God is in Your Stomach

We're not particularly religious around our house. We're not athiest or even agnostic, quite the contrary, but we don't subscribe to any particular religious ideology. The only time we really mention God is when we're taking his name in vain. Both of us grew up religious, him Catholic and me some kind of fundie freakshow drawing on the fear of the Rapture to keep us in line. I'm more skittish than my BFF about the personification of All That Is and the oppression and ignorance that sometimes stems from organized religion, and I am hellbent on not letting Ruby grow up in the dark shadow of paralyzing fear of death and of God and of eternal retribution for her sins like I did. Took me 30 years of hard work to shake it off.

We've had a few discussions about how we will present religion to Ruby. I certainly don't want her going to kindergarten not knowing the essential Bible stories--Noah's Ark, Adam & Eve, Sodom & Gomorrah, Jonah & The Whale, Daniel & The Lion's Den, Josie & The Pussycats and other classics--and I want her to at least be aware of various religious beliefs so that when her friends are being confirmed or celebrating Hanukah or observing Ramadan. she'll have an inkling of what that means to them and won't appear to be a complete philistine. Plus it'll help her do the New York Times crossword puzzle later in life.

The thing is, neither of us is going to sit her down and give her a lesson on the major world religions, so much of what she will come to know of each religion, other than our very broad and unimpassioned version, she will come by in her interactions with those who subscribe to those religions. And my hope is that when she hears something that gives her pause, she'll talk to us about it.

One evening just before Christmas, Ruby was riding her tricycle in manic circles around the kitchen singing this really long, weird song. She told me to say, "Ladies and Gentlemen! Introducing...Ruby Gianna Meza singing God's Song!" I started filming a few minutes in.

GOD'S SONG
by Ruby Meza

He doesn’t know when God is coming to save him.
God, baby Jesus!
God, come!
You don’t know that Baby Jesus is in your heart.
Cause you don’t know her.
We still can’t live in people’s bodies by themselves.
People can’t wander in somebody’s body
cause they can’t go in the dream that they wanna go in.
That they wanna go in.
When they want go in.
God lets them go in
people’s stomachs
and people get some food to eat
and they live in your heart forever.
God lives in your heart forever.
Cause one! two! three!
God lives in your heart forever.
You don’t know what she’s in.
And she doesn’t know that he’s
in your heart forever.
And she doesn’t know
that she’s on the computer
and she wants to sing
like her God and her father
and if she doesn’t know that her little brother
is in his stomach,
but one! two! three!
She doesn’t know that she’s in her stomach.
One! two! Three!
She’s in her stomach
but you don’t live,
he’s in your stomach,
she’s trying to get out of her body.
It’s been a long time to get out of this dishwasher
and God doesn’t know
if she’s pregnant or not. Whoooo!!!

Her daycare providers are her aunt and her cousin Liz, and they're fairly religious, so I assumed that's where she got the God living in your heart forever part. I figured they had talked about the Christmas story at daycare, although I did think it was odd that they would go that deeply into the pregnancy of Mary, with Jesus in her stomach trying to get out. But, whatever. Maybe that's a big part of the Catholic Christmas story.

A few days later, Liz was telling me about how one of the little girls at daycare decided she doesn't want a little brother. Liz told her that it's too late--Jesus already put the baby in her mom's stomach, and so she was getting a little brother whether she wanted him or not. A light went on, and I told Liz about the song Ruby had been singing, and we got a good laugh out of it. It sounds like Ruby got a whole bunch of information that was new to her in a short amount of time, and "God's Song" was my opportunity to see how her little brain wraps itself around ideas that are very difficult for a 4-year-old to grasp, then spits them back out.

Given this song, I'll probably wait a couple of years before trying to familiarize her with the concepts of religion.