It all started when she asked if I would read her a bedtime story from the Bible storybook. The book opens innocently enough with the story of creation. There are lions and tigers and bears, and naked people being created from dust. (At this point in the story you’d think questions would arise, but no, kids just seem to go along with it at face value. Which is exactly the reason I've had to work so hard to convince Lucie that turtleneck shirts are not actually made from the necks of turtles.)
Anyways ...
"Do you know why Adam and Eve are sad?" I asked, pointing at the picture of them sorrowfully leaving the garden. "I sure do, " Lucie assured me. "They are sad because they don't have any parents." Impressive, huh? Clearly, she’d been processing and following along. "Well there is that," I prodded her, "and also they have to leave the beautiful garden because they disobeyed God."
"Of course they were bad," Lucie sighed in complete exasperation. "Remember??? There aren't any parents??"
A mere three pages into the book comes Cain and Abel, who slaughter a lamb for sacrifice and then turn their weapons on each other. Followed up by Noah who floats off in his ark while the rest of humanity drowns. This is Quentin Tarentino movie material, not the stuff sweet dreams are made of. We looked at the picture of Cain laying a lamb on the altar for a long time as Lucie tried to wrap her mind around a God who asked for death and sacrifice. I could tell it was a bit of religious whiplash for her to go from the cozy nativity story to the brutality of Genesis.
That night we got to close with the rainbow, but I know how the book ends and the lessons that lay ahead. In the meantime, I'll continue to gloss over the facts behind Baby Moses' river adventure, and leave the bigger questions to Lucie. Like whether or not it rains where God is? Or does God ever have to go potty?
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Julie