Time for a Smile: Dinosaur Poo and How God REALLY Made the World

Thought for the Fortnight

It has been very grey recently. Physically and metaphorically. The news is terrible, whether foreign or local. People are ill. We are all tired of winter.

I was going to post something else this week, but I decided it was time to give you a chance to smile. I was wondering what would work here. Various incoming writings raised a laugh with me, but I’m not sure they would work out of context.

And then it came to me. I have two grandsons. One tends to be rather quiet and keep his thoughts to himself. The other has always been ready to share his many questions and ideas with whoever is nearby. Some of these definitely make me smile. Sometimes I have written them down, if only to send them to his parents. And this also allows me to see them much later on.

So, I will offer you two completely different occasions, showing his efforts to work out what is going on in the world. He sucks up knowledge better than my hoover collects dust. His parents were – and still are – good at responding to questions of all sorts. As a consequence, you never know what he knows about – or not.

But we forget how difficult it is to understand when you have so little general knowledge on which to build. 

I should add that he is now 14, surprisingly conversant with the ways of the world, and often teaches me things. He has approved this post. I wouldn’t have posted it if he didn’t.

Dinosaur poo

He was three years old. I had taken him to the Natural History Museum in London, but the day was hot and the trip to get there was long. I was beginning to worry how I might capture his imagination before he realised that he was very tired, as was I.

And then I discovered there was a special exhibit of miscellaneous dinosaur bones and other items on a table, intended specifically for young children. This was perfect.

Among these was a piece of fossilised dinosaur poo, slightly larger than a cowpat. Even better. 

He was immediately fascinated and began to fire questions, inasmuch as a three-year- old can do so. Here they are, in the order that I wrote them down when I got home. I may have missed some.

First, quite reasonable associations with other excretions:

Do dinosaurs wee?

Could we see the wee?

And then the poo itself was given due consideration. One question made perfect sense, although the resulting image was discomforting:  

 Was it this hard when it came out?

But my favourite, which demonstrates the express difficulty of making sense of things as they are presented to us:

Did the dinosaur do the poo on this table?

After some effort to answer these questions (I never wrote down my responses) and a brief examination of the large dinosaur skeleton which was then in the entrance hall, we left very satisfied with the visit.

And God made the world

And here is a completely different occasion, when he had just turned five, and was staying at our house for the night.   

It was in the weeks leading up to Christmas and we were sort-of listening to the Messiah on BBC Radio 3, which is often playing in the kitchen while we are preparing dinner. Our grandson asked a question about what the music was.

Husband          That music is a famous piece called the Messiah. It is about the life of Jesus. Do you know who Jesus was?

Grandson        Oh yes – Jesus was the son of Mary and God.

Pause for thought, while my husband and I queried whether to pursue that exact coupling.

Husband          And do you know who God was?

Grandson        Oh yes – God created the world in seven days from bits and bobs.

‘Bits and bobs’ is an English phrase, meaning the same as ‘odds and ends’.

I think he nailed it. The world had to have come from something.

Personally, I have never been able to think about the beginning of the world in the same way since. I just see this old guy (or, these days, should it be an old lady?) collecting odd stuff from here and there to put together the thing we now call the world. 

And sometimes it does feel like it really was made from odds and ends.

If you were feeling low, I hope your day is a little less grey.

Over to you:  Any memories of your children’s or grandchildren’s efforts to make sense of our world?