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Saturday, Jul 11, 2009
My son hates church, but I make him go anyway. It's good to do uncomfortable things -- it's weight training for life.
Jul 4, 2003 | Sam is about to turn 14.
I am not sure how this happened. Maybe I fed him too much. Maybe I got distracted by trying to resist the cruelest administration in history, by a joyful love affair now 18 months old, and did not notice time passing so quickly. Thirteen is different: It's training-wheels adolescence. Fourteen is hardcore, biker adolescence. And yet, I can often see the boy he has always been -- inventive, sweet, playful, gangly, magic -- even as I can glimpse the man he is becoming. He's handsome, stylish, thin as a rail. He still has a deep goodness: Once on a bad day, when he was 2, I realized I hated children and was going to have to let him go, but my friend Pammy said, "Sam has a deep sweetness." So I kept him. Now there's the sweet boy, the man he's becoming, but also, as I have previously mentioned, there's an evil presence I call "Phil" who has chosen Sam as a host body.
Phil is hairy and scary and awful. He was here yesterday. When I asked him to take his dishes to the sink, he looked disbelieving, as if he'd heard wrong, as if I had just asked if he'd carry his dishes to the sink. Why didn't he just go ahead and carry rocks up from the quarry for me?
But he did it, and a little later, Sam came back, and we played with the dog and sat on the couch together for a while -- I read, he drew. That night we went our separate ways -- he to "The Hulk" with friends, I to the marvelous Maori movie, "Whale Rider." He was home by 11, his curfew, with two moosey pals. They think I'm semi-OK because I have dreads, and because they are not stuck with me.
We all got up at 10 for church. Sam has to go to church with me every two weeks, and his friends often tag along. They don't hate church, because no one is making them go. They are actually all believers, too, cool guys, who sometimes pray. One of them prayed with us when we were caught in a snowstorm on a ski trip. I know Sam believes that Jesus is true -- why wouldn't he be? Still, he mocks me for being a Jesus freak, even though in the middle of the night when he can't sleep, he wakes me up for prayer and a backrub.
But he hates church.
So why do I make him go? Because I want him to. These are bewildering, drastic times we live in, and a little spiritual guidance never killed anyone. And I think it's a fair compromise, that it's only every other week. Also, I make him go because I can -- I wrote a piece about this years ago, about why I made him go to church, and this was the main reason. And I still can. He has no job, no car, no income. He's basically a freeloader. He needs to stay in my good graces.
I love him more than life itself, but while he lives at my house, he has to do things my way. Also, I think there are worse things for kids than to have to spend time with people who love God; teenagers who do not go to church are also adored by God, but they don't get to meet some of the people who love God back. Learning to love back is the hardest part of being alive.
Many good people think you should let kids find an authentic spiritual connection in the world, by letting them experiment with different traditions and worship services. That's very nice. Many good people also think Bush is our duly elected president, and that the war is over in Iraq. I can't go by what other people think. Besides, since Sam is the only teenager he knows who has to go to church, I can't send him to other churches, or temples, or mosques, or Zen practice, with his friends' families, because they don't go.
I try to help it go down as easily as possible. We stop at McDonald's on the way, we hang out at Best Buy on the way home. He doesn't complain all that much. Maybe I've broken his spirit; my wild pony of Chincoteague.
When we got to church last Sunday, he and his friends went to sit with the other teenagers, in the back. This is one of the main reasons I still make him go, because there is a youth group now, that meets every two weeks, in a room away from the grown-ups and the little kids. The leaders give them special snacks, cocoa packets and pastry. Some might call this a "bribe." I certainly would. I'm all for bribery when it's for a good cause. I think God does a lot of bait-and-switch. Peter gets a boatload of fish, then gets to become a disciple. We're herd animals, donkey-people, and sometimes a bright orange carrot is the only thing that will get us to move.
I make him go because the youth-group leaders know things that I don't. They know what teenagers are looking for, and need -- they need adults who have stayed alive and vital, adults they wouldn't mind growing up to be. They are terrified that growing up means you become the anxious, overworked adults who surround them. And they need radical acceptance of who they are, to receive welcome in whatever condition life has left them -- needy, walled-off, glowering. They want guides, a certain kind of adult who knows how to act like an adult but with a kid's heart. They want people who will sit with them and talk about the big questions, without answers, adults who won't correct their feelings, or pretend not to be afraid. They are looking for adventure, for experience, pilgrimages and thrills. And then they want a home they can return to, where things are stable, and welcoming. I mean, how crazy can you get?
