I had a revelatory moment this past week. It was "Back to School Night" at our son’s school, so I paraded through the classroom with the rest of the dutiful parents. Perusing the outstanding work that lay upon his desk, I was, of course, enormously proud of his accomplishments during the first few weeks of the term.

I was reading a self-made book of his on the alphabet.

"B is for Bergen, a city in Norway.

C is for the Cubs, the greatest baseball team."

Brilliant child.

Then I got to "Q".

"Q is for questions. I ask a lot."

He had drawn a picture of a family traveling in a car. He was in the backseat and there was one of those bubbles coming out of his mouth with a big question mark inside.

Someone was sitting in the front seat with a big moustache (yours truly). There is a bubble coming out of his mouth, too.

It says, "I am too busy!"

Out of the mouths of babes and third-graders.

I am too busy if it means that I not only avoid the questions of my son but of anyone who is searching for the truth.

I am too damn busy if I haven’t the time to engage in dialogue with other sojourners along the way.

I am too damn busy if I have convinced myself that I have nothing to learn from others, no matter how small or how different from me.

Too damned busy.