Listening to God

I think I’ve mentioned before that Mallory has a children’s bible that she loves. She calls it her “God Book” and she asks for it at bedtime more than I thought she would.

I’m not super religious (or even moderately religious), and there are some Catholic things I don’t agree with, but I feel that God loves us all. And since I went to Catholic school for eight years (and went to church 1-2 times a week for those eight years), I still feel *something* when I go to church. I can still remember all the rituals and routines of the mass, it’s crazy after all these years. I wish I remembered about 5p Saturday mass before 8p on Saturday night, because that would be my mass of choice. Instead, I go when I remember, which isn’t very often.

But…I took the kids to church this morning (Rick is doing some marathon training today); Mallory’s second time (we went once last Advent season) and Carson’s first. I always remember loving the wreath with the advent candles and celebrating Jesus’ birthday, so I really feel drawn to the church around Christmas. Every time I am back in a church, I almost start crying at some point of the mass.

Mallory asked why the guy was up on the, um, the…(the cross). I told her it was Jesus and that is where he died. Then there were a million “why did he go up there, why did he die, etc” questions. I explained that God is Jesus’ dad.

The kids did pretty well at mass, and with the help of some folks in the pew behind us we made it until they started giving communion, and since I wasn’t going to receive communion (I think my 27 year hiatus from confession makes me ineligible), I headed out before the kids got too restless. The only “OH MY GOD I AM GOING TO GET KICKED OUT OF CHURCH” moment I had was when Carson made a bee-line directly for the free-standing candle display, where there were probably 100 votive candles in little glass jars. I got to him before he got to the candles (maybe God was looking out for me?) so a catastrophe was avoided. Thanks, God.

After church, we found Rick on his run so we could give him some water and his peanut M&Ms (his mid-run fuel of choice?) and then I took the kids to get donuts. Back when I was younger, and my dad dragged us to 7a Sunday morning mass, we would always go to Dom Bakeries on Packard for a donut.

On the way home from church, Mallory asked if I remembered in her God book about how the boy & the girl (Adam & Eve) ate the apple. I told her that it wasn’t good that they ate an apple, because God told them not to, so they must not have been good listeners. Then she brought up “the book with the piggies and Little Red Riding Hood” and that one of those pigs ate an apple, and why did they do that.

I explained that it was OK for that pig to eat that apple, it just wasn’t good for Adam & Eve to eat the apple, because they were asked not to.

We started to talk about other things that God wants us to do. I told her God wants us to be nice to our friends. “I am!!” she told me.

“What about brothers? Does God want us to be nice to our brothers?” and “We should be nice to Cooper-Duper-Juice-Box (her new name for Cooper)!” were other things she asked about God.

I then told her that God really wants us to be good listeners to our parents.

“Sometimes I am a good listener, but not all the time”.

No kidding.