religion

I want to finish that posting about food, but I've got religion on the mind at the moment.  Maybe some of you saw my facebook post today.  If not, here it is --

Out of the blue, my very spiritually inclined child started talking about the Virgin Mary last night. She told me Mary was in our house and that they were talking to each other. When I asked her what Mary was saying to her, she said she was telling her to stop sucking on her fingers!

Honestly, it was pretty hilarious, especially because until that moment, she'd had her fingers up near her mouth where they were kind-of inching their way in.  And it's also like a bit of a slap on the back of the head: am I really hearing what I'm hearing? 

Mallika says surprising stuff all the time, and lots of things that really impress me and tell me that she's got a very sophisticated understanding of what goes on around her.  But the spiritual heebeejeebees really make my hair stand on end at times.  She's said she's seen her Tata (Mohan's dad), which doesn't surprise me too much since my own experience has informed me that there was a direct passing of his spirit to hers.  (I haven't had too many of these very clearly "religious experiences" in life, but that was one of them.)  She also talks about Ganesha a lot, always wants her Appuchi to sing "the Ganesha song" over the phone to her, she insists on saying grace at dinner, and she wants to pray almost as often as she wants to read books or hold her dolls.  It's really something else. 

A few weeks ago she got out the Legos she received as a birthday present, made them into a little structure, placed a flower on the top, brought out her baby wash cloths and placed them on the floor in front, put another on her head, and finished up with velcroing a bib around her neck.  Then she stood on the washcloths and put her hands together in prayer!  We were falling over with laughter and amazement to see her immitation of the way her Appuchi prays.  Mind you, last time Appuchi was around for Mallika to observe her praying habits was almost five months ago! 

Also, completely unprompted by us, she long ago adopted the practice of putting holy ash not only on our foreheads (adults should really do that for children, if we were following traditional practices) but on the foreheads of all the deities on our home altar.  And we've got quite a pantheon -- Virgins of Guadalupe, generic Marys, Ganeshas, Buddhas, Baby Jesus, Lakshmi, Saraswathy, San Martin de Porres, and others.  She blesses them all!  Not only that, but she spends a lot of time exploring the details: Ganesha's mouse, the oil lamps in the corners of the pictures, Buddha's umbrella, etc.  In fact, we have two Buddhas, one with an umbrella and another without, and she is always super concerned about the bare-headed Buddha.  And go figure -- we had a long period of time when San Martin de Porres's NOSE was the object of her most concerned attentions and extra special blessings.

I do think my daughter has something special going on with the spirit world, which I find lovely and important and pretty cool.  A good friend recently reflected that she's come to the conclusion that our religious choices/preferences are indicative of what we need to learn in this lifetime.  Nothing more, nothing less.  So we naturally gravitate to the religion best suited for our particular needs (assuming we have the freedom to do so, of course). For me, being raised in the Catholic church was significantly more positive than negative, which largely explains my adult willingness to continue identifying and practicing as a Catholic.  And I also loved the grammar of the liturgy, the sacraments, and the prayers, not to mention the counter-hegemonic teachings about community, justice, and what it means to be human.  When I grew up, I started to see how much damage the church has done both to individuals I love and respect and, throughout history, to peoples, nations, other religions.  It's hard to look it in the face, for sure.

Mostly I just hope I can teach my daughter well and allow her to teach me too.  There's a lot to learn in life, whatever form or discipline or practice we pursue.

Peace,
Briana