I knew. I know.

He had never learned about wind. The wind itself almost carried the question away. And so, in earnest, he wondered aloud.
“Where does wind come from?” It was like a gull against the breeze, or like a seed with wings and it landed at my feet, hoping for a crumb or at least, hoping to be spared the boot.
I knew. I know.
I know where wind comes from. I know about rotating planets, ocean currents, molecular movements, atmospheric pressure and barometers. Don’t ask how or where I learned; I can’t tell you. So I had a choice to make. Either let him in on the secrets of meteorology, or leave him alone to imagine. Instead of choosing one or the other I chose a path right through the deepest waters of his question.
“Lots of molecules moving at once.” I tried to say it the way I offer a reassuring comment, as though to second his amazement because, well, wind is amazing, whether or not you know what makes it. It was such a tender moment and had I not participated as he noticed the wind and the grandeur of creation, the teachable moment would have been lost. The gull would have flapped away; the seed would have been crushed under my foot.
He hadn’t imagined I would know. Now that I did know, he seemed to feel safer asking more question. Nestled in the following conversation were two seemingly common queries that belied his beloved bewilderment: “What do you mean? You know? How?”

Nevermind how hard I studied in grammar school. Disregard the months of preparation for my California teacher credentialing exams. The best teachers know in the core of their being that the states of matter don’t matter in moments like this. The best teachers remember that if I speak without love I am just a noisy gong. So we exercise the muscles of our awareness, we memorize facts and proverbs, all the while remembering that we too have fragile questions and that teachable moments must be handled with care.
To know me is to know that although I truly enjoy reliable answers to my questions and participate in modernity’s love affair with empirical data, I much prefer imagination to factoids. In a matter of seconds I run through a checklist in my head whenever a question like this is laid at my feet. I ask myself does the query matter to me? How? Why? Why not? But mostly, finally, fundamentally, I wonder how I can foster a love for creativity, imagination alongside the desire for knowledge? In other words, I wonder how can I use any question to deepen faith in all the things that make up a whole life.
I don’t want to offer facts alone, as though they were all we ought to try to believe. I don’t want to neglect facts or scientific method, as though they don’t matter at all. I want to use what I know of the world and the way life works as a spring board so we can jump together into what we don’t know. And I want to do so in a way that communicates my own curiosity and doubt.

It doesn’t always work out. My attempts to co-construct knowledge misfire if a more solid answer is needed. A child continues to pursue the adult asking, “but why?” until she is satisfied. Adults tend to quit vocalizing quandary while they’re ahead: hm hmmming along with the explanation even if they are lost early on—but then keep wondering, searching or feeling frustration for hours, days, years...
But this time it worked. I took a small stick of driftwood and drew the Earth in the sand, I blew the grains across it as if they were molecules of oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen. He said, “wow.” I said, “yeah, wow, right?” Even as I explained I thought of holes in the plot of the story of a breeze. I found myself asking questions too. I explained that I don’t know whether this breeze is because of the water or the hills or both. We wondered aloud together and then imagined these molecules had once flown over Argentina or been puffed out of a whale’s spout in the Atlantic Ocean.
And then it kept working.
Months later (many moons and traumas later) I heard him pose the question to a friend. This time it was with wonder and awe that he posed almost the exact same question: “Do you know where wind comes from?!” It was a shining moment for this self-designated teacher, preacher and poet. I caught his eye as I overheard him in conversation and we smiled at one another. It was as if he were about to describe a gift he’d been given or a story he’d read recently. He was honestly posing the question out of his hope for more knowledge, even though he knew more about the topic now than he ever had before. There was a tiny twist of pride in his voice, but not enough to stifle the curiosity of the person he asked. So it was.
Those who know me have heard me tell stories like this about my students ad nauseum but this one is especially important to me because it is not about answering a child’s question. It is about a grown man--a powerful, business suit wearing, beard-growing, bill-paying grown up. Somehow he managed to access wonder, awe, imagination in spite of all the chaos of his childhood reverberating in his heart, the aches in his overworked muscles and the daily stressors of adult responsibilities. But it is the perfect example of imagination at work and it goads me on in hopes that it is possible for adults to learn to imagine faithfully and to pass it on…