I am, for the most part, religious. I can hold my own on most Greek Orthodox name day celebrations, I can rhyme off the mandatory “church” days throughout the year, and I have a pretty good grasp of the bible. However I’m not a typical religious person. I don’t believe that my attendance in church outweighs the way I treat people on a day to day basis. I do believe in a higher power however He doesn’t necessarily look like the icons He’s depicted in, but more like an ever present energy. And I definitely don’t take the Bible literally. I mean come on. These are teachings and stories passed on from generation to generation and you really can’t expect me to believe that in over 2000 years there has never been a case of broken telephone or misunderstanding.
Immigrant mom is horrified with my lack of rule following and tries to make sure son #1 and son #2 get to hear the “real” things – church sermons, bible readings, and mandatory church attendance so that their poor little souls don’t get swayed down the wrong path. So when son #2 listens to her (son #1 has been hearing this for a lot longer and I think is now tuning it out), these are the questions that come out of his mouth (thank you Palm Sunday that just passed).
“Why is it called palm Sunday?”
“Isn’t it rude to throw things at people?”
“Why did Jesus ride in on a donkey? Wasn’t he too big?”
“Why didn’t he run away and fight the bad guys?”
“Why did they kill Jesus?”
“Was his mom sad?”
“Why did they put him on a cross and not kill him a different way?”
“So then when Jesus comes back, the Easter bunny puts chocolate eggs to celebrate?”
“I wonder….do they celebrate Easter in Kazakhstan?”
The funniest part is trying to watch immigrant mom navigate through all these logical 7 year old questions because her default answer of “that’s just the way it is”, doesn’t hold water with this specific child. At some point, I have to step in and take over, and what ends up happening is a generalized chat about the moral of the story/celebration/event. I have gone through a children’s bible with them, and whereas the younger son gets caught up in the details of the story, son #1 is starting to understand that there’s usually a lesson taught by the parables and he tries to give his little brother real world examples to help him relate. We discuss the major celebrations as they pass every year and I’m happy to say, that both of the boys are remembering a few more details as each year goes by.
In my attempts to provide some religious exposure to these kids, I try to drive home the fact that there are many religions in this world. Immigrant mom, plug your ears here. Just because a religion is called a different name and may have different characters and stories, it doesn’t make it more right or more wrong than any other or your own. I encourage them to explore and understand why some of their friends take certain days off school and why others eat or avoid certain foods. I’m not saying I’ll ignore everything else involved with our religion; I quite enjoy telling them the stories of certain saints and what made them special, and explaining the sermons to them whenever we do get a chance to go to church. But I also tell them, because in my heart of hearts I really do believe it to be true, that every religion is based on LOVE. I think that as long as they learn how to love and treat everyone with respect, I have done my job in teaching religion.
And yes son #2, the Christians in Kazakhstan celebrate Easter.
The Single Mom Chronicles 