A child's view

When my oldest two children were younger I figured it was high time to teach them some catechism. The shorter catechism was a little busy for young ones so I started with the kittychism and one of the Qs and As went something like this: Q. Who is God? A. God is a spirit, he doesn't have a body like we do.

Lloyd had his own interesting understanding of this. One day I noticed him drawing a very unusual picture. The picture showed a head then a huge space and then two legs and feet at the bottom of the page. There were also two arms appearing from nowhere and a large stick attached to one hand. Like a typical Mum I said to him, "Who is it dear?" His response: "This is God, he doesn't have a body like we do." When I asked about the stick he said, "That's God's walking stick because he's always been there so he's very old."

Recently Mike, who is now about the same age as when Lloyd drew his interesting picture, was having a cuddle with Anika on her bed. Anika was reading the Bible and decided to pray. She whispered her prayers and Mike was horrified at the idea. "I'm not God!" he declared loudly.

Back to Lloyd. When he was just a little older we moved to our current house which has a family room with cathedral ceilings. Lloyd used to like playing with Anika's "Noah's Ark" which was made out of wood. One day he was asking all sorts of questions about the real Noah's Ark. How big was it? Was it as big as the ceiling? Yes, Lloyd it had to be. Was it as big as the back yard? Yes, Lloyd it was very big. "Well, Mummy," he said, "It must have been an outside toy."

Somewhere around this time Anika must have been learning about points of a compass and Lloyd's curiosity got the better of him. "Can we go to East one day?" This is when I decided to purchase a globe - problem solved.

Lloyd decided to show off some of his new-found knowledge when he was learning a bit of biology. One day Hubby came inside, quite excited saying, "There's a six foot snake on the front patio!" Lloyd responded, "Oh, Daddy," he explained, "snakes don't have feet." Maybe Hubby should have used metric?