“Ask and it shall be given to you.”
Is this real or just promo?
Cring takes his podcast to tell a story about a five-year-old boy discovering himself—and also how we all can learn to discover ourselves if we’re not afraid to ask.

TRANSCRIPT

Sissy took me by the hand, her eyes sparkling. Her mother had just gone down to the basement to wash clothes.

Sissy stood me to my feet. We walked away from our crayons and coloring book to the back of the house, out through the screen door, across the porch and down the steps. My heart was pounding. I had no idea why. Probably just the touch of Sissy’s hand.

It was like a very soft marshmallow. I liked marshmallows. Yet my heart had never pounded before, touching one.

We walked around to the side of the house where there was a huge pine tree. At least I thought it was huge. I was only five years old. Many things were huge.

Sissy pulled back one of the branches like she had done it a thousand times before. We wiggled our way through to a space that was private—a floor of pine needles. Nobody could see in and we couldn’t see out.

She took me by the shoulders, turned me around and lightly shoved me to where I was leaning against the house. She reached down with her right hand and gently rubbed it over my shorts, over my pee-pee-er.

That’s what I knew it to be. I was asked four times a day if I needed to pee-pee. I consulted my pee-pee-er and answered accordingly. I had no other aspirations for the apparatus. I never asked to be enlightened.

Sissy found another use.

All at once my pee-pee-er grew big. Embarrassingly large. I was convinced that Sissy’s mother must be downstairs, fully aware of the immenseness.

The factory down the street must have shut down operations, with all the employees turning to one another and asking in horror, “What was that?? What was that?” Mostly I was in fear that Sissy might be knocked over or perhaps smothered.

Before I could respond or even breathe another ounce of air, she leaned over with her lips and kissed me.

I didn’t have a moment to pucker, even though I didn’t know that was what you were supposed to do.

I was at full attention. I was fully erect. All of my sensitivities were tingling. My mind was racing. My little pee-pee-er was huge. At least, huge for it.

Sissy looked down and peeked inside my shorts and giggled. I didn’t know what to do so I joined her and giggled, too.

She took me by the hand and she walked (and I limped) back into the house. We sat down to continue coloring the bear and her cubs.

It was a half an hour—maybe more—before my pee-pee-er calmed down.

I felt so alive. I felt so informed. I felt so aware. I was in love. Not with Sissy—but with the whole idea that there was much more to discover than my five-year-old mind could ever imagine.

Had I been able to continue at that level of exalted pursuit, feeling free to ask and question, I don’t know who I would have become.

I went home that night wanting to tell somebody about my experience. But who?

I didn’t want to tell my mother; it might scare her.

My dad was gruff—seemed uninterested. He might be angry. He might be jealous.

My big brothers had already surrendered to small-town thinking and had never mentioned anything to me about life and all of its clutter.

So being a little boy, with a little faith and a little time, I told God.

I told Him all about what had happened that day. I finished my prayer by saying, “If You had anything to do with it, I want to thank You. And if there’s anyway you can remind me of what happened this afternoon—to make me want more—well, feel free to stop and let me know.”

Don’t ask. Don’t tell.
Good children learn it well.
How do we learn? What the hell.
Climb inside my shell.

I assume. Yes. I assume so many things that I could write a book called “My Assumptions.”

I assume nobody’s really interested in me, so I take in loneliness and pretend to be rejected.

I assume black people are one way and Hispanics are another. I assume it’s due to their culture.

I assume that they assume many assumptions about me.

I assume women are women because that’s what I always assumed was correct, and as women, they’re different from men. I assume.

I assume there’s a God. Although assuming it does not make it true. Others assume there is no God. Their assuming is equally as anemic.

I assume because I’m afraid to ask. I’m afraid to ask because I don’t want to be stupid.

Here I come.
I’m not dumb.
Where you from?
Give me some.
I ain’t no bum.

I assume.

There is no one more ignorant than the man who knows it all.

Knowing it all is like drawing a line in the middle of an endless desert, insisting you have found the end to the dunes. It just seems to go on.

Asking is something we allow children. Assuming is what the adults do.

Why? Because asking is embarrassing. There’s the danger of “the look.” You know the one I mean—that little squint of the eyes that means that someone of your intelligence or your age should know such things.

But what if you don’t?

What if you’re surprised that your pee-pee-er gets big?

What if you don’t know that the pain in your chest is indigestion, and not a heart attack? Should you ask? And who would you ask?

There is a thought that was once shared by a man of faith. He said “if any of you need to know, let him ask of God, who will not criticize you for being without the knowledge.”

Is that true?

Because I don’t know why God is so glib about not committing adultery when He makes it so damn easy to do it.

I don’t know why He told us not to kill, and then gave us the input to make gunpowder, knives and bombs.

Is asking a way to avoid being stupid, or a way to make yourself look stupid.
It’s aggravating.
(GO TO BOOK – SEGMENT 3)

INSERT FROM WITHIN

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By the way, to put an ending to my story with Sissy:

The next time I saw her, I was about to explode with billions and billions of atoms of questions.

Finally we were on the other side of the garage, hidden away from all the adults, and I said, “Sissy, why did my pee-pee-er get big?”

She looked at me and smiled and said, “I don’t know. But it sure was funny. And here’s the truth.

Every little boy I took behind that tree had the same thing happen.”

As she finished her explanation, she ran away to join her friends and family. I stood there and realized I had been cheated on, informed, revealed and jilted—all in one thought.

Unfortunately, Sissy never took me behind the pines again.

Too many appointments, I guess.

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The good news is, if something grows up in front of you that you don’t understand, you can ask.

The better news is, God is not afraid of things that grow.

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