Today was 9/11. I was reminded all day about how powerful my feelings of community were then. I was so American...I mean really American. I was all about going after whoever the hell did this. I was all about singing the national anthem and being a patriot. And then this idiot president ruined everything. We had a chance, a moment to be brilliant and fabulous. And because we had the most selfish man on the planet in history as our president, nothing changed for the better. Everything got worse! We needed a hero and we got a numnuts. And I was feeling kind of mad about it. And I was feeling kind of mad at Democrats for not rising above it and being better. And I was mad at ABC and its bull.
And then I went to teach my 8th grade religious ed class.
These kids were 8 when 9/11 happened. They have no idea what a Republican is or a Democrat. They don't really understand why radical Muslims would hate us because they don't even know what a Muslim is. And they ask cute questions like:
"what's a Protestant?"
"if I have so many sins I can't remember them all, can I still confess?"
"how much is too much eating to count for gluttony, because I can eat a lot?"
"what's a schism (I reply, it's a cleavage)...(lots of giggling here) oh my gosh she said cleavage...we know what a cleavage is"
"do we have to drink that communion wine, I mean, that stuff tastes horrible"
"when I genuflect do I have to kneel?"
"you know you're in trouble when your penance is a prayer you've never heard of...by the way, what do I do when that happens to me?"
I am hoping that somewhere, some Muslim religious education teacher (and some Protestant religious education teacher and some LDS religious education teacher and some Jewish religious education teacher) is saying, we believe X and someone else believes Y and someone else doesn't believe anything...but it's all good. Let's make it safer for this next generation.
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