Andrewisms

The bedtime reading of Mercer Mayer's The Little Drummer Mouse tonight inspired a philosophical discussion about God and Jesus. The little mouse, who has been scorned his whole life for being so small, for always lagging behind, and for playing his acorn drum, follows a bright star to a stable to visit a baby king after being told by three kings that the baby will be the greatest king of all. The little mouse plays his drum to the delight of the baby, and the shepherds and others join in. The little mouse is finally a leader, and his gift of music is, as the story goes, the greatest gift of all. It's a sweet tale, with beautiful illustrations, but the religious messages are all implied instead of directly stated.

Not sure if he was making the inferences or not, or how much of the Christmas story Andrew knows and remembers, I pointed out that the baby was Jesus, which brought up the questions. Actually, Andrew was full of information that he's apparently picking up at his church-sponsored preschool. He sang a song for me, ("The B-I-B-L-E, Yes, that’s the book for me. I stand alone on the Word of God,The B-I-B-L-E."  I had to google the actual words--the only part I really got was stand alone on the word of God.  I had NO clue whatsoever that he was spelling Bible, but instead just thought it was some cute refrain in the song.  Duh.)  He went on to tell me that Jesus grew up and then died, and then he started asking questions about God, which are harder ones to answer. We covered that Jesus was the son of God, which led him to ask if God had died too. My answer was no, that God had always been in heaven and had created everything in the universe. We went through the fact that God wasn't a man, but that didn't quite satisfy him. He wanted to know what he was, and that's too abstract for me to explain other than to say that God is the most powerful thing in the universe. Hypocritical though it might be to teach these things to my son when I don't even know if I believe them myself, at this time of year, I'm inclined to fall back on my Christian upbringing. He had one last question for me, though. "Mommy, is God a Space Ranger?" Yes, yes he is. Just like Buzz Lightyear.