Teach your child about God. Now.

READ THE TITLE of this post again. I’m really serious. The question is: how? Well, my late mother provides part of the answer.

The story she used to tell me, and presumably my siblings as well, is that the first words she ever said in our presence (which means, once each of us were born), was “I love you.” Now my wife and I didn’t think to say that during the first moments of our daughter’s life, but it’s something I say to her most every time she’s cooperatively settling down to sleep (naps or bedtime). I believe she understands.

I also believe our daughter has her own way of telling me the same thing. Have you been lucky enough to have your 7-plus-month-old just beam at you with a slightly dopey ear-to-ear grin, gazing intently at you all the while, as if to say, “I’m deliriously happy just now, and I’m so glad to be your little baby.” Which for me translates into “I love you, daddy.” How you elicit this is your own business, you know what delights your kid by now. It seems to me that that’s a way of, at least, introducing the love that is God to a child.

Of course, once your child is verbal, it will become more complicated. This is an idea that occurs to me: at the moment (hopefully convenient) that a child first asks, “Who is God?”, try this (I suppose a child of three or four might handle their end of the conversation):

You: “God is not a person, sweetheart.”

Child: “No?”

You: God is something else.

C: What?

Y: What happens inside you when we’re together playing, smiling and laughing, and I tell you I love you very much?

(It may take a few tries to elicit the sensible response, but what we’re after is as follows)

C: I feel happy.

Y: That’s right! Where does that happy feeling come from?

C: From you?

Y: Not exactly. I’m just in charge of the playing, smiling, and laughing. God is where the happiness comes from. You don’t have to be playing with me to be happy, you can be happy all by yourself, can’t you?

C: Yes, but with you, it’s more.

Y: That’s very sweet, honey. But I believe all happiness is really a gift from God, because when you’re happy you know God loves you, too, and you feel it deep inside. Happiness is a way of feeling that everything is okay, and that God is taking care of us. I think you feel that very often, and we’re very blessed that you’re happy. God is not a person, but the spirit all people associate with goodness, happiness, and the love you feel.

The conversation above is entirely out of my imagination, but I hope I can actually carry it on someday soon.