as i have confessed in an earlier post, i am not always very good at explaining elements of my faith to my children.

perhaps this is because kids are such concrete thinkers and i, on the other hand, am not. or maybe this is because i am keenly aware that concepts such as communion, resurrection, and the trinity are truly bizarre. if i tell my kids now that god had a baby named jesus, for example, will they ever find pause later to consider just how outlandish this story is? if stories like this become part of the familiar fabric of their childhoods, will they ever be able to recognize the unpredictable and mysterious nature of god’s movement in the world (and humanity’s interpretations thereof)?

contemporary theologian and renowned children’s book author, rabbi sandy sasso, set me straight on this topic a few years ago when i heard her interview on the public radio program, keeping the faith. sasso asserts that children are innately spiritual, and that, unlike many adults, they have not developed a fear of mystery or unanswered questions. furthermore, sasso emphasizes that it is important to teach our children the sacred stories from our own backgrounds, even if we have negative associations with these stories, even if we see these stories differently now, even if they no longer inform our notions of truth.

“stories,” says sasso, “are the vocabulary of theology for children.” they, along with the communities that tell them, are the tools children need to grapple with the mystery themselves.

these are the thoughts that went through my mind the other day when the monkey became deeply involved in creating a “major” out of a laundry basket. you know, a “major,” as in “away in the ‘major’ no crib for a bed…”

the fun continued as a stuffed animal became the stand-in for the baby jesus.

and finally, when the kids took turns dive-bombing into the “major,” i reminded myself that they were just getting the feel for some very necessary tools. they were careening into a much-needed theological vocabulary. maybe they even recognized how bizarre the whole birth story is. after all, making a crib out of a laundry basket is about as strange as making a crib out of a feeding trough.

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a what sorts of insights are emerging from your own versions of chaos? play along if you’d like. check out what erica, maryann, jaime, and kathi are finding in the midst of chaos. if i’ve forgotten to mention you here, please let me know and i’ll make the necessary revisions.

most people mistakenly think that because i am a minister and a mother, i must have some special, handed-down-from-god, ability to explain matters of the ultimate to children. i’ll never forget walking with the monkey into his school last december. the preschool director had proudly installed a life-sized nativity scene:

she greeted us with a smile and a wink and said, “monkey, i know that YOU of all people must know who all of these characters are!”

she quizzed him on everyone from the animals, to mary and joseph, to jesus, himself. i am here to tell you that apart from the slight recognition of a sheep, my little guy had no earthly idea what the director was talking about.

“we’ll work on this,” i said.

yesterday, i had another opportunity to display my deficits in the area of early childhood religious education when i did the children’s sermon at church. i learned later from the monkey that my explanation of the word “perseverance” had not been clear (as found in the hebrews text, “let us run with perseverance the race set before us”). the monkey informed me confidently, as he was attempting to dismount his new trampoline, that i had nothing to worry about. he was “not going to have perseverance.” when i flashed a puzzled look he said, “that means that i am not going to get too tired or fall down.” hmmn…

finally, the monkey and i had the following interaction before bedtime last night. i was singing, and he was to fill in the gaps in the song with rhyming phrases:

mommy: (singing) “the ants go marching 12 by 12 hurrah, hurrah; the ants go marching 12 by 12, the little one stops to…”

monkey: “…go to hell!”

mommy: “what? what is hell?”

monkey: “it’s just a place you go.”

mommy: (dumbfounded) “well, where in the world have you heard of this place?”

monkey: “all the time, mommy. you know… when i go up a hill…”

mommy: “so you are saying HILL?”

monkey: “yes!”

mommy: “oh, thank god.”

so, to all the moms out there who know how to talk to children about divnity and mystery, i have a proposition to make. you give my children a foundation of stories — a framework upon which they might hang their questions later. you give them an overwhelming sense that god is love, and you inspire them to give love in return.

then, when your children get to college, you can send them to me. i will happily return to my old college chaplaincy roots. we’ll talk about our questions, our doubts, and the notion that there’s wisdom in recognizing the vast expanse of what we don’t know. we’ll work on integrating head and heart, thinking and being. 

i hope this plan works for you because if it doesn’t, my children are clearly going to hill in a hand basket.

four years ago today, all of the mystery in the universe cried and stretched, moved from darkness into light, and conceded the bliss of the world beyond for our clamorous symphony of love. he, our little monkey, was baptized into a community of gracious souls — the bold village entrusted, along with us, to help him become his truest self. we, andy and i, were baptized into a re-orienting sort of love – unconditional, fearful, wonderful.

happy birthday, big boy! you are my wild, empathetic, curly, defiant, inquisitive, exuberent, heart.

photo by carol reach.

• where is the monkey going to school next year?
• where do you live?
• do you work outside of the home?

these are just examples of the myriad questions moms encounter weekly in conversation with one another, all of which require nothing more than a one to two word answer. but far be it from me to offer up a curt couple of words and move on. i find myself launching into laborious explanations about why i have made particular choices; acknowledging the negative associations with the institutions, locales, and lifestyles at hand; and making careful assertions that i am not a summation of my child’s school, my neighborhood, and my mode of working.

but why do i do this?

apparently i am not alone. ayelet waldman, author of bad mother, recounts a conversation she had with a complete stranger in line at a local bakery. waldman is feeding her six-week-old baby with a bottle, and the stranger chides, “breast is best!” waldman then tearfully recites the litany of her breast-feeding woes, not the least of which is caused by her baby’s palate abnormality:

“all this i told the woman standing in line behind me at the cafe. i told her how i had weathered plugged ducts and breast infections; i showed her that the milk in that very bottle was colored a faint shade of purple from the gentian violet i’d been applying to treat a brutal case of thrush. to establish my breast-feeding bona fides, i even told her how especially traumatizing my failure to feed this baby was, given that i’d successfully nursed three children, one for nearly three years” (61).

sometimes i gush forth with too much information because i am trying to convince myself that i’ve taken the better path. sometimes i over-speak because i feel as if it is my obligation to give a thorough answer so as not to appear dismissive. and sometimes i simply want to be known on a deeper level than one can glean from the categories offered by our world.

but no matter what my reasons are, my explanations are a bit ridiculous.  it exhausts me to speak them, so listening to them probably makes people wish they could will themselves into a coma.

in the next few months, i’m going to enter into a little experiment. i’m going to try to resist the urge to insert words where there should be silence. i’m going to try not to control how i am perceived by others. i am going to allow for a little mystery to surround me where there was once a tumultuous sea of language.

if you see me in line at the bakery, babbling on to a stranger about how i’m not going to explain myself because i have given up the tedium of explaining myself, you have my permission to shove a baguette between my poor, jabbering jaws.

[the images displayed above are “wordles” created of the onslaught of language people encounter when they ask me simple questions.]

[the source for this post can be found in the bibliography page located on the sidebar to your right.]