Waiting for Sunday school to end

Sunday school.

I sit in the car in front of the building - a small consolation to my son inside.

I'm here every Sunday, or at least every Sunday that we do this. In the beginning I sat just outside the classroom, but I graduated to waiting in the car after a few weeks.I promised that I would do this for as long as he needed me to.

Sometimes the best way to deal with anxiety is to cater to it's whims.

Today it's cold and in deference to my hybrid car's rapidly depleting battery, I've turned the heat off. It's hard, but not impossible to write with cold hands.

Usually it's just me, and maybe one other parent waiting in our cars on this otherwise deserted street on Sunday morning. But today there are more people about.

In front of the church, sprinkling salt on the steps is a man... but then I think he must actually be a boy because of the way he works.

It's just that... it isn't working that he's doing.

He's clearly playing.

Kicking the snow with his feet
examining chunks of ice
spreading salt in great sweeping handfuls first tossed high
and then slow trailing arcs across the stairs.

He doesn't have a shovel so instead he uses his feet to push the snow aside.

Third step up, then the eighth, then back down to four - he clears the steps with his sneakered foot.

There is no pattern to his actions except that he is obviously having fun - even if there is no smile on his face.

The fifth step from the bottom is REALLY clean, but he never touched the first two steps. It will be hard for the old ladies to make their way up to partake of the Glory of God today.

And now he's gone - the salt bucket empty.

Last night all three of us went to church - a rare occasion, but one which makes my son happy. And on the way home we talked about the things that make the Catholic Church what it is.

Adherence to old traditions...the Pope....

My religiousness is rusty in spite of (or perhaps because of?) eleven years of religious education. These conversations are tricky for me because of my complicated relationship with the Church and the unfortunate fact that I disagree with... well, let's just say that the Church often makes me disagreeable.

Sorry Sister Mary Constance.

I'm trying to give my son the religion I was raised with, while trying to come to terms with it at the same time. Only time will tell how this will end. My ambivalence makes it harder for everyone.

The best part of waiting during Sunday school is the music. I sit in the silent car and listen to whatever music I want. One hour to play DJ for myself. I relish these moments of solitude and indulgence. Funny to think that waiting in a cold car every Sunday could be an indulgence... but hey.

I've got work to do. Writing to finish - things to polish up,
but I'm chafing at the "work" part of it - even though I imposed these deadlines myself. Sometimes I'm able to get a lot done here in the car, but it doesn't look like this will be one of those times.

So today I just sit
and listen
and watch
this snowy Sunday street
and wait.

Too morbid for first grade?

I ordered a book for my friend about talking to kids about death, and it finally came today.

Just a few nights ago, Daniel got freaked out at bedtime and demanded that I tell him EXACTLY WHAT IT IS LIKE WHEN YOU DIE.

I don't have any first hand knowledge of this, so I did what countless parents before me have done - I fudged and hemmed and hawed and offered platitudes in the hopes that he would just drop the subject or go to sleep already.

Not surprisingly, it didn't work and only served to make him more anxious and unwilling to go to sleep.

It's not that he was afraid of dying.

He was just really curious as to what the moment of death was like.

Since I loused that encounter up so badly, I thought I might look at the book I got for my friend before I gave it to her.

The book is a slim volume called What on Earth Do You Do When Someone Dies?

It's written for kids, but it doesn't talk down to them and respects various beliefs while offering comforting words in a matter of fact way.

I decided to show it to Daniel, and see what his reaction would be.

The book is written for kids who have experienced a death recently, and since that doesn't resonate with him, we focused on the parts he was specifically interested in, namely what dying is like and what happens to the body after death.

The brief section about what dying is like was met with skepticism until the author mentions that he was present when a young friend of his died, and this experience makes him believe that death is calm and peaceful because she had a very peaceful smile when she passed.

That satisfied Daniel in his quest to know what death is like. It was like a switch had been flipped and he was able to let the topic go.

But before we put the book away to give to my friend, we looked over the other topics covered to see if any sounded interesting, and the one about what happens to the person's body sounded interesting to him.

The author talked briefly about coffins and burial and what a dead body looks like when viewed at a wake, and then he talks about cremation as another option.

This prompted a discussion for Daniel and I since we are mixed family in terms of race and religion. I come from a Catholic background and my husband is Buddhist and we do our best to include both traditions in our daily life, but while my background favors burial, my husbands tradition is cremation. Long ago we talked about this, he and I and decided on cremation for both of us, and today in explaining these things to Daniel, he got very excited and proclaimed that he also wanted to be cremated.

Then he became serious and asked me,

"Who do I need to tell?"

"About being cremated? Well, daddy and I and then your partner when you get older and your kids when they are old enough."

"What about in the hospital? Who makes that decision? Who do I need to tell?"

"The hospital doesn't actually have anything to do with after you die. You don't need to tell them."

But he wouldn't let it go. He kept asking and asking and slowly it dawned on me what he wanted. So the next time he asked I told him:

"You can have a legal document called a will written and in it you can say what you want to happen to your body after you die and everyone has to do what you say."

"No way?!! A legal document? That is exactly what I was thinking of, but I didn't even know it! How do we do it? Is it hard? Can we do it now?"

"No it's not hard, all you have to do is write down on a piece of paper, I, Daniel Elliott, being of sound mind and body do declare that I wish to be cremated when I die. And then you sign and date it."

He was excited for about 30 seconds and then got serious again and asked,

"Does it have to be signed in cursive?"

"No, you can print it since you're only seven."

"Oh, good."

A month of Sundays

We have started Sunday School.

It is safe to say that I have been to church more times in the past month than I had in the previous year. Surprisingly, it has been ok, both for my son and myself.

Like many other things that I have issues with, this one has also become easier when seen through the eyes of Daniel.

For now.

Except for when I heard him dishing out the dirt information I had told his father the day before to the Sunday School teacher.

Never talk about religion in mixed company

No long post tonight because I'm having a crisis of Faith.

I was raised Catholic, and I've been pretty much ignoring my religion for the past twenty-odd years. I would go to church with my parents, but only very rarely by myself.

And now, (well, not this minute, but soon), I have to join a church and enter my son into religious socialization so that he can receive the sacraments.

I remember fondly being a child and receiving comfort from my faith. But I have never felt like Catholicism was better than any other religion.

And I don't agree with many (most? all?) of the things that the Church teaches. Not the basic Christian part, rather the part about homosexuals, abortion et al.

I have fought the Church in my head since before I was Confirmed, and now thinking about subjecting my son to all of it makes me want to cry. (OK, I did cry)

But what are my options? How do I give my son Faith, outside of the Catholic Church? It's all I know....

I really feel that ignoring religion entirely would be doing him a dis-service.

I knew this day would come, I just thought that I would have a better handle on it when it did.

Maybe we should do something besides eating doughnuts on Sundays...

Sign that perhaps it's time to put a little more effort into that whole "religion" thing:

When your son comes up from his workshop bearing washers and eye-screws carefully threaded on a bolt and tells you to:

 

    Pick your favorite number - from 1- 9.
    Unthread the nut, and take that many washers  off the bolt.
    Place washers on pointy end of eye-screw.
    Pray to the washers.

Oh and the prayer? It has to be OUT LOUD.

Spirits and Ghosts and Zombies, Oh My!

A few nights ago as Daniel was getting ready for bed, he informed us of his interpretation of heaven.

Simply put it goes like this:

A spirit is a person who is dead, without their body.

A ghost is a spirit with a sheet.

A zombie is a dead body without their spirit.

I guess it's just Zombie Season, because Daniel's not the only six-year-old discussing it recently. Check out  what Monkey Disaster has to say on the subject.