A conversation with my son, age 4, on volcanoes, turned difficult when he asked why they spouted out all that lovely dramatic looking lava. There was no level on which I could provide a half adequate answer- I don't know enough about the 'science bit' to say why. As for the deeper why, there's no denying the challenge of attributing everything to God's inscrutable will-or rather, conveying that to a child who does plenty of scruting. This got me to thinking-why is His will as manifest in Nature so often, well, dramatically not nice? I'm talking about floods, earthquakes etc. I am struggling hard to think of a sudden dramatic event in nature that obviously reveals God's benevolence. That is, as opposed to the undeniable constant unfolding of His mercy in so many small, quotidian and undramatic ways. That is, in a way that can easily be impressed on my 4 year old!
Anyway, when that all got too challenging, I pushed the boat out by introducing mud volcanoes into the mix. Well I like them-the idea of them. My son was impressed, unfortunately the children's encyclopedia we were looking at provided no pictures of this aesthetically more subtle type of volcano- and that's what I am after now: pictures or video of seething, bubbling cauldrons of mud.
We then went onto trains. But that goes without saying.
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