One sunny afternoon when my son was barely four years old, I was behind the wheel of the preschool carpool with a load of kids. A little girl in the back seat started talking about God. My ears perked up and I listened to her self-assured mini-sermon about the importance of going to church and believing in Jesus. I silently hoped that she'd stop while still on the basics, but no: she dropped the nuclear option: believe in God or go to hell. My son, for whom most talk of the supernatural was simply premature, was completely silent. Dear Lord, I thought, how much damage control will I have to do to reassure my son that his friend was not full-on crazy?
Not much later our family started talking in earnest about creation. We kept our discussions to what we could observe--which, when dealing with a preschooler is a pretty awesome talk. Why did he think that the bugs behaved the way they did? Where did the moon come from? Did he remember where he was before he was born? Ever think about how, when everything living dies, it becomes food for another living thing?
It was cool. It was the start of creating a personal theology, based on experience and observation. We left the lies out. (Except, as you know by now, we left Santa in, because Santa rocks.)
You wonder how your kids will turn out if you leave their spiritual education up to them. Will they end up as putty in faith-mongers' hands? Will they become morally-bereft sociopaths? What are they going to miss?
Just last week my now-grown son and I were taking a walk during winter break. As we passed a rather magnificent local church, I proposed that maybe we'd missed out on some friends and an important support network by avoiding organized faith. He laughed, responding, "I get what you're saying, but I would never be able to live with myself if I set aside my self-respect and all reason just for that."
Amen.
Readers: Thanks for your comments and keep the great links coming!
No comments:
Post a Comment