Dear God

Have you ever tried explaining the real story of Christmas to a six year-old kid? The following words actually came out of my mouth (me, the agnostic!):

You see, son, God came down and, uh, made Mary pregnant with Jesus, because he could do magical things like that.

As the questions about Jesus' origins and eventual crucifixion became more pointed, and my answers grew more and more convoluted, my wife and I both had the idea to bust out the kiddie Bible that he had received at his baptism. ("Why did Jesus have to die on the cross?" To redeem our sins...to make up for all the bad things we've done. "Did it take him a long time to die?" No, not too long. A few hours. "Where did he go after he died, but before he came back to life?" Uh...) My wife is Irish Catholic enough to be worried that M and F would be condemned to purgatory should, God forbid, anything happen...and we want our kids to know about their religious background, and all the cultural references contained in the Bible. We're very much of the mind that they should know about all the mainstream religions and make their own decisions about whether or not they want to be practicing any of them.

As we kept reading chapter after chapter regarding Jesus' life and ministry, I was amazed at how many of them I remembered. Must have been listening in some of those Sunday school classes after all. I was there primarily to be in the same orbit as these pretty girls...and, you know, I had to go. As long as I was under my parents' roof, I did as the Romans did...