Speaking of G-d
Now that I've discovered that people are commenting on these (at times) and I should mark them as not being spam and read them, I noticed some interesting comments on the Santa Lies column.
I'm not sure I have a strategy for talking about G-d except to answer whatever questions arise totally honestly and seriously, which involves a fair amount of "I don't know." I happen to have fallen in with some Zen folk and am taking rather delightedly to the idea that in our relationship with G-d it doesn't matter very much what we think or believe; our thoughts are not what is important to G-d; indeed G-d's perspective on our thoughts is likely to be a rather unattached perspective.
So I have a few different tactics when talking to the kids:
1. What is important is how we act, not what we think.
2. Stories can be important without being true in a literal sense, because they show us things about people. (We do have various books of bible stories for toddlers, which we do read (with a bit of tweaking from the reader to improve the implicit theology)). We also read books of folktales and Greek mythology (and Buddhist tales as well), and identify the bible stories as being more historical or more like the myths that our community uses to illuminate the world.
3. G-d is never ever apart from us, not for one second.
4. Worshiping in a community is an opportunity. At our church, anyone may receive the bread and wine, and both kids seems to accept this offering without necessarily liking the more boring bits of the liturgy. The kids would still rather stay home than attend, but they will as adults have the ability to hear a liturgy they've heard since the very beginning. If they become Unitarians anyways, that's fine.
Comments
If you really want to liven up religious discource for your kids, turn them to the Mahabharat and Ramayan from the subcontinent.
Magic, murder, mayhem, revenge, jealousy, infidelity, gambling, racism, sexism, classism, materialism, war... and I'm talking about the good G-ds!
Posted by: ap | December 20, 2007 12:15 PM
I too love this about our Episcopal church: that all our welcome to receive communion. There has never been a time in my son's life when he was not welcomed, wanted in this way.
I continue to appreciate and learn from your perspectives here, your insight and your way with words.
Posted by: bella | December 17, 2007 09:16 PM
I keep meaning to read some Eckhart. I finally got a book on Julian of Norwich. I feel neglegant for being a Christian getting Zen training and knowing nothing about Christian comtemplative tradtition.
To bring it back to toddlers, I find that kids are very receptive to the idea that God is never absent from where we are, and that this very moment is the moment of creation. Something occurring in the past is an adult-only idea.
Posted by: Chris | December 17, 2007 07:11 PM
I like Meister Eckhart's thoughts on God (13th century Dominican monk and Christian mystic):
"The knower and the known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God as if he stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one in knowledge."
Non-duality through a different (non-Zen) lens.
Posted by: Nikko Obi | December 17, 2007 01:42 PM