It's a Dad's Life: In the car driving west for a weekend break, the mystery of the Divine is solved.
"Daddy, do you know what God is?"
"That's a tricky one, hon," I'm hedging. "Do you?"
"Oh yeah. God is love. God is all around. God is in your heart. He's a bit like Jesus's fairy godmother."
Right, catechism meets Disney. Religion is sneaking into our house these days. Before she started school, the elder would refer, without prompting, to God as "She". This has changed since entering the education system, much to the Missus's disappointment, the dissertation from her MA in Women's Studies clutched tightly to her chest.
No, God's gender is now firmly established and He is particularly involved in our bedtime routine.
The first night we were instructed to bless ourselves after the stories were done, we each got a bit of a shock. But, as graduates of the system ourselves, at least we knew the drill, though my rather lacklustre hand movements were commented on. Every night now, everyone we know gets blessed, we have a Hail Mary and an Oh Angel Of God. The Younger listens in from the bottom bunk and has taken it on herself to join in by thanking God for a lovely day. The Missus and I may have laid on the grub, the clothing, transport and shelter, the entertainment, the consoling ear, the hugs and kisses, but it's that fella God who gets the credit every night.
We have no gripe with this. We are, as the phrase goes, "lapsed" (does that come from the tail end of "collapsed"?), but we have had the kids baptised and the Elder goes to a Catholic school. Our somewhat apprehensive thinking was to allow them to grow up in a very normal, traditional Irish setting and make their own decisions about organised religion when they are old enough to give the subject appropriate, independent thought. In the meantime, as the local school takes the RC line, that's the dogma our bunch are getting first exposure to.
In my teens and twenties I used to get very angry that indoctrination was such an integral part of our education system. The realisation that there were myriad different religions in the world and that we asserted ours was right over all others, simply because our parents had us baptised, could have been the deal-breaker in my relationship with the Church, sometime around age 14. Now, although we don't attend Mass or hold with religious procedures at home, here I am blithely inflicting the same system on my child. If he could have seen this turn of events, I am sure my younger self would have my current self pinned to the wall in indignant rage .
BUT, ALTHOUGH THE Church's influence is tiny compared to 50 years ago, it is hard to see beyond their network when organising your child's learning. All right, we have our Educate Togethers and some non-denominationals, many of which have such good reputations that you need to sign up in blood long before the child's conception, but, if you're thinking regular, old-school schooling, you're thinking RC.
And in our experience (or is that re-experience?), it's great. The problem with losing your religion because of its perceived imperfections is that you lose its good parts too. Without any reason to, we hadn't had prolonged discussions at the dinner table about the nature of love, altruism, immortality or the prolonged suffering of the soul. But, even before starting school, the Elder was raising these topics in her own childish way.
Now, you never know what's on the menu at dinnertime. She brings home her prayers and the pieces she has picked up - and everything she has been taught so far, I agree with. I had forgotten, there's a lot of good stuff in those Christian beliefs.
The Missus and I don't have a formal structure from which we provide guidance, we are part of the faithless majority. So, having gotten over our initial shock, we are quite enjoying having Jesus back in our lives. And his fairy godmother, God.
