Contributed by Michele Fogal
I remember the first time that I talked to my daughter about God. It came up at bedtime, as these things do… 4 year olds are so clever at finding those stay-up-later ticket items. So she asked me, “What is God?” and believe me, I had been thinking about this. What would I say to her?
Above all, I wanted her to be free to make her own decisions about God. I didn’t want to tell her that God was this or that; I wanted to give her all the ideas I could and then let her pick which ones felt good to her. I wanted her to have her own private, self constructed concept of what HER God was and how this entity related to her and she to it.
So, almost holding my breath, I started talking about it.
“Well, some people believe that God is a man.” She looked at me waiting for me to tell her what to believe. I felt the importance of the moment hovering in the air like electricity. “And some people think that he is a woman.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, a jolt ran through me. Uh oh. I’d said HE!
She smiled as though I’d given her the answer she’d been looking for, and said, “But they’re wrong aren’t they.” Unwittingly, I had told her what to think. Her first image of God was male and although I tried to back track, it felt like there was no undoing that inadvertent slip of the tongue. Disappointment washed over me.
It’s been a few years since that conversation, and my son is now 4 years old. He loves to put his fingers in my hair when we hug, to pucker up his pink lips for a kiss and to make his little squeak of delight as I wrap my arms around him. When I look at him, his eyebrows or the way he smiles, my heart moves almost painfully in my chest. Our smiles form an unbroken circle of pure love.
Suddenly the moment was again upon me. “What is God Mum?” he asked.
I took a deep breath, determined not to mess it up this time. “Well some people believe that God is a giant cloud of love that’s all around us all the time and inside of us too.” He looked at me and opened his arms. I wrapped my arms around him. “Mummy?” he said putting his fingers into my hair.
“Mm hmm?”
“I think we have God,” he said close to my ear. My breath caught. I’d never thought of God as something that you had. I’d tried so hard to shake my own images of God as a person that it hadn’t occured to me what it would be like to really believe that God is love.
All this time I had been focusing on what I wanted to teach them. As their primary parent, my input seemed so important to the form and shape of their thoughts and concepts. And yet, in the end, he had something to teach me. He could immediately identify God within himself and his relationships. It was right here between us. It was our utter delight in each other, our unconditional love.
“That’s right,” I said. “We have God,” and I hugged him tight.
Questions:
- Have you ever set out to teach and found yourself learning instead?
- Have you ever found wisdom in unexpected places?
- Have you ever found your world tilted and seen things from a new and startling perspective?
Please share your answers below…
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow…talk about golden moments! This is brilliant, and brilliantly written. Thank you for “having” the insight to express this so beautifully, and helping us all navigate those precious golden moments with our kids.
Thanks for the beautiful article Michele! My 4 1/2 year old hasn’t asked about God yet, but seems to have embraced the concept of death without us ever discussing it… Oh, I guess it’s not actually a big sad tragic secret after all!
Out of the mouths of babes…profound wisdom and understanding. Very beautiful.
Thanks so much for sharing this beautiful story, Michele. In my efforts to avoid the God conversation with my eldest, I managed to miss out on the opportunity you had with your son. My son came home from grade 1 brimming with questions and half-conceived notions about God… obviously the kids in his class were talking, and he had picked up a few “facts” already. Since then, I’ve kept these conversations wide open: I describe as many of the different conceptions of God that humans have come up with over history — including the possibility that there is no God — and leave it up to him to decide. Most importantly, I’ve let him know that he doesn’t *have* to make a decision… ever. His ideas about the way the universe works, and how we came into being, can change over time, and it doesn’t matter if what he ends up with isn’t the “right” one. It’s a hard concept for a 6 year-old to grasp — ie. that grown-ups don’t necessarily have the answer, and that an answer can be fluid, amorphous, and eternally subject to change.
What a lovely story and a lovely piece Michele, thanks for sharing. It’s tough to write about those kinds of moments, but I think you nailed it!