Riding donkeys to Brazil

I am guilty of neglecting my daughters' religious education.

Through their short migratory lives, the girls have attended a Church of England school, a primary school with a heavy Christian slant, a multi-denominational English primary school, and their current elementary and middle schools in Cambridge. Cambridge schools are without religion - religion is a subject which must not be touched upon within the school curriculum. There are no hymns. No carols. Lesson content must not link to religious stories. Within school, the only reference to God is through the daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance (the reference to 'one nation under God' having only been incorporated in the 1950s and not being part of the original, God-less, pledge).

With a very politically correct sense of equality, the 3 main religions have each been allocated one day's holiday apiece within the Cambridge pubic schools' calendar. Islam has Eid Al Adha (where Abraham agreed to sacrifice his eldest son as an act of submission to God); Judaism has Yom Kippur (where Jews atone for their sins across the previous year and make resolutions for the coming year, with the sorrowful recognition that these will, inevitably, be broken); and Christianity has Good Friday (where Christians commemorate the killing of the only son of God). The period of time which is called the 'Christmas' holidays in the English school calendar is referred to as a winter holiday and there are no Christmas concerts. As a liberal woman (with a gentle leaning towards the uber-liberalism of Quakerism), I think that I should think that the equality offered to these three religions is a good thing... it's just that I wish that the public school board had chosen more 'celebratory' holidays. Of course Good Friday is an important day within Christianity - kind of central to the entire plot of the New Testament - but wouldn't it have been nice if we'd recognized Easter Sunday instead. And Eid Al Fitr would be a more upbeat addition to the school calendar than Eid Al Adha - Muslims break their fast on Eid Al Fitr and they are encouraged to show adherence to Islam's basic principles of showing happiness through one's daily life (Mohammad, on that day, reprimanded a father who told his girls not to sing, saying 'Let them sing!' - that alone would  make for a great celebration - and offer an alternative insight to Islam than the media's preoccupation with showing heavily veiled apparently miserable and voiceless women). Perhaps, we could also have Hanukkah, a festival of lights, rather than Yom Kippur's atonement (Iola explained to me yesterday evening that Hanukkah celebrates the fact that some oil burnt for eight days rather than just one. I said that people believe that God is capable of creating all kinds of miracles. And she replied, with one of those 'mummy, you're really not very clever' kind of looks, 'Well, I read it in the library in a very scientific-y kind of a book so I know that it must be true').

In fact, why stop at only one festival of lights? Let's have Diwali and Tazaundiang too. The more, the merrier, I say.

I do, however, have concerns about the girls' lack of knowledge about things that I take for granted. A great deal of English literature is grounded in references to the old and new testaments - to be able to read well, the girls need to know some of the main tales from the Bible (and these overlap, of course, many of the stories from the Torah and the Quran). Because they will not be learning these stories in school, I need to teach them myself.

To be honest, I'm a bit nervous about my competence in teaching the Bible. My concept of God is fairly warm and fuzzy. The girls understand that people meet with God in different ways through whichever religion that they practice. They know that some people think that God is nothing more than the goodness which exists within humanity (and, God, I want my children to believe that some goodness exists across humanity because otherwise there is nothing more than a nihilistic pit of existentialism. That can wait until they're teenagers at least!)

So, we have a nice way of thinking about God, but it's not one which sits comfortably with the Bible. (Nathan, who has no God but a paranoid belief in the possibility of the Devil, has never fully recovered from reading Revelations in one sitting in a dark hotel room late at night and then watching The Shining).

About 3 years ago, while we were living in Newcastle, I planned to teach the girls a bible story... I chose Noah's Ark. It's important to know about Noah's Ark as it resonates with our thinking around rainbows, repentance and forgiveness, and probably has something to say about global warming. I figured that the girls needed to know the story. We were going to eat animal crackers, draw pictures of rainbows. Before I had even started to read out the story, Iola looked at the illustration in my 1970s Bible and asked, 'Why are the giraffes drowning?' The illustrations were fairly graphic. It wasn't just the giraffes who were drowning - Maya helpfully pointed out the drowning tigers, antelope, and the small dog in the corner of the picture (a far more graphic and disturbing image than the one I've included here in my blog). Iola started to cry. I explained that Noah saved two of each of the animals. Maya explained that this was completely injust as the animals had done nothing wrong. By the time I had told the story up to the release of the first bird (who presumably drowns because the waters have not yet receded), both girls had announced their unwillingness to believe in a God who would do such things and I realized that, even with a stash of animal crackers and wax crayons, religious education was not my forte.

I have a wonderfully dear, and deeply devout, friend, Lucy, who sends the girls an advent calendar each year. This year I decided to be proactive. Last night, the girls and I sat with the calendar and talked about the significance of the images. Maya knows the story of the Advent very well (probably thanks to her English education) but Iola was a little confused on some of the details. She liked the picture of Mary riding the donkey and looked at this while Maya and I discussed the political and cultural implications of the decree to pay a special tax which meant that they needed to leave Nazareth (it's the kind of detail that Maya really likes to discuss - she uses words such as 'fiscal cliff' in relation to the governance of Judea). I tried to steer the conversation back to include Iola, who was losing interest in the picture of the donkey.
'Iola, can you remember where they needed to ride to?'
Iola has a habit of putting her head slightly to one side and sucking on one of her braids when she doesn't know an answer.
'It's the place where Jesus was born?'
'Oh, I know that bit - he was born in one of those long things which animals eat out of - I can't remember their name.'
'Yes, a manger - but can you remember what town the manger was in?'
More braid chewing.
'It begins with a 'B'.'
Iola pulled her braid out of her mouth and looked really happy. 'I know! I know!' She beamed at knowing the answer to my question. 'Was it Brazil?'