So, after that greeting, you may be primed to hear me go off on some superstitious claptrap or another, yeah? Well, tough. Instead, I have a good story to tell…
About a year back we had a party for my daughter’s fourth birthday. Some folks came early in order to help prepare for the festivities, which happened to be a Halloween-themed party. Now, these friends, two families are religious, one Catholic and one Protestant of some kind, but the adult talk didn’t turn to religion.
So, I go down to the basement to see what the three kids are up to, and they’re talking about angels. This is a subject that I haven’t discussed with the young ones yet, so I was interested to see LilB1’s reaction. The two religious kids were arguing whether god was an angel or not, and LilB1 asked me to settle the argument, “St. Bastard, ” or Daddy. Whatever. “St. Bastard, is god an angel?”
I replied, “Most people don’t believe that, kiddo” and I left it at that. Now, we had discussions earlier about heaven, and I told LilB1 that some folks believed that we go to heaven when we die and some people don’t. I then explained that I did not personally believe that and she would have to think hard about it and eventually decide for herself, but she didn’t have to worry about such things yet. I harbored no real hope that the discussion would take root.
However, I was very pleasantly surprised when, a few weeks after LilB1’s birthday, she came to me and said, “St. Bastard (or Daddy), angels aren’t real, are they?” I asked her what she thought, and she said “They’re not!”
It’s nice to know that I have as yet been successful in raising a thinking child.
The Gospel According to Saint Bastard 