Tuesday, January 8, 2013

God and Jesus

We are not remotely religious but Christianity is all around us and I decided it would be good for my boys to have at least a nodding acquaintance with God and Jesus. This was one of my projects for December.

The Christian god was hard to introduce. I couldn't find any children's books that presented God in an age-appropriate story kind of way. The books that had stories were super violent - rivers of blood, dead children. The books that weren't violent assumed the reader thought God was real and didn't give any information - "God made me, God loves me" doesn't explain who God is to someone who doesn't know.

So I decided to introduce some friendlier gods, and we got books of African and Greek mythology and read those instead. We talked about how people long ago didn't know much science and told stories of gods to explain the things they didn't know. After a few of these books A concluded that a god was somewhere between a superhero and a magician. I couldn't think of any reason this definition was wrong, so we went with it.

For Jesus, I found a book that focused on his birth. D got a little fixated on King Herod and it became more a story about a king who didn't want anyone else to be king. I told him King Herod was real but he didn't really have all those babies killed (I researched this to be sure). He eventually asked what Jesus did when he grew up and I told him he was a carpenter and a teacher who told everyone to be nice to each other.

I told the boys about the original December celebration of the solstice and the origin of the Christmas tree. I told them how later people chose December as the time to celebrate the birth of Jesus and that for some of our friends and neighbors, Christmas is about Jesus.

Now D likes spotting manger decorations when we're out walking the dog and yelling, "Jesus!" at the top of his lungs.

Interestingly, none of our conversations about God or Jesus triggered any kind of memory of church or teachings from their early life.

11 comments:

  1. I find myself talking a lot more about God and Jesus with Elfe than I ever anticipated too! It IS really all around us...

    This year, we have hit upon the brilliant analogy that God is like Santa - some people believe in him and some people don't, if you believe in him then he visits you and brings you gifts, but if you don't, no big deal...

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    1. We haven't talked about "believing in God." I have a lot of thoughts about this that I need to be able to move aside before I can bring up the topic in any kind of respectful way. Let's just say the "Christian" right have really poisoned Christianity.

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  2. I love this. I struggle sometimes about how to best pass on my beliefs because they are complicated and erm, I'll just say I differ pretty significantly from my church's hierarchy about social issues and it breaks my heart. (Poisoned, exactly.) But after fielding a series of questions about God recently, I've been thinking about how to better explain God and Jesus and other understandings of divinity. It took some hunting, but I finally found a children's bible that would not completely traumatize my son. For what it's worth, I grew up thinking church was basically like the circus because my friend went to some kind of revival type event at the Oakland coliseum, and the only thing I'd ever seen there was the circus. My lapsed Catholic parents never mentioned the subject or brought me near a church.

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  3. I was shocked when T came home with his list of things he was thankful for at Thanksgiving and one of them was "God."

    "God?" I asked. "Why did you pick God as something to be thankful for?" I asked, using a curious tone.

    "Because without God, we wouldn't be here. Nothing would be here," came the answer from He Who Has Been to Church Once. I don't know where he gets his religious views. He came home thinking that the word for "God" in his language meant "sky." He has no memories of going to church in Ethiopia.

    I just let it be. If believing in God comforts him, I'm not going to stand in the way of it. Sometimes I envy the people who have an unwavering belief in God and the hereafter. It must make life simpler -- for instance being comforted at someone's death that they will see them again in the next life. All that "he's/she's in a better place now" talk doesn't really fly with me. I hope so, but I have serious doubts.

    Santa and God are firm in T's mind right now, that's for sure. And neither planted by me. I just humor him. I don't want to pull the rug out from under him. The poor kid hasn't had much to have unwavering faith in.

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    1. I wonder if he got his information from other kids...? It's a little creepy to think that an adult has been telling him God stories without your knowledge/permission.

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  4. This blows my mind. As someone who had an older child who would take any opportunity to stand on a chair or even go up to strangers and share his beliefs and the bible with anyone would would listen, I thought it was a given with Ethiopia. I remember looking out from Little Gym and seeing him sharing "the story of the bible" with all who would listen. Luckily, I live in an area where they were all soo impressed with his biblical knowledge. Then there was the time at Taco Bell .. and Dairy Queen.. where he shared info about Jesus with random strangers. My oldest did talk about church in his village. Maybe he made the stories up. I don't think so. He insisted it was a big part of his life, and his grandmother wore a HUGE cross around her neck and talked to me about God. I guess it is just like here. The degree of being devout has a wide range of levels there too.

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    1. I agree - we can no more generalize to all Ethiopians being devout than we can to all Americans being devout, even if overall we are a very religious nation.

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  5. Our little E has recently been bringing up lots of memories of Church from her life spent at a Catholic orphanage. Just recently she told me she wanted to go to church because at church they teach you how to be good. She definitely caught me off guard, and I can't say I gave her the answer I would have liked to. I did tell her I would take her to church if she wanted to go, but also expressed my and her dad's feeling on church/religion. I definitely need to revisit this with her. It's hard to walk the line of wanting to let her come up with her own views while having such strong feelings about being atheist myself. Maybe I'll try your approach Kyra and do a mini lesson on different views and gods and churches and see where it goes. We're also going to a huge Timket celebration in Los Angeles this weekend. I have a feeling that will be a good door opener for some good conversation.

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    1. It's hard, because you have your strong feelings for a reason, and you can't just put that reason aside. I find it's better to ask questions than to tell what I think (I'm speaking about experiences with other children, not my own, because we haven't had those conversations yet). It's good to get kids to clarify and question their own thinking, especially when it's about a narrative they've been encouraged not to question.

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  6. I struggled with this when our 19-yr-old cat, Zed, died in October. About every 10 days Little Dude would start asking questions again, "how long is Zed going to be dead?" "Is Zed still at the vet's office?" When we went to the pet store, "Maybe Zed is here." Finally right before Christmas I brought up Heaven. I said it was a place some people believe you go after you die. It is a good place where everybody and everything is happy and healthy. I said I didn't know if it was real, but if it was I was sure Zed was there. Having unwavering faith would certainly make this easier.

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    1. I'm so sorry about Zed. I think Heaven does provide an easy and probably comforting answer. Personally I find more comfort in thinking about a body breaking down, returning to the soil and growing again anew.

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