Theology 101

This is the first Christmas where Eve has been old enough to start to grasp the Christmas story. As we go to church mostly every week, she has a pretty basic idea of concepts such as God, Jesus and prayers. She knows that we celebrate Christmas because it is Jesus' birthday, albeit with huge frustration that she won't actually get to open the baby Jesus window on her advent calendar for another 20 days.

One of the lesser known facts about her Mummy is that I have a degree in theology. I specialised in the Judeo-Christian tradition and can even read the New Testament in the original greek - well, maybe not now, but I managed to pass the relevant translation exam for my finals. Therefore, there are few theological concepts that I have not thought about, grappled with, and settled in my own mind.

Having an almost three year old throws new light on these. The big ones about the relationship between the God we pray to and Jesus are actually rather easy to explain. God wanted to visit us so he sent Jesus. Jesus now lives with God in heaven (along with great granddad Harry). Jesus was born as a baby and yes, he grew up and taught us lots of important things.

I am also finding that the exposure that the bible stories give to Eve on concepts such as sickness, people being nasty and death (why is it so many people kill children in biblical stories?!) are helpful in exposing her, in a gentle way, to some of the nasties in the world.

However, Eve managed to flumox me this week when we were in a taxi. "Mummy, did the Roman's kill Jesus?". This stumped me a bit. Well, firstly, which gospel are you using? They all have it in a slightly different way. Secondly, is the failure to stop something awful happening tantamount to supporting it? Finally, if ones looks into the political climate of when the gospels were written and the political as well as theological points they are trying to make then can we be sure anyway?

I ended up muttering "well, sort of" and pointing out something pink outside the cab to distract her.

For other such theological musings with children, check out this.

For Godness sake

New year, new resolve and along with giving up booze for lent (which I am regretting after one day), I also decided to try again to find a church in Hong Kong that suits me and Eve. I have started going to a rather good bible study group run by a colleague so asked around the members and one church was suggested. It struck me as being a bit happy clappy for high church anglican me, but I am willing to have an open mind so trotted off there this Sunday.

It started off well. I was quite warmly greeted and told that I had the option of Eve attending Sunday school or the service. Finally, I thought, I can worship with my daughter. There were lots of children in the service, which started with two songs and Eve and a little boy danced happily at the back while people looked on smiling. I was feeling really rather positive that I had found a place that we could call our church.

Then it all went wrong. "Will all children under ten now leave" came the announcement. Um, what, my child? I didn't really feel I could pipe up and say that the nice lady outside had told me that children could stay in the service. So I left. We were carted off to a classroom where the children watched a video about buying a cow for a village in China. All well and good, except Eve had seen the climbing frame outside and was refusing to sit still. The video, which was a bit too raw in its detail of life in an impoverished village in China for your average toddler, ended with a large, fat man coming in to tell us that every child had to bring in twenty dollars next week to send to the village. Um, hello? Shouldn't children do something more meaningful than asking their parents for money? Earn it? Do a sponsored swim? But then this is Hong Kong where money is supposed to solve everything.

Then it got worse. All the parents left, except me. Three teenagers then taught the Sunday school. Except it involved giving the kids a colouring book about Jesus and then trying to stop them hitting each other. For about half an hour all they did was keep the kids colouring. After about ten minutes Eve was trying to make a break for the climbing frame again so I took it upon myself to read her the story she was colouring and try to engage her a bit. Then we sang a song, by which point Eve was so bored and annoyed with her Mummy not letting her go to see the climbing frame that she just went and opened the door herself.

Then all main service finished and all the parents came to pick up their children. So, in effect, all this actually turned out to be was moderately religious childcare. The teacher even had the audacity to tell me that Eve was a bit too young to concentrate for that long and maybe I should take her to the creche instead. I bit my tongue and restrained myself from simply replying that she was bored out of her mind colouring for 45 minutes.

So we left and I will not being going back. The sad thing is that Eve really quite enjoyed it and has been showing the Boy and H her little bible book that she coloured with real pride. She is even talking about Jesus. This is enough to keep me going and try to find a church that Eve and I are both going to enjoy being at together.

Watch this space.

Theology for dummies

Eve is slowly dropping her morning nap, and her godfather has moved back to HK, so church on Sundays has become a possibility again. After my previous experiences with the slightly insane professional expat wife brigade, I am a little apprehensive about going as a single Mum. However, upon arrival I realised that it seems to have turned back to a more normal place and a newly engaged couple sat next to us and smiled at Eve while she ate the pew sheet.

I suppose that after complaining about the scary communal singing experience, I shouldn't then complain when the Sunday school today was a video. It was about the good Samaritan, so all well and good, but once Eve and I had been perplexed about why there was a gopher in ancient Palestine (me), and the box of raisins had been finished (Eve), we were left sitting in a dark room watching TV in silence and getting a bit bored.

So we left. We bunked off the rest of church (I assume God won't hold this against Eve when she eventually reaches the pearly gates).

Back at home, I took Eve's religious education in hand and talked to her about the story. She was playing with the cat at the time, but I hope something went in.

Tonight, when I put Eve to bed, I read the creation bit from her little bible. As I was putting her into her cot I told her that God made Mummy and Daddy and the cat. She pointed at her toy giraffe, which I explained was not made by God but was made in China.

Not my religion

As it was her first Christmas, I wanted Eve to go to Church. My friend in Tokyo, A, had found a local English protestant church which was holding a children's carol concert on Christmas Eve. As a newcomer to Tokyo, A had not been before, but it seemed nice enough so along we went. It seemed a little formal when we arrived (the ushers had name badges), but we found some seats at the back and I found the readings in the pew bible so A's elder son could read along. Eve was her merry little self and she and I trundled along at the back while she said hello to people and generally was chatty and smiley.

As I was wandering past the main door during one trundle, one of the ushers came up to me and suggested I take Eve to the nursery. I said that I thought this was a children's service and so her chatting happily and walking around wouldn't be a problem. I was told that it would have to be quiet for the Pastor's sermon and prayers so it may be best if I went to the nursery.

I was utterly shocked. I have been going to church all my life and can think of very few that would ask a child to leave in any situation, let alone from a service billed as one for children. I am proud of Eve and how engaged she is in her surroundings (how much better that than sitting mute), and I am careful that she never makes a nuisance and is always accompanied by me so I can stop her more friendly excesses. She was not causing a problem, was barely audible above the other babies crying, and was merely being friendly.

With hindsight I wish I had some pithy comment and could have quoted him from the many biblical passages that would have made good retorts. However, I could merely mumble and say I had thought it was a children's service and leave.

It upsets me now to think of it. Partly because I didn't get to share a religious Christmas with my daughter, but also because I hold my faith very dear and spend a lot of time defending organised religion. Behaviour like this makes me wonder how other people must see churches.

Theology for beginners

One of the presents I have bought for Eve is a little kids book of bible stories. It is very amusing how the quite difficult and often violent stories of the bible have been adapted for children. Adam and Eve, for example, ate from the forbidden tree and God told them off. Noah built an ark with lots of nice animals inside, although no mention is made of the massacre of the human race. Jericho was a nice town that Joshua decided to enter with his nice band of smiling trumpeters. You get the idea.

The funniest one, however, is the story of Daniel in the lions den. The picture accompanying the story is of Daniel playing with a few rather cute looking lion cubs in a cave. I can't help but feel the purpose of the story has got a bit lost!

Supermom

A prime example of the women at my church came last Sunday. We are all learning songs for an upcoming children's service (which I can't make because I am racing). All the children, some 50 or so, left the service for practice. Eve, being neither able to sing nor dance not play a musical instrument sat at the front with me and stared in wide-eyed amazement at what was happening before her, as did I but for quite different reasons.

The practice was led by what I can only describe as supermom on speed. She was heavily pregnant and wearing a floaty outfit and dangly earrings befitting of someone in a commune in the 1970s. She had a constant smile, knew all the children by name (I have never seen her in church before so goodness knows how), and was a perky, happy, smiley bundle of energy singing "Father Abraham had many sons" at the top of her voice with gay abandon. I can't quite pinpoint why I found her so scary, maybe it was the sheer American perkiness of her, or that I couldn't understand why anyone that heavily pregnant was jumping up and down so much. But she was, quite simply, frightening.

Every so often I would look around me to wonder whether I was the only one fearing for her sanity, and my safety. However, all the other parents seemed to think this was perfectly normal. When she started to do a mock crucifix impression during one song I almost fled for the door. But, like a good and god fearing parent, I sat there with Eve on my lap, sang the songs, did the actions, and taught Eve to clap.

She was accompanied, as befitting of such a situation, by a man playing an accordion.

Holy infant so tender and mild...

Unlike many of our expat friends, the Boy and I don't head home for Christmas. For the first three years we went on holiday for Christmas each year, and were usually underwater looking at fish on the morning of the 25th. However, last year we stayed in HK and as our move here feels more and more permanent, we are building our own Christmas traditions. This includes seeing our good friends and their daughter on Christmas Eve for dinner and then going to midnight mass together.

The Boy, being a heathen, partakes of the dinner and wine and then packs us off to our local Church. This year H, our nanny, was due to go to her Catholic church for midnight mass but a friend let her down so she came along with me, P and her 3 year old daughter A, to the service in a small Anglican Church behind the flat. The service and carols, the readings about a baby being born, the fragility of life, the whole magic of the Christmas story takes on a new meaning when you are experiencing this yourself first hand. I also found myself singing with gusto the words "holy infant so tender and mild" reminding the Bump what a good little baby should be like.

All was going well until the sermon, which was quite frankly rather odd. The service was led by M, himself a father of three children all under 5. He is a great vicar. Very informal, very family friendly, and an all round nice guy. However, his sermons can either be brilliant or somewhat esoteric.

When the sermon started "My son was born about 5 years ago and it was a magical event" P and I nodded wisely along with it as her daughter slept quietly in her arms. When he talked about the waters breaking, using the phrase "milky flow of waters", P and I looked at each other and got a little worried. Where, exactly, was this going? We were then told about the pain of childbirth in some graphic detail and the baby being covered in "blood and slime" when born and screaming at the top of his voice. Now I am a realist about the Christmas story, but even I don't want to think of God incarnate screaming at the top of his lungs in the stable while the shepherds stood around wondering what they might be able to do to help while two frazzled parents tried to calm the child. I imagine a discussion similar to "is this really the son of God? Did we see the star correctly or should we be next door?" and nervously looking in the other direction while Mary tried to figure out the best position for breast feeding the screaming infant. I can only hope that he had calmed down a bit before the wise men appeared, it doesn't quite suit the Christmas story to include Joseph saying sternly to his new son "Now if you don't quieten down then the nice men will take the gold and incense away again".

The point of the sermon was a good one, but by the time M talked about the difficulty in cutting the tough umbilical cord I think someone at the back may have fainted and H was wondering whether the hellfire and brimstone of her Catholic church might be a bit easier to stomach.

Things not to do when you're pregnant # 20091 and #200092

Normal, everyday, life takes on a whole new slant when you're pregnant and normal things like, say, walking, take on a new comical turn. So, today I found myself in two perfectly normal situations that were somewhat altered by the presence of bump.

Firstly, I went to Church at lunchtime. I do this every Thursday with the god-father-to-be G. It is always a slightly comical event, partly because it is held in a small chapel and usually only 6 or 7 people attend. A few weeks ago the sermon was about a saint who seemed to be beatified for nothing more than mistaken identity (he was on a polynesian island and was mistaken for a slave trader and killed before, presumably, he could preach any part of the gospel). There are also a few odd characters, such as the gentleman who over-ennunicates every t, and slightly out of time with the rest of us. There is also the man who insists, during prayers, on shouting the name of every person he is praying for at the appropriate (or inappropriate) time. So, it is always a rather amusing affair. Today during the prayers, which for those heathens among you (including the Boy) are the quietest time in the service, the bump started thumping me. I am still at the stage where I find this rather amusing so, during a particularly boring point when we were praying for lawyers (only in HK, what on earth do lawyers need our prayers for??) I found myself staring down at the gymnastics all too visable through my top. It made me smile and, as she managed to tickle me, I had to supress giggles. Unfortunately I got very distracted by this and was still smiling and giggling my way through the prayers when we got to the bit about the sick and departed. This is clearly something that is not funny and in rather poor taste. When I realised where I was and looked up, I found Matt the friendly vicar looking quizically at me. He has three children and so clearly put it down to hormonal madness.

The second event came at the end of a rather fun post-work shoe shopping trip with LottieP. After trying, and failing, to find any shoes in my size (for which my bank balance is very grateful) we popped along to an event at Harvey Nics to which she had an invitation. We were hoping for a glass of something sparkling and a bit of canto-pop starlet watching. Sadly, it was the launch of a new version of a rather poor whiskey beloved of those who don't know any better and have only a hazy idea of where Scotland is. This was the only drink on offer, and despite being obviously heavily pregnant the waiters kept on cornering me and insisting that I try some. It seemed ungrateful to ask for a nice glass of water. Perhaps the launch party of a high alcohol content spirit is not the best place for a pregnant woman to be. The bump made my choice about how long to stay when a man playing the bagpipes walked past me (subtlety not being a strong feature of events in HK) and the bump reacted so violently that I thought I was going into labour.

LottieP and I scarpered and I have come home to more normal pregnancy things like eating jaffa cakes.