Teach Me

At church today, my dad was singing so Jojo and I were responsible for Maya, Max and Ben. This means that we try and get them to keep their shoes on, not spill the animal crackers, and maintain an acceptable decibel level. Which is impossible. Maya thinks screaming is synonymous to singing, Ben and Max can't keep their fists off of each other, and I have no patience for everybody's eyes on me. I peeled Ben off of Max by his upper arm and marched him out of the sanctuary.

He was fine after that; he just wanted out. We went to his sabbath school room and played with the Lite-Brite that has been there since I was his age. There's something calming about pushing the little pegs into the back-lit board and watching the colors light up. We could hear the singing and the speaking from the speaker overhead.

"Are you going to go up to sing?" I asked Ben. His sabbath school class was supposed to sing "Jesus loves me" in a few minutes.

"No..."

"Why not?" I finished the orange balloon on the Lite-Brite pattern.

"I'm scared!"

I smiled a little bit, because he didn't have anything to be scared of. But I knew that feeling, being scared of nothing. "Okay, I won't make you go. But I hope you go next year."

"Is the P for pink or purple?"

"Pink. The purple is actually violet, and they go into the V's."

"I'll finish the hair and you do all the balloons, okay?" He collected a handful of yellows and started filling in the hair.

"Okay."

"I believe in God," he said.

I didn't know what to say, so I kept filling in my violet balloon. I came up with a lame response, something like, "Good, it's Easter."

"Yeah, I believe in God."

And I thought, but you also believe in Santa Claus, and the Tooth Fairy. You believe that a big fluffy bunny is the one who will be hiding your easter basket tomorrow when in reality, the easter grass and little candies are all hiding in the trunk of the car right now. How can you be so sure?

"You're slow, Cozy." He lifted up a handful of yellow pegs. "You have to do it like me."

I gave him a hug. "Teach me?"