Good Parenting

Yesterday morning my husband Jeff and I were at, of all places, a Grease Monkey shop getting our oil changed. While waiting in the lobby, I overheard the following conversation between a woman and her 7-ish-year-old son:

Boy: "So am I a pagan, too?"
Mom: "Honey, you can be whatever you want to be. I'm pagan, but your dad is Christian. Remember how you were baptized as a baby in an Episcopal church? We respect both religions in our family. When you're older, you'll be able to choose for yourself how God best makes sense to you."

Immediately, I said to the woman, "You're a good parent." She looked at me, not quite sure I was talking to her. "Sorry," I said, "I was eavesdropping." She smiled and turned back to her son. Later, her husband came in, and then they left together. Before they walked out the door, though, she turned around and caught my eye. "Take care," she said and smiled again.

I didn't really think any more about the incident until last night. My 13-year-old son, Sam, and I were driving home from his friend's house. He asked me about a process through which his friend was currently going at his church: confirmation. I explained the process as best as I could, concluding with the summary, "Confirmation is, basically, a time when people who 'come of age' confirm their adherence to church doctrine."

"So," Sam replied, "they're confirming what they've been taught, not necessarily what they've thought critically about." (Not to brag, but how did I end up with such smart kids? All three constantly challenge and amaze me.) I said he was right in a lot of ways, although most people of faith sincerely believe in what they're confirming. "But they're ignorant," Sam shot back. I reminded him that ignorant does not necessarily mean stupid. You can be intelligent yet ignorant. "I know," he said. "But how can anyone believe that they have THE TRUTH when they don't know about anything but their own beliefs?" He was right. I told him about the conversation I overheard at Grease Monkey and how I told the woman she was a good parent. I told him my all-time favorite Bruce Cockburn lyric, "Everything is bullshit but the open hand." We talked about the Bible, about the value of mythology, about the meaning of religion (literally, it means, "re-union") and how it's basically, as Plato imagined it, the soul's search for the missing connection (to God, to Truth, to Beauty) it knew before it was born. We discussed the usefulness of religion--how it helps people cope with the terror of the unknown, with their feelings of meaninglessness, with their mortality. I said religion can be both terrible and wonderful but either way it makes life utterly interesting. We talked about paganism and the terrorists and fundamentalists/literalists, and about the evangelical mindset. Sam said he didn't want to be a person who did things out of guilt ("like win souls," he said) but rather out of a love of life. "So maybe by loving life you'd be loving God?" I asked. "Yep," he said. "I'd let life teach me."

If you knew me well, you'd know that both of these conversations (with the woman at Grease Monkey, with Sam) are radically different from ones I would have had even a decade ago. I grew up a fundamentalist Christian. Our church motto was, "Old-fashioned, independent, fundamental, Bible-believing Baptists and proud of it." Jerry Falwell regularly filled our pulpit as a guest speaker. I was taught to judge anyone who did not believe as I; of course, this judgment was cloaked in "love" (pity?) and a deep desire to win their hell-bound souls to Christ. I had certainty, eternal security and a special place in a male, triune God's heart. I had everything--everything except humanity. I was fearful of what I didn't understand, hated mystery, had no compassion for 99.9% of the rest of the world's population and was amazingly arrogant, self-righteous and...drum roll, please...ignorant. (Here's a link to my childhood church's web site, just in case you don't believe me: http://www.cbtministries.org/index.htm)

My friend Steve put it succinctly not long ago by saying that the betrayal of one's religion is really the betrayal of one's family. Religion and family are, in most cases, intimately entangled. Steve is right. In my own experience, my extended family feels as if I have turned my back on *them,* just as much--if not more than--the Judeo-Christian God. Heck, they've recently informed me that I was never really "born again" in the first place--since I've been able to get up and so seemingly easily walk away. This is their rationalization, anyway. It allows them to maintain their "rightness."

Whatever...

All I know is that I love my family, I love the mystery I sometimes call God, and I love the pagan woman at Grease Monkey. I could tell she'd probably gotten her share of scorn for her beliefs. When she first looked at me, she seemed defensive. But when she saw that I was sincere, she smiled. All of us are in the same boat. We're all scared. All of us want to be special in someone's eyes--namely, the someone who went to the trouble of creating this majestic universe. All of us want to feel that our lives have purpose. None of us wants to die. But it's what each of us does with these desires that differentiates us. I want the open hand. I don't want my life to be a closed fist. Being less ignorant now has humbled me greatly; I've had to give up a lot of preconceived, warm-fuzzy notions. I understand why they say, when something hurts, that it "smarts." Gaining wisdom is often a painful endeavor. And costly. I'm no longer close to my extended family the way we once were. I've committed--according to them--the unpardonable sin. I'm a blasphemer who loves story more than dogma. And I have few--if any--answers.

But then I look at my son Sam and know that with wisdom also comes great joy. Hopefully he and my other kids will grow up to be people who are kind and compassionate, who wake up and say, "Okay, life, what do you have to teach me today?" If they do, I will be what the psalmist called "exceedingly glad." Not that their lives will be easy and pain-free; quite the contrary. But they will be wise. I told Sam as we pulled into the driveway last night that it all boils down to, as my favorite poet Rilke puts it, loving the questions. "Never stop loving them," I said, "and everything will be okay. It'll be just as it should be."