Are You There God? It’s Me Superboy.

I do not believe in God.  It’s not a secret, and the fact that I work for a science-based institution and attend a Unitarian Church makes me feel like I am not alone in this world.  Most of my friends are not believers, nor is my father. My husband and my mother understand what I do and do not believe as well.  With this huge cushion of tolerance, I am often taken-a-back when Jesus is mentioned in an inaugural prayer or when families say grace at Taco Bell before a meal, or when my son’s “non-Catholic” Montessori school attached to a Catholic Church sends me information about HIS Glorious Resurrection.  My in-laws, too, are extremely religious and rather than having conversations with me about what I believe and how we are raising our son, they choose to ignore the fact that I don’t believe in God. This causes a lot of stress on holidays (for me anyway) and when they try to tell my son what to believe when I’m not around.  However for the most part, I try to live and let live.

One of the reasons we chose a Unitarian Church was so that our son would learn the stories of the Bible (and other sacred texts) with the freedom to question what is being taught. We want him to make up his own mind and develop his own beliefs while still feeling included in a church community.

With this in mind, it is rather difficult for me to hear things that my son picks up at his school. Did I mention that it is a “non-Catholic” Montessori school attached to a Catholic Church?  Guess what? There is no such thing. While one has the chance to opt out of the “Good Shepard” Catechism stuff, there is still Mass once a month and a  Catholic “nook” in the classroom for children to practice the rosary, etc. The school recognizes only Christian holidays, and it is my understanding that the Board of the School are all prominent Church members.  Finally (and the thing that bothers me the most) the geological time-line that the children learn from and work on includes God.  

I understand that my son might be too young to grasp the concept of God as anything other than “big man in sky who made stuff” but sometimes it gets to me, especially since we work so hard in his Sunday School class to offer all kinds of explanations of what or who God could be. 

Yesterday, I was reminded to calm down about it all, and just let him be six. We were in the car on the way to school.

My son asked, “Mom, how come nobody will make me into a Superhero?”

“Because there are no real superheroes out there honey.”

“But I ask God every night for super powers, and he never gives them to me. ”

“I’m sorry, Monkey.”

He says pouting, “All he gives me is the power to love.”

He’s wrong. If there is a God that grants wishes, he made my son Super Cute.