It's especially hard when you have a kid. I think religion is important for children. It provides a structure to life, coming-of-age rituals, a respect for the divine and an awareness of God. If you don't get that stuff, you end up looking for it all over the place and being disturbed by it. I think it's important to always question, and to reevaluate your beliefs, but the structure is good.
So I've been going round and round with it.
***
There's that one time that I sort of saved a baby sparrow. Just thinking of it makes me remember waiting up all night for it to die, only to find it breathing the next morning, then frantically feeding it and keeping it away from the kitten until we found someone who could take care of him. Then I went to a Native American mass early one weekday morning and part of the reading was Matthew 10:29: "Not even a sparrow, worth only half a penny, can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it."
I want The Bug to believe that these things are not coincidence, that God is there if you are quiet and open.
***
I was watching Bruce Almighty today, a movie of not much merit, but it was a channel away from Legally Blonde and I was boredly switching between the two when one would go to commercial while The Bug napped in my lap. I haven't ever seen Bruce Almighty all the way through, though I always stop when I see that brilliant moment with Steve Carell, my new favorite comic genius. Anyway, I saw this part at the end this time, where Jennifer Aniston is on her bed weeping and praying, and it was sweet. It was pretty real. She was in love, she had to let go of a bad situation, and she was praying for the strength to do that, sort of. It was that mantra-like prayer you do when you're totally lost, something like, "Please help me forget him; please help me forget him."
Prayer is often like that. Like how my grandpa always says, "When all else fails, read the directions," sometimes you go through all your resources and find yourself at a total loss, just flailing around in the black cosmos of doom and nothingness and futility. Praying, then, is admitting that you can't fix everything and you aren't in control, and it's that last string of hope, that maybe someone is and that maybe he likes you enough to swing things your way. For me, the answer to prayer comes in the hot shower after a workout, or in the dawn of a new day, or a kiss from my husband, a smile from my son. Just that glimmer of an idea, that foolish idea, that we are all connected and loved and that we have a purpose here.
***
Today I was in line at Target and this kid in front of me, maybe ten years old, had saved up money for six months to buy a toy, and the checker was telling him he was three dollars short. On the counter between them was this mountain of change and one-dollar bills. You just know the kid was ecstatic to finally make this trip to the store to buy this thing, only to find out the dirty truth about sales tax.
So I gave him three bucks. He was really happy, and his mother told him to thank me, though the more I think about it, the sadder I get because she must not have had the three dollars herself. She looked relieved that they wouldn't have to gather up all those pennies and take the walk of shame out of the store, but I could tell she was also a little embarassed that a stranger had to help out.
Mister Aran thinks I'm great for giving this kid three dollars, and I kept impatiently telling him that I am not great for god's sake, three dollars doesn't dent our bank account in the slightest, but it meant the world to this kid. He would've given the kid three bucks, and I'm willing to bet any of you reading would have, too. It's just that, yeah, I stepped up, but the kid helped me out more than I helped him. I got this fantastic hug from him, and for a few minutes while the checker counted all that change out into her drawer, I got drunk on the insane kid-joy. Also, it was a last-minute, unplanned trip, and I was in a bad mood. So really, for the price of three dollars, I got a whole new attitude and a hug from a stranger. Cheap at twice the price.
posted by Samus @ 10:54 PM
2 Comments:
As a sixteen year old Jewish boy who has not yet been barmitzvahd, I have a few things to say on the politics of children and theology.
This is gonna be a long one, but I suggest you take the time if you have concerns about this.
In his childhood, my father had been preached to ad nauseam about Judaism, and while it may have seemed overbearing then, he now feels more fulfilled with his devotion to God than he ever could have otherwise. Because of this, my brother - his first son and now the co-president of a Jewish fraternity - was equally as forced into it as my father was. Hebrew school Wednesdays and Sundays, $3000 check for his barmitzvah, birthright trip to Israel - the works.
Then along came me, the little error in the system. For one reason or another, I was not forced into being exposed to God to the same degree as my brother. I whined and fussed about going to temple as a child, I cried to get out of Hebrew school, and when all else failed and my father took it into his own hands to teach me the ways of God, I wouldn't listen.
At the same time, Rabbi Gellman, a close friend of my family's and the one who had barmitzvah'd my brother, died from an unforeseen heart attack. We switched around synagogues for a while, but religion was really never the same for us. Consequently, I guess our faith just kind of atrophied - along with my exposure to Judaism.
Now, as an adolescent and an alleged man in the eyes of the Jewish community, I know next to nothing about my faith. I can speak bits and pieces of distorted Hebrew, but other than that, your guess is as good as mine. The concepts are completely foreign, as well as the history and teachings and pretty much everything. After the initial shock of learning that I'm Jewish (I guess the huge nose doesn't give it away?), then after all of the derogatory insults, my friends always ask me exactly what it is I believe in. As you can guess, I never have much to say.
At this point in my life I am faced with a decision. Judaism has always seemed like more of a burden to me than anything. I was embarassed about it in elementary school, I hated the long and arduous services on the seemingly arbitrary holidays, and most of all, I just hated being different from everyone else. In the past, concerns about God had never been raised, but now things are different.
My decision is a simple one. I can choose to accept my faith and put in the long hours and join in the Jewish community and maybe feel accepted and comforted by this, or I can simply let the cards fall where they may and enter society as an infidel. But I digress, back to Samus Jr. and his theological future.
So what does this mean to you? Of course our religions are different and obivously his fate will not be the same as mine, but this is something to keep in mind:
In all likelyhood, he will hate you for your theological imposition - if you decide to bring him up Catholic at all. It will seem arbitrary and encumbering to him and he will insist that he doesn't want it. Your decision from there could potentially determine his feeling of belonging as a teenager/adult, as well as his knowledge of self.
I guess what I'm saying is just be aware of the consequences of your actions and tread lightly when mixing children and God.
Interesting, but not for the reasons you think.
You and I had a comparable upbringing, though I was brought up hardcore fundamentalist Christian. We even had to leave our church and move around a bit and, believe me, my church life was scary shit. At about your age, I would have given me the same advice.
I think it's important, as an adolescent, to question how you were brought up and to question God. It's part of becoming a real adult. I think you have to come into faith on your own, after separating from your parents, or you're just going through the motions learned in childhood. So you're on the perfect track.
That's why I was careful to list why I think regular religion is important for kids. In that list, you won't find, "So they won't go to hell," or anything about the rest of their lives. It's just that discipline, that weekly quiet time with the divine, that is important to me. It's like flushing the spiritual toilet.
Man, by the way, I really have to catch up on your blog. It's been forever.
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