God

Before we start, I have to make several points.

1. I am Catholic
2. I'm not very good at it
3. I do actually believe though
4. But I don't really like the Catholic Church.
5. Particularly the "Ignoring the child abuse" bit, you bastards
6. I don't force my beliefs on anyone because it's up to you to make your mind up
7. I once asked the question "How many commandments are there in the Ten Commandments?"
8. Therefore, I'm not remotely equipped to talk about faith to anyone

Yesterday I had a discussion with a friend about her son. Apparently he'd taken to wandering about sing "God goddy god god god" and she was musing on how to deal with it. Now, she didn't ask my opinion - but you may have noticed that I'm not frightened to hand out my "wisdom" to anyone, regardless of whether they want it or how well equipped I am to hand it out. So I told her the following;

The Boy goes to a faith school. I've mentioned this before. This was not particularly through choice, but simply because it was the best school we could get him in. Since he went to this school he has spoken about God precisely never. This suits me just fine. The only question he's ever asked about God is this;

"You know the baby Jesus? How did she die?"

Brilliant. 

If however he starts asking about faith, I'm going to go with "Some people believe..." and leave it at that. I don't really want to tell him what I believe. Partly because I want him to make his own mind up. Mainly because he's cleverer than I am - and I'm a coward. I foresee the conversation ending with him saying

"So... you believe that the world was made by an invisible man who lives in a magical place behind the clouds?"

And that might cause me to have a crisis of faith.

As has been proved time and time again in this blog - both of my Kids are cleverer than me. So it won't be long before he has me backed into a theological corner such as

"So... even though I get presents every Christmas, and there were ash prints in the fire place, and the mince pie and sherry got eaten, and there was the video where he asked whether I'd been good or bad, and I saw him at the garden centre... Father Christmas doesn't exist? But even though you can't see or hear God, He does exist?"

And quite honestly I haven't really got the answer for that one.