“Mom, I’m ready to read the bible.” My son is sitting on the floor of my office with a book in his hand. It’s Gangsta Granny, a satirical children’s book fit for a third grader, adorned with Roald Dahl-esque black and white illustrations scattered throughout the chapters.
I turn to him, utterly taken aback, my expression a mix of bewilderment and bemusement, but he is dead serious. “I read The Wild Robot books and that was like 600 pages, and if I can do that, I can definitely read the bible” he declares with a confidence that sparks uncontrollable laughter from me.
And I can’t stop laughing because this is the most unexpectedly hilarious thing I have ever heard in my life. For the record, he’s eight and hasn’t even changed all of his teeth yet, and the three-part series spans 876 pages, peppered with charming drawings suitable for ages eight to ten. It took him three months, but this kid has no idea what he’s in for with THE BIBLE.
I think about his little plump cherubic face buried in the book of Numbers and another round of laughter hits me. I imagine his little furrowed brow as he writes down words he doesn’t understand so that he can look them up later, my little researcher at the ready, asking questions that I have no idea how to answer. My eyes are tearing at this point.
“Why are you laughing? You read it, why can’t I read it? I’m old enough,” he’s incredulous, growing up too fast for me, echoing the arguments of a teenager. I have no words, I open and shut my mouth, like a fish out of water, scrambling for words. I close my eyes and try again, thinking of what to say. Oh my God, what on earth brought this on? This can’t be happening.
“Um… uh… How about a children’s bible? I think Grandma has one at her house,” I suggest, attempting to pacify him, while barely holding down a nervous laugh. I go through a mental rolodex of all of the religious books I think I actually have in our library downstairs. I only have a New Testament, hardly sufficient for this ambitious fellow, but he’ll want the Old Testament too. I think there’s a Talmud, but that might be in Hebrew. I have the Quran… I sigh deeply. I think I might have to buy one if my mother doesn’t have one.
“I don’t want a children’s bible,” he’s annoyed and insulted now. “Seriously what’s that going to be, like five pages? Oh, once upon a time there was a bible, the end. I want a real one, I’m ready. I can handle it. I only read chapter books now.”
“Well, we’ll see Grandma this weekend. I bet she has one, and if she doesn’t, we’ll see about getting you one.” He seemed appeased for the moment. I kind of hope he forgets, but will be intrigued if remembers because it means that he has a seeking spirit.
I think I recall getting a children’s bible from, drum roll please, an obeah shop, as my Jamaican friends would call it. It smelled pretty good, having absorbed all of the high-quality incense they burn there, with colorful illustrations, and simplified language. It was so pretty that at the time even my younger brother found it captivating.
I remember how, at the time, it felt like a fictional narrative with archaic language stripped away, tailored for young minds. Getting it was required for AP English I think, which was bizarre because I went to public school. I don’t remember writing anything about it although I certainly did. I wonder what happened to it. It’s definitely at Grandma’s house.
I have long stopped laughing as I think of what his eight-year-old brain will make of the stories and lessons to be learned. I don’t think he’s ready.
My mother tells me that in Haiti children aren’t allowed to read the bible until they’re in their teens because the content is considered pretty risqué. I mentally scoff at this because I distinctly remember trying to read it when I was ten.
It was one of the very few books we had. There was Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet, which I have to give my father credit for because well, we were Catholic, and there were nudes in it. I have no idea how he came by it, a gift maybe? There was also Memoires d’un Libertin, which I never opened because my mother told me that I should not, and that it had inappropriate content. At the time, I thought the word libertin meant freedom, and vaguely wondered what this guy was being freed from.
So yes, the bible. I read it although I was technically not supposed to because no one told me that it was off limits. Also, having to go to CCD class every Sunday, I thought that I might as well figure out what the excitement was all about.
I never finished it a that age and I don’t think my son will either. I gave up during that chapter of all that begetting, realizing that: wait a minute, this wasn’t my history, these aren’t my ancestors, I’m not Jewish, and the pictures at church are all of people who don’t look like me or my family. Why was I Catholic, again? No one explained it to me. So of course I had a crisis of faith, and was lost in a sea of sacrilegious confusion at fourteen. There wasn’t any bible study for Catholics, or at least not at the time.
It’s only well into adulthood that I understood the significance and context of the bible, and came to appreciate the stories and the lessons it taught. It’s only then that I saw the beauty in Jesus’ life and figured out how my life could mirror His.
No, my son is not ready because I wasn’t either at his age, and the journey will be harder than he thinks. But I will not–I refuse–to let him walk it alone.
Jennifer Lauture 