conversation with 5-year-old spirit...

We were driving along, and an old song came on the radio... "Hey, E...  who's this on the radio?"

"I don't know.  Is it the Beatles?"

"Well, it's one of them...  it's Ringo all by himself."

"I forget... Who are the Beatles that are alive, and who are the ones in heaven?"

"John and George are in heaven."

"Jesus is in heaven, too.  And so is Buddha!"

"Yes.  That's true. But you can invite Jesus and Buddha into your heart and have a conversation with them right now."

"Oh, I don't need to do that because they're sitting right next to me.  They're my brothers.  Did Jesus die before Buddha?"

"No, Buddha lived and died before Jesus was born."

"And what about Ganesha...  when was he alive?"

"Well, the thing is that Ganesha is an idea of God.  He didn't really live in real life, but Jesus and Buddha were real people who had real lives."

"But Ganesha got an elephant head when his dad made a mistake!  That was real!"

"Well, no...  that's a story to teach us something.  Ganesha is like an important character in a story so that we can learn about the world and about God.  But Jesus and Buddha had real lives, and there also are stories about their lives."

"And they are God, too, aren't they?"

"Some people believe that.  They both certainly had great ways of teaching us how to be kind and loving."

"But Jesus and Buddha and the Beatles were alive after the dinosaurs, right?"

- - - -

Later this afternoon E brought her notebook outside so that she could record new animal species she "discovered."  She kept coming up with wild, pretend names for different kinds of birds that do unusual things.  When she was looking at the chickens in the run, she said, "And these are the martyr chickens...  they don't die when you hurt them."

D and I looked at each other... "Where did that come from?"  I wonder if some stray bit got lodged in her mind when she went to church with Grandma on Good Friday?

Comments

[jl]

:) that's funny. i love ellie. and kids. they just express things so honestly.

thank you ellie for making my night end with a smile.

[Stephanie]

Yes, I love these moments too. That reminded me that I had this conversation with K today, after a couple of teenage girls walked by, listening to rap music on an MP3 player-
K- 'What are they listening to?'
Me-'Music on a music player'
K- 'I don't like that kind of music'
Me- 'Me neither. I think I'm too old for that.'
K- 'Me too.'
:-)