Big Bird vs. Goliath

I’m revisiting some thoughts from a few years ago because I still haven’t found an answer that is satisfying.

I begin with this question: How do I teach my kids about God? I know that Silvi and Ian will emulate me, which is a terrifying prospect. They’ll learn about God first through my example. It’s true, I love God deeply but the fact is, I often screw things up. And besides, I don’t want my kids to love God as I do: I want them to love Him better than I do.

I’ve been wandering through the kid’s sections of bookstores, looking at the religious books. It’s a bit frightening, really. Children’s Bible stories with pictures of everyone smiling the same sticky-sweet smile. I mean, come on, when David was walking around town with Goliath’s head in his hand, I think more of William Wallace than of Big Bird. Of course, I don’t believe that my two-year-old daughter will cuddle up with me at night while I flip through a picture book of Braveheart. And so I have a dilemma. Do I buy the Bible picture books with all the happy smiling prophets and lepers and warriors?

I drive my wife crazy with my penchant for focusing on minutia. But I really do think this matters. A lot. It’s taken me a couple of decades to get rid of some of the religious baggage that caused me to walk around like Quasimodo. I know that it is impossible to prevent my kids from having a lot of their own misconceptions about God; it’s part of living with limited perspectives. But I don’t want to make Silvi and Ian’s trek with God more tiring than it has to be. And I have to believe that a childhood of looking at pictures of real people of history like Moses and David and Solomon portrayed with pasted on Crest-white smiles has got to have some kind of an impact.

Maybe I’m making too much of this, or maybe it’s “a guy thing.” I can’t really get into a bunch of smiling vegetables acting out the Last Supper. I did find a few books online at Eerdmans publishing that are at least artistically inspiring. Maybe that’s the best I can hope for in a children’s story book.