The Anarchist finds Jesus...in her heart...he's trapped...someone help him!

The Anarchist and the Dictator read
a book with Grandpa Drex.  Maybe
the Anarchist is absorbing some of his
pastory-ness by osmosis?

Maybe it's in the air.  It is Lent, after all.  Or maybe it's that old book of the Bureaucrat's full of children's prayers that got handed down to her.  Or maybe it's just in her blood (she is a pastor's grandkid...a PGK?)  Whatever the reason, the Anarchist has taken up a profound interest in discussing God.

Now, the Anarchist has always been more"spiritual" than her sister.  The Dictator refuses to say grace at meals, rolls her eyes a lot during theological discussions, and spent most of the little time she actually has experienced at an institutional church obsessing about the placement of her stuffed animals on the pews.  Meanwhile, in the same institutional churches, the Anarchist spent the vast majority of her time yelling out, "GLORY to GOD!!  GLORY!!  GLORY!!" and "A-MEN!" which would have been less notable if we had been at a nice pentecostal church or a tent revival, but in the midst of suburban Catholic or Lutheran church you get odd looks when your child runs around spouting off praise like a worked up televangelist.  But what can we say...it's in her blood.  And we like it that way.

"GLORY!!! GLORY!!!"

That being said, neither the Dictator nor the Anarchist have received any real theological education.  I mean, they know all the words to a vast majority of Veggie Tales songs, have seen manger scenes, and are forced to overhear constant discussions on eschatology, but no one has actually dragged them to Vacation Bible School, or Catechism classes, or Sunday School, or whatever it is normal kids are exposed to, so they are, as yet, spiritually un-formed. 

Which apparently irked the Anarchist.  Because she started asking questions.  Deep questions.

"Where's God?"  "Is God a man?"  "Is God in my heart?"  "Does God talk?"  "Can I hear God?"  "Where is my heart?"  "What is my dirty poop made of?"  "Did God make my dirty poop?" "Is God bigger than the whole world?" "Where does my food go after I eat it?"

Deep.

Of course, the Bureaucrat and I felt particularly well-equipped to answer such questions.  After all, the entire reason our children have not been exposed to traditional religious education is that we find it sorely lacking, even potentially harmful and irresponsible.  Introducing children to bad theology early in life is probably worse than not introducing them at all; and being well-read and having strong opinions on the topic, we decided that we  should be the ones to answer our kids' questions about God.  This was a perfect opportunity.

I set about explaining, as concisely and as accurately as possible (while leaving room for questions, mystery and the like, of course), spiritual matters to my three year old.  By the time I was done, I was glowing with warm, melty feelings of love and goodness.  The Anarchist used her little, awed voice to tell me how much she loved to talk to God, how much she wanted to pray to say thank you for everything, and how wonderful she thought the whole ordeal was.  Perfect.

At dinner, she recounted her new awareness to her father.  This is, apparently, what she took away from our discussion:

God is a hermaphrodite who lives in your heart, is digested, and comes out your belly (insert preschool giggles here).
God is really big, but lives in your heart and can't get out.  (S)he's trapped.  (Deciding this might be heretical, we attempted to explain that God isn't trapped inside of anything, but the Bureaucrat ended up stumbling into Pantheism and had to be cut off).
God is that candle (the one on the kitchen table...from Bath and Body Works...because apparently God can't be bothered to inhabit/exist as a soy candle).
God has a voice like Daddy's, but doesn't talk much.
God is extraordinarily surprised to discover that your green Zhu Zhu pet is, in fact, a hamster, and expresses this surprise in a squeaky girly voice (which sounds nothing like Daddy's).

Sigh.  So maybe now I can see the wisdom in the, "God is a skinny version of Santa Claus who lives in the clouds, shoots bad guys with lighting and loves you very much" version of theology.  No.  No I can't.  But I have a feeling I may have to correct a tiny Anarchist's entanglement of deity and digestive processes.  You live, you learn.  Maybe I should enroll in an anatomy class.

The Dictator looks happy at church, but that's
only because it is Catholic, and therefore, predictable.
The Anarchist feels that the Catholic church lacks an
appropriate amount of emphasis on the human
digestive process.