February 2, 2010

Peter, Alexis & Sophie (Dec. 2009)

February 2, 2010.  The conversation in the car on the way home from school today is nothing short of a childhood reenactment of Who’s on First.  Sophie asks her friend Alexis, who I take home most days, where she went to preschool.  Peter interjects that he wants to go to preschool.  I ask whether he knows what preschool is.  “Yes, Mom.  Preschool is where you learn about God.”  Peter has shown consistent interest lately in learning more about this subject.  “That’s Sunday School, Pete.  Preschool is for toddlers.”  I watch in the rearview mirror as he labors to process this information.  It’s hard to know sometimes whether the concepts are jumbled or just the words.  “Yes, Mom,” he says.  “I want to go to Sunday school, Mom.”  And so I reassure him that I’m looking into it, which I am.  Pat and I are not regular churchgoers.  But despite my general queasiness about organized religion, at least the one in which I was raised, I do believe in God.  Pat is on the fence, however, having lost what he thought was real faith after the death of his two sons.  I view what he characterizes as agnosticism as really an expression of anger, but regardless, he is far more intractable about the subject than I.  Despite these obvious ambivalences, I still don’t want to deny our children the comfort of religion and the community of church should his interest evolve into some brand of sustainable faith.  And in the end, either does Pat.  I become lost in these thoughts until Alexis pipes up, “I go to Sunday school.”  And so I ask about what she learns there.  “I know,” Peter interjects, raising his hand as though he were still in school.  “She learns to talk Spanish.”