parenting

This post will be serious. No, really. Serious.

I have a struggle with the man upstairs. I’ll call him that simply because when I first encountered him in my consciousness, I was taught he was our Father, who art in heaven. Now, as an adult I don’t actually believe that there’s some man laying back in the most deeelux LA*Z*Boy in the cosmos flipping through our lives like so many bad TLC specials, wondering what we’re up to and if we are doing his will and whatnot. No, I don’t believe it at all.

But, as a kid almost raised Catholic (Catholic grandmother and mother, never went to church but Grandmother insisted I do at least first communion, which led me to my first confession, during which I lied because I was 7 years old, and I swear to LA*Z*Boy Squatter that at 7 years of age I really didn’t sin. Much.) I was taught that he was, indeed, a He, and that He was always watching and that He had a plan and that when I was scared or upset, which I all too often was then, I could talk to Him and that He would always be there.

I grew up and became extremely church adverse. Like, panicky can’t stop crying in church. It started after my beloved Catholic grandmother died. Her mass was so difficult for me that afterward I just couldn’t set foot in church again without wanting to puke or cry or both.

As for Him, the man in the sky, my feelings didn’t change much. I liked him. I daresay, I believed in him. But he wasn’t so much a Him as a, well, a something else. A we/us/he/she/they/life force/collective unconscious/foamy core of the kooshball of existence kind of thing.

I really didn’t think he (and I never did stop referring to him as he, even though I really don’t think it’s a thing in which gender assignment makes any kind of sense at all) had a damn thing to do with church, or with all of the metaphors coming out of the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, or any other piece of human writing attempting to illuminate what he was and what he wanted.

I don’t believe “God has a plan” as much as I believe that God is love, and love is chaotic and messy and unpredictable, much like the rest of life. And love is also love, which is, in my opinion, rather the point of life. The other point being to learn whatever we can, and a third point being perhaps something along the lines of Maine lobster roll in high summer with good friends, or very good sex on a little sailboat, or maybe one and then the other in quick succession. Experience, I guess is what I’m trying to say.

Sometimes I wish my brain could just accept what I see as the easy answers. Could take that personification I had as a little girl and have it make sense now. I am confounded when I hear adults talk about God in the way a roomful of kindergartners talk about Santa. Especially in that “what’s he going to do for me and mine if I’m good” kind of way.

I wish that kind of logic worked for me. I wish it was that easy. But I do not believe it is. And so here’s the dilemma.

I don’t want my boys to grow up without him.

God, whatever that is, brought me comfort when I was afraid. Still does. Still leads me, in my darkest moments, to the notion that life is meaningful, and if that’s true, is about something far bigger than me and mine. God tells me when all else fails to put my faith in the mystery and the unknown and without any doubt, the flailing in the dark will yield the greatest, most riveting revelations.

I told you this post was serious.

Without any easy answers, without any simple narrative to follow, how does one teach their children about god?

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