Faithless

For god so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  John 3:16

Garrett recites this to me often.  It is used as a daily prayer at his school. He pipes it in his sweet sing song voice from the back of the car.  He chants it with his pajama shirt half over his head in the morning. He says it before dinner.

It is one of my least favorite new testament verses.  The words are lovely, there is no doubt, but the implied message makes me shiver.  It's not the words or their sentiment. It never is. It's their reflection in the mirror. It's their anagram written backwards in the space between the words. It's the dark conclusion that shadows the love and the light.

For god so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever does not believe in him shall perish and be denied eternal life.

"Garrett," I say to him softly, for the hundredth or so time. "There are many ways to believe about the force we call god.  There are unlimited ways to god, as many ways as there are people on the planet, past, present and future, as many ways as there are flower petals, as many ways as there are thoughts. Billions upon billions of paths. Trillions. Each path leading to the same place."

He shakes his head.  "I know, he tells me, you don't believe, but I believe."

What does it matter? People have asked me. If he learns kindness, if he learns faith. Does it matter if it is one faith over another?  Does it matter if it is Christian faith? I thought maybe not, for a brief time, though friends warned me that the lessons sink in fast, that I might regret it. But, I thought, it's Kindergarten, will it really make a difference? It is a good school and he is learning so much.   He is learning to read and write. He is learning to count by fives. He is learning addition and subtraction, science, music, Spanish, as far as I can tell faster and more thoroughly than many of his peers in other programs.

And he is learning Christian faith. My sweet boy, my Gee. His heart is open and he takes what he learns and swallows it whole until it is a part of him. He is swift and vigorous in its defense. One might say zealous.

"Mommy," he tells me in excitement, knowledge seeping from his pores, "Jesus died on the cross and they put him in a cave and when they went back he wasn't there.  It's a mystery and a miracle. Because he's God's son."

"That's what some people believe," I answer, "but many, many people believe other things.  There are so many ways to believe about god. Mommy doesn't believe that, for instance, she has other beliefs about god."

"Mrs. S. believes that." He pouts, shaken and teary-eyed, because his idolized teacher has told him that there are two options, to believe or not to believe, and she has made it clear, with her body language and her voice and her word choice that "to believe" is good and right and "not to believe" is wrong.

"You should believe," he tells me and my heart stops and I know. I know I have made a mistake. I did not expect Kindergarten theology to go beyond kindness and acceptance, but it has.  Somewhere in there between the love everlasting and the do onto others, the real message has come home. The shadow of John 3:16. You either believe or you don't. One being good and right and light. Accepted. Approved.

Whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  

The other being bad. Sad. Unfortunate. Wrong. Unworthy. Outside of god.

Whoever does not believe in him shall perish and be denied eternal life.

We talk for a long time, but I make little headway against a year's indoctrination.  He waits for Matt, his wheels turning until they smoke, his outrage ready.  "I believe," he states, "but mommy doesn't.  She's Jewish."  It is almost a sneer.  If a five-year-old could cluck his tongue while shaking his head over the state of my soul, he would have.

And I can tell you - though you probably knew it already, though you laugh at my obliviousness and apathy - it matters.  Kindness is all well and good but it is a tenet of every religion.  The flaw - and yes to me it is a flaw - comes in the central tenet of most organized religions  - the one that sets each apart from the others. Believe this, or know god not.

I suppose that I am faithless in that I have no faith in religions.  I have no faith in their ability to keep their faithful from subverting their message.  Believe this or be worth less.

It matters because in my inbox is an email from my father with a high school boy's report on the holocaust experience of his grandfather attached. His grandfather, whom I know as Steve, a close friend of my father, a man my grandfather helped to escape from Austria after the horror of Nazi Germany, survived Auschwitz.  A man who, in his own words to his grandson, stood before the notorious German doctor Joseph Mengela at the gates of Auschwitz and watched his mother be directed left, to the gas chambers, while he was motioned right, to the work camps.

I know that the holocaust rests on the shoulders of a madman, not on religion. But it can't be denied that Steve stood before Mengela at the gates of Auschwitz because he was Jewish. Because of his difference in faith.

So yes, it matters. It matters to me and I am his mother.  I will consider it a colossal failure of my parenting - laughably beyond whether or not they read at an appropriate level as they enter elementary school - if I raise adults that believe that there is only one path to god or one definition of god or such a thing as a god who cares what path we take to empathy and goodness, kindness and light.

I don't write this to make anyone mad, to argue or parse or theologize.  I write it for me.  So that I will read this and remember:  Shame on you, Stacey.  This is important and you shrugged your shoulders and left it to people who teach the exact opposite of the only message that matters to you.  You are more thoughtful than that as a parent and as a person.

I thought that I was faithless and so others could teach them about faith. Turns out, I have a very strong faith and it doesn't lie in John 3:16.  Turns out, when you want someone in this world to see love and kindness and belief from a certain perspective, with all your heart and soul, it clarifies what's important, albeit belatedly.

I don't mind if my son, or any of my children, find guidance and solace in the New Testament. If that is their path to an understanding of god and peace, to a reconciliation of the bizarre miracle of this planet and all the life on it, I accept that. But I emphatically reject the shadow of John 3:16 and I want my children to reject it too. Which means - surprise - that I have to take the time to teach them.

Walk in the light of the words, babies. That's all I ask. I will try to do the same.