A couple of days later, Mrs Obadiah Slope had some words of wisdom.

“We should never go out without a mask and hand sanitiser” (we live in a city where mask wearing is not mandatory, although perhaps it should be.) The mask and the sanitiser would mean we can help if we come across a neighbourhood emergency like the one we just missed.

Of course we also carry other items of value, such as prayer and, hopefully, a watchful heart.

Because sometimes opportunity creeps up on you. Like the wonderful questions my Scripture class has asked me.

“If God knew what was going to happen why did he allow Adam and Eve to do what they did?”

“Is God beyond the dimensions?”

And the classic, “Who created God?”

But I am now out of sync – wonderfully – because those questions erupted in class.

Out went the craftwork follow-up to the Jonah story. (I am not sure who is teaching what in the “Connect” course I use – I think we are all out of sync since Covid.)

But I am now out of sync – wonderfully – because those questions erupted in class.

I took along our Roomba vacuum cleaner and set it going in class. It’s a robot and very bossy. My years three and fours got the point – we are not robots, and God did not want us to be automatons.

“Could God have chosen to make us robots?”

“Yes,” I said. “But he didn’t.”

“Why was there such a long time between Adam and Eve and God coming to earth?”

Yes, God came to earth as a baby – Jesus. But had he been speaking to Adam and Eve already?

I wonder what I might be asked next week.