Ford: “I don’t really believe in God.”
Ford and I had our first of what I assume will be a series of conversations about God and his existence. Faith has never really played a role in his mother’s life and church has not been a meaningful part of his upbringing to this point.
This is an example of when God and Santa become part of parenting theme of balancing parental aspiration (‘believe forever’) and maintaining credibility. I remember specifically talking to Debbie soon after her youngest boy at 12 asked “Come on Mom, Santa, God?” and she doubled-down on God and threw Santa under the sled. It worked, but she also had a decade long tailwind of Sunday School, Awana (not Ahwahnee, the awesome lodge in the center of Yosemite), and her consistent home-thumping. I think my boys are more likely to respond to stronger reference points, e.g.,
So I decided to come clean and maybe salvage an important “values” moment. When Ford asked “Do you believe in God?” I replied with “I sure hope it’s true. And I wish I was more confident that it was true.” After some meanderings around “eternal life would be great” and “it would be great to think there was some higher power keeping an eye out on even bigger problems than we are negotiating” I settled in a couple of things:
- The idea of God and his teachings are good for society — the more we follow the “be a good person” lessons in Christianity and the extremely similar themes in other religions, the better life is for humans.
- As an adult, it is easy to get caught up in the constant push to “get it done”…finish that work project, pick up food for the guinea pigs, start dinner, fix the light switch, go for a bike ride…and too many things take on the same level of importance. What I like about church is that for one hour a week we put down our phones and try to be in the moment of an idea that we can all be generous and loving and it’s our duty to help others.
- There are many great lessons taught through stories that surprisingly don’t feel dated and that I think should be part of how we build on our own family values. I went for the Prodigal Son which he 80% remembered the plot points but not the core message.
Of course the punch line is “there’s nothing you can do reduce my love”. After making it to the climax of “my son was lost and now is found” and linking it to the Bible message that God will always take you back, I pushed forward into a more tangible example. Ford’s uncle (Ford’s mother’s brother) has a history of drug use and rehab that eventually became a nuisance to his father. It was no where near the heartbreaking level that families go through where counselors advise “tough love”…it was just “too far” to drive two hours for visitors’ hours at the rehab center. I told Ford that his mother and I had discussed if he had ever wandered down this path that I would find a way to quit my job and do everything in my power to support his journey to the other side of this problem.
“That’s a good story” replied Ford.
Strangely, on the Monday following this Sunday discussion, my daily dose of art presented me with:
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo
Bart Murillo was dropping paint in the Christopher Columbus exploration era. This doesn’t particularly stand out for me as an exemplary representative of the themes or styles of the time, and except for at first glance thinking there was a wolf in the upper window I probably wouldn’t give it a second glance. But, today it scored big on the coincidence meter.
Almost two decades ago I had a marvelous series of interviews with Mel Ming, then COO of the Sesame Workshop, which included a session of “word association” exercises. Mel said a word, and I was supposed to talk for five minutes about it. Word number three was “religion”. This was when I decided that PC answers were not going to get me anywhere (I was right, he eventually offered me a job) and dove in with the non-NYC intellectual answer. I posited that it seemed as a society, the US in particular, was headed towards my experience in the Netherlands — very few believers, no good central “curriculum” for a base level of societal values, and no emotional safety net that serves a lot of people in times of trouble. I said I thought the trend was bad for society, but also that I sometimes struggle with blind faith. I wanted to believe without reservation, but I also wrestled with the difference between unquestioned faith and my day to day New York lifestyle of self-described intellectualism and sophistication.
Since then I feel like I have given up, mostly through inaction, on passing on any base level of faith on to The Fellas. Prior to the Great Schism we were regular Sunday attendees, but that has faltered over the past four years and I don’t have a clear idea on exactly what path I want to be on or how to get there. Plus I’ve got to finish that work project, pick up food for the guinea pigs, start dinner, fix the light switch, go for a bike ride…