On the drive home from preschool today, Darwin was singing "God is good, God is great, thank you for feeding us," and BAM just like that: I remembered Darwin goes to a Christian preschool.
When Griffin was in preschool, he never gave the whole thanking-God-for-food thing much thought, so I didn't either. And then when Christmas came around, Griffin thought it was kinda odd they celebrated baby Jesus and asked me if we believed in Jesus and I said the story was true, but I don't worship Jesus. His reply? "Oh good!"
So in being as religiously diplomatic I can be (because I want my kids to make up their own minds with as little of my overbearance as possible), I asked Darwin what he thought about God just now, after he set up a tea party for Legos and was singing the song again.
"Hey Darwin, can you sing that song to me?"
"God is good, God is great, thank you for feeding us."
"What do you think about God?"
"God is good?"
"Is that what you think or what preschool taught you?"
"What preschool taught me."
"Okay. What do you think?"
"God is... God is... I don't know. What do you think Mommy?"
"I think God is the same as Universe, Destiny and Mother Nature."
"Mother Nature?!"
"Yep."
"I LOVE Mother Nature! Mother Nature is cool!"
"Why?"
"Because Mother Nature takes care of us and give us food and gives animals homes."
"Those are very good reasons Dar."
"Thanks! I go play Legos with Griff now."
You know, in actuality it's all the same. There's no differences, just labels.
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14 comments:
I loved your explanation. We are on the same wavelength - I blogged about Cash's Christian preschool today.
love your take on this! our daughter also goes to a christian school, but mainly for the education from our point of view. I do that alot, ask her what she thinks of God, Jesus, the Bible, ect. It gets her thinking and we pretty much think that as long as whatever your doing is good for humanity is all right buy us regardless of which name you call your higher power :) Love you blog and your insights!
I agree!
I am sending M. to the No Appropriate Behavior Church of Awesome Sense-Making.
beautiful. Can you come counsel Kenzie? She's been asking some tough questions.
It is amazing how that gets under their skin and assimilated. My son spent 6 months at a methodist preschool and that has heavily colored his religious world view... so much so that he has messianic inclinations:
http://itinerant-oak.blogspot.com/2008/05/mine-is-one-true-religion.html
6 months prior to his stint at that preschool he had no idea who Jesus was. He was singing along to a John Prine song "try to find Jesus on your own" and he declared, "Jesus comes from cows."
I've been trying to play a fine line between not denying his belief and trying to show him other options... glad to see I am not the only one struggling...
I agree, too!
I wish more adults could see that, instead of fighting over which label is best.
Amen! Here's to forgetting about the labels and going with it. Of course, in regard to what I embroidered on a certain pillow, well, you know. :)
Awesome post today. We take the same approach in our house. I admit I was a lot less cool about Max singing Jesus songs when he went to a Christian preschool. I almost had a heart attack. I was revived when Max declared that he thought god was a very fat man in a brown suit.
Now he is very anti god because he had some theological discussions on the play ground at his public school about god and is now disgusted with evangelical Christians.
I am now trying to temper his disgust with some graceful understanding.
I love how kids really do come up with some excellent ideas about religion when left to their own devices.
lovely, candid, and so so true.
Amen! I'm a recovering Southern Baptist with kids going to different kinds of churches for the socializing. We all feel the same way as you and Darwin. God is good but so much more too... um, like Life and the Universes and so forth.
Molly, who just had a 4 hour discussion with her kids about the true origins of "Halloween" so they can hold their own with the freak-outs.
I think I love you! Your most recent posts seem to have come directly from my head. Can I just link to them and claim them as "almost" mine?
Gwendomamma told me to ask you about buying just Lego people. Do you have a location you go to? I am on a hunt...
I can totally relate, our kids went to a baptist preschool but we try to teach them that there is no wrong answer to any religion and that God is an energy all around us and a part of us. But the preschool teaches them there is only one true 'God' and one path only... it must actually be a bit confusing to have to hear both sides - although we talk much louder!
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