without engaging reality around us. This also isn't good. Or we can live all of our actions, all of our doings, aware that they point to a great purpose, our ultimate destiny, oneness with Christ.

And Star Trek can help us both to understand this connection.

And mothers can have peace and wonder while sorting laundry.