Good Grief: He's a God

Our 3 year old has been amusing us lately with random Charlie Brown quotes. At first I thought he was learning different phrases at school but then it slowly became apparent that he has moved from "being" Little Bill to being Charlie Brown. From "good grief" to re-enacting Lucy tricking Charlie Brown into kicking the football, our house is filled with Peanuts these days. (Of course, I can't help but notice the irony of that considering that we're a peanut-free house due to Neil's severe peanut allergy.)

Tonight, as the evening was winding down - and, as a side note, today was amazingly calm compared to yesterday - Neil repeated one of his favorite, new phrases which is, "Will you say grace?" (From the Thanksgiving episode.) He has no idea what grace is and thinks saying grace is merely that: saying "grace". For him to hone in on that phrase is both amusing and troublesome since neither Chris nor I consider ourselves Christian and saying grace is, as far as I know, primarily a Christian ritual (although showing thankfulness for food is likely to be something that all or most religions include). I decided it was time that I try to explain to him what it meant to say grace.

Try is the operative word. I began by asking him if he'd like to know what saying "grace" meant and he did. I then proceeded to explain that saying grace was a way to be thankful for food and for sharing that food with loved ones. The big elephant in the room, or in my head rather, was how to explain who is being thanked. Although I'm not Christian, I respect all faiths and did not want to misrepresent Christianity in my explanation so I explained that Christians believe in a god and. . .that's when Neil interrupted and said, "I'm a god."

Ok, then.

So, I decided that he was still too young to understand these things, and I just reiterated to him that saying grace was a way to be thankful and that that was a good thing. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't really matter what religion that sentiment is tied to - the act itself has its own validity regardless of its basis. Of course, now that I know a god in person, perhaps I could get him to explain the concept of grace to me. Good grief!