{"id":1106,"date":"2009-09-29T11:46:49","date_gmt":"2009-09-29T11:46:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/theirbadmother\/2009\/09\/when-the-path-is-dark-ii.html"},"modified":"2009-09-29T11:46:49","modified_gmt":"2009-09-29T11:46:49","slug":"when-the-path-is-dark-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2009\/09\/when-the-path-is-dark-ii.html","title":{"rendered":"God And The Good Parent, Part II: If God Were Like Santa, This Would Be Easy"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I wrote yesterday<\/a>, I have a complicated relationship with God. Have had for a long time. But I’d always been comfortable with that – until I had kids…<\/i><\/p>\n

I wrote yesterday that I want my
\nchildren to know God, and that I want them to know God as I did – personally, intimately, in a relationship of faith rather than skepticism.<\/p>\n

I do not want this because I
\nthink that it will make them morally superior beings. I do not want this because I believe that human beings cannot be good without God. I do not want this because I want to secure
\nthem a place in Heaven. I don’t believe that faith confers moral superiority; I don’t believe in
\nsecurity-patrolled Pearly Gates; I do<\/i> know that it is possible to be
\n‘good’ without God (but please do not ask me to unpack that statement
\nhere.) I’m not looking for spiritual guarantees or moral fail-safes, if
\nsuch things even exist.
\n<\/em>
\nI want this because I want my
\nchildren to have a meaningful choice in the matter of whether or not to
\nembrace faith. And I don’t think that they will really, meaningfully,
\nhave such a choice if they are not exposed to faith from an early age.
\nIt’s all well and good to take a principled position against what might
\nbe called an indoctrination of faith, and to insist that exposure to
\nreligion is something best left until children have the maturity of
\nreason to critically evaluate organized religion, but that position
\npre-determines its own end. If faith is set aside in childhood, and
\nreserved for later examination and evaluation under the bright lights
\nof reason, then it’s doomed from the start. Reason is antithetical to
\nfaith, especially in its first age, when it is clung to like a brass
\nring, when it causes us to chortle with delight at knowing, <\/em>to thrill at being let in on the world’s secrets (Chrissy is still a baby because she still believes in Santa, right Mommy?) <\/em>It
\nis only the strongest, most hard-won faith that does not pale at the
\napproach of reason. Reason shatters faith, exposes belief as simply
\nthat – belief. <\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Who
\namong us would ever have given Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny or
\nTinkerbell a second thought if we had only discovered them in the age
\nof our reason? We might be amused or entertained by them, but we could
\nnever take them seriously. But when we meet Santa Claus in the
\ninnocence of our youth, we give him a chance. And we’re well-positioned
\nto decide, when we’re ready, whether or not we want to continue
\nbelieving in him. If we never believed in Santa as children, we can’t
\nbe said to have ever made the choice to not believe.<\/p>\n

So it is, I
\nthink, with God. I’m not suggesting that God is a character of myth or
\nfantasy, as Santa is generally understood, although many have argued
\nand do argue that God is exactly that. What I am suggesting is that
\nbelief in God usually (not always – people do sometimes ‘find’ God and
\nreligion later in life) requires exposure to the real practice of faith
\nbefore one learns that faith is, or appears to be (appears to be),<\/em> contrary to reason. It requires having someone say, emphatically, insistently, that yes, Virginia, there is a God.<\/em> It requires, yes,<\/em> some sort of indoctrination into faith during childhood. Saying yes<\/em>
\nto religion. Talking seriously and respectfully about God and church
\nand faith. Reading Bible stories. Attending church or synagogue. Saying
\nprayers. Watching Little House on the Prairie<\/a>. Some or all or any combination of the above.<\/p>\n

The
\nproblem? I no longer do these things, for the most part. My faith, such
\nas it is, is quiet, private. It is something that I subject to scrutiny
\nevery time that I pull it out for inspiration or for comfort. It lives
\nin the strange space that I’ve carved out in my soul for those things
\nthat I fear and love and am confused by and ever will be confused by.
\nI’ve made my choices, it seems, if living in a state of such critical
\nambivalence can be regarded as a meaningful choice.<\/p>\n

But I don’t
\nwant to make that choice for my children. So how do I create the
\nopportunity for my children to have a choice, a real choice? For them
\nto really, meaningfully explore the option of faith, and take that
\noption seriously? Do I suck it up and re-enact the rituals of the
\nreligion of my own childhood, and swallow the hypocrisy as
\nwell-intended? Or is there another way?<\/p>\n

How do you find your way when the path is dark? How do you lead your children, when your own way is so obscured?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Coming soon: how my father’s death has complicated this issue for me, and how I hope to find my way through the darkness.<\/b><\/p>\n

<\/i>
Amended from an original post published at Her Bad Mother<\/a>, July 2006.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I wrote yesterday, I have a complicated relationship with God. Have had for a long time. 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