“Are you there, God?” It’s me, Gullible
February 18th, 2010 § 2 Comments
When we’re kids our parents tell us about the Easter Bunny and Santa and we believe them.
We believe the magic talk so we search for eggs and have trouble sleeping Christmas Eve in anticipation of Santa’s arrival. When we lose a tooth we’re told about the tooth fairy, a spritely woman who comes into our room at night. As a kid all I could think was….wait hold the phone for one friggin minute! How is it okay that a strange woman comes into my room at night? And why am I leaving my tooth under a pillow, if all it does is entice this scary woman into my room? And furthermore, why does every holiday consist of strange people coming into our house? Shouldn’t we, I don’t know, lock our doors? Bolt our windows or do something to deter them from getting in?
But children believe in these things blindly, because our parents tell us they’re real. But time passes, we grow older, we become more cynical and we begin questioning their reality. ”So, how exactly does Santa get down the chimney when Uncle Albert is 5 times fatter than him and he can’t even fit into our Celica?” Or the more savvy of kids don’t even ask their parents, and test the theories themselves by putting teeth under their pillow without even telling mom and dad. And what do you think happens? Aha! Gotcha! And then we have a laugh, mourn a little over the loss of magic and move on with growing up.
But then there is God. As kids we are taught how wonderful and glorious he is. Sure, he doesn’t break into our homes hide eggs, leave presents and take our teeth away…but we are told he is always with us. He is always watching us. As a kid I thought this was as unreasonable as Santa being in every mall, not to mention a little creepy. I surely didn’t want someone always watching me. My brother once walked in on me picking my nose and I just about died of embarrassment (in my defense I was 8, it was painfully stabbing me in the nostril and everyone picks their nose.) Everyone needs a little unwatched “me time” and now I learned I would never have “me time” because this God guy was always staring me down. But when we question God, our parents say…”Oh goodness no, God is real.” At this point, shouldn’t we be a little skeptical? Shouldn’t we be a little more understanding of this skepticism instead of losing our shit when people question God’s validity? I like to think any free-thinking child would say, “alright, you fooled me once with that Santa bit…and you tricked me again with that whole fairy business…and then you really had me going with that Easter Bunny and egg stuff, but now you expect me to believe there is a guy called Jesus whom I’ve never met, but he died for me and then he came back to life and now he is up in the clouds somewhere?” All I’m saying is fool me once, shame on you but fool me thrice…well, you know how it ends.
My parents never tried to tell me the Jesus myth. They new a five year old was too smart for that hocus pocus.
I’ve had this exact thought since the second grade, when I was preparing for my 1st communion and confession. And to this day, no one can answer me. They say that is what Faith is, a belief with a strong conviction. I’m a need-empirical-proof kind of girl. The whole “it just is” reasoning didn’t compute then and it most certainly doesn’t compute now. Burglaring fairy tales and all present entities, you’re right, all kind of creepy.