Watch it, buddy--that spider belongs to Jesus.

[taste_is_sweet]

(Psst! Don't forget to tell me a strange story and win a book!)

To say that the small city I live in is home to a majority of practicing Christians would be kind of like saying if you visit Israel you might find some Jews. This is a city where it's common to see businesses promoting themselves with the fish symbol for Christians , or a big sign saying, 'I ♥ Jesus' on the wall in my son's preschool. I've been asked repeatedly if I believe in God during casual conversations. Once I had to explain to a teacher that the Torah doesn't normally include the New Testament.

With this as his daily environment, it's not terribly surprising that Javier has come home from school to solemnly announce that "Jesus is rainbow-coloured," and to make sure I know that Jesus can fly. He drew a picture of a church as a gift for his teacher (the one with the 'I ♥ Jesus' sign), and she gave him a hug and asked him if he went to church too.

Last Wednesday, a very large but completely harmless wolf spider came crawling across the kitchen floor right where Javier was removing his shoes. He did his usual 'I-think-I'm-culturally-required-to-react-like-this' cringe and scream thing then watched until it disappeared under the shoe shelf, doubtless to end up as a snack for one of the cats.

Then Javier said, "Spiders belong to Jesus."

Dom and I looked at each other.

"You mean, Jesus made spiders?" I tried, thinking that either Jav or one of his friends at school had misremembered the creation story from the Bible, and wondering how I could steer the conversation (again) to Mommy and Daddy's atheism while still encouraging Jav's belief in magic and Santa Claus. (Early childhood is all about cognitive dissonance. Don't look at me like that.)

"No," Javier said. "Jesus didn't make spiders. They belong to him. And ants."

"Who told you this?" I asked, now confused as hell.

It turned out it was his teacher, and after several more minutes of circular questions and answers and a very frustrated five-year old, the flummoxed parents were finally told this:

One of my kid's classmates at school had purposely stepped on some ants. The teacher had told him not to, because ants belong to Jesus. I'm afraid I don't remember how Jesus ended up being the patron saint of Arachnids as well; it's possible Jav's teacher said so, or Jav decided it himself since spiders are also freaky and creepy-crawly. It's horrible! It must belong to Jesus!

His teacher didn't say why Jesus has this particular relationship with arthropods however, which is where my brain exploded. I ended up fumbling around a simplified version of why some people might think that Jesus owns the world by proxy until Javier's eyes glazed over and he asked if he could watch TV.

I'm sure that at this point Javier thinks that Jesus was a real man who was killed because he was rainbow-coloured and who lives in the sky but not really and who can't grant wishes because you need rainbows to make a wish, except Jesus is rainbow-coloured so maybe he can, and he doesn't own the world but does own ants and spiders and lived a Long Time Ago but not when the world was a baby world and there were dinosaurs.

I'll just be over here contemplating the psychiatrist bills. And mopping up my brain.

Comments

[kensieg.livejournal.com]

owwww! Too bad there aren't any Hebrew schools near you for Javier to attend.

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

Hugs, there is a fine tradition of Jewish atheism. Maybe turn that to "All creatures are worthy of love and respect, because they are alive."

[ribbon-purple.livejournal.com]

*g* Oh, parenthood. Wow, my brain hurts and I grew up a preacher's kid. I can't believe his teacher is allowed to teach religion in school.

And technically, according to the Bible, the world belongs to Satan because Adam and Eve messed up and screwed us all over. Jesus is our way back to God. I have no idea where bugs fit in to it.

Miss you, sweetie!

[trepkos.livejournal.com]

Well, the only good thing about all this is the teacher seems to told them not to kill an ant for no reason.

But Adam Ant could have told them that!

[claudia603.livejournal.com]

whoa, I think I need to go take some really good drugs and contemplate this story about a rainbow Jesus who owns all the spiders in the world, but I think that might end up being a bad trip...:D

[reedfem.livejournal.com]

But if Jesus is a rainbow, doesn't that lead to endorsement of the gay lifestyle and wouldn't everyone's heads explode or something if that got out?

I still remember a Baptist neighbor who home-schooled her kids telling me about the award her son got from his basketball team - "Most Christ-like". Years later and I'm still WTF'ing over that one.

[innana88.livejournal.com]

*grinning wickedly*

When I was in second or third grade, the neighbor boys wouldn't stop squishing ants needlessly (we were outside). This went on for weeks and I hated it. I tried to reason with them, I begged, I pleaded, I probably cried; nothing I could say or do would stop the senseless massacre. Finally, at a total loss for what else to do to get them to stop, I solemnly told them that even ants were God's creatures and that killing them when they were causing them no harm was murder in God's eyes and that they would go to hell. Of course, I believed none of this myself, but that sure as shit stopped them. :)

[crashbarrier.livejournal.com]

owwwie.. makes your brain hurt.. reminds me of my school days in the Church of England infants school. Took me a good while to get round some of the ideology (evolution vs creationism??? if there was creationism then why were there no dinosaurs on the ark??? I broke the vicar with that one he couldn't explain it). I was lucky in that my parents were willing to sit down and talk about the whole thing (including the reasons behind why the vicar and teachers were saying the things they were) which allowed me to work it all out in the end.

I hope it all comes together in a satisfactory way for everyone. it isn't an easy thing to have to sort out.

[natsuko1978.livejournal.com]

I'm a (liberal) Christian - have been all my life, went to Sunday School, a Church of England secondary (ie junior high/high school), etc - and I'm confused by all that.

What hope is there for five-year-olds? o.0

Though getting killed "because he was rainbow coloured" makes about as much sense as the accusations and trial reported in the Gospels.

This reminds me of the RE lesson I taught with eight-year-olds where some were very confused about the difference between God and Santa. We were writing prayers (it was part of the syllabus) and a lot were of the "Dear God, please can I have a puppy" variety. :D The lesson came to a premature end when one boy yelled out, "It doesn't matter what you write because God isn't real anyway." lol