We were saying the blessing at dinner two days ago, and Rowdy Rebel asked, “Mommy why do we have to close our eyes?” (He doesn’t understand the blessing concept yet. Always interrupts the blessing with comments and questions. And they take forever to answer. Also, insists on saying his own blessing, so we often end up saying two of them, unless it’s his turn, then we say one.)

So, I told him that when we talk to God, we usually close our eyes.

Then he asked, “Who’s God?” His face was really puzzled but interested. So, I explained that God is kind of like a Daddy, but really big, and he lives in the sky.

Deep Thinker joined in and added, “Yeah, or maybe he lives in our HEARTS.”

Then Rowdy Rebel said (not joking), “Yeah, or maybe…maybe he lives in my EAR.”

So, after lessons today, I asked, “Hey, do you still feel like you and Phil are studying well together?”

Deep Thinker responded, “Oh, yeah. We make a good team. Phil is a quiet and serious man, and I am a quiet and serious man. It works perfect.”

On a side note, shortly after this, another God question. (Mind you, it has been at least 7 months since we’ve been to church. I don’t really talk about God at home with them, but I should try. We say the blessing at dinner time, and that’s pretty much it. Deep Thinker is just a big God lover of his own making.) SO, he asked, “Hey Mom, do you think God plans out our whole life when we’re a baby in our mom’s belly? Or does he just plan it day by day?”

He’s a little deep for age 6. Hence his blog nick name Deep Thinker.

So I said, “What do you think? Do you think that’s true?”

He said “yeah” and nodded his head. I think if I’d asked questions about God, he would have delved right into them and probably changed his mind several times, but I didn’t have a chance because he had another thought.

He said, “Maybe when a baby is born, that baby was living in another family and died.”

And I said, “Could an old lady die and be born as a little boy?”

His answer: “No. She can’t just DIE and then become a BOY.”

“God, thank you for my brothery. Thank you that my brothery is eating. Thank you that my Mommy is eating. Thank you that my Daddy is eating…God, thank you that Daddy is going to bring me a big, purple toy. It’s not my brothery’s toy. It’s mine.”

1) Question: “Mom, was God ever a kid?” (He means God as opposed to Jesus. He feels he understands stuff about Jesus, though he still wants to learn more.)

2) Question: “Mom, is there a Mrs. God?”

3) Actually, this is one of his answers–it’s about God and the sun. We were talking about the sun and how it’s just a bunch of burning gas and how it stays in the sky in a spherical shape. I asked, “I wonder why God made empty planets and suns in the sky?” My son responded without hesitating, “Because he wants people to go to space! If there were no planets, people wouldn’t go!”

Today in church the message was that we need to let God shine and work through us, since he uses our hands and bodies to change the world and do good things.

On the way home, I was explaining this to my six-year old.

Nodding is head, he asked, “Oh, is that why God gave Santa Claus powers?”

Love it.

We learned that newly hatched bald eagles attach to the first moving thing they see as their mother, even if it is an animal other than an eagle, or even a human.

For a few months, he stopped talking about eagles. Then yesterday, he suddenly started lecturing me about not being near bald eagles when they hatch–apparently the first thing a baby bald eagle spots moving is taken to be the parent, and the baby birds attaches to it. My son said, “DON’T MOVE if you’re near a bald eagle when it hatches out of its egg!!! The baby bird will think you are its MOM.”

He vowed, “Mom, if I’m ever near a bald eagle when it hatches, I’m gonna FREEZE. What if the eagle saw me and thought I was its parent? I’m not ready to be a DAD. I’m just a KID!“

Deep Thinker is going through a phase of asking lots of questions about God and heaven. So, we were on our way to school, and he pointed to a house as we walked by it, and asks, “Mom, are there houses in heaven?”

I said, “Well, I am not sure. People might not need houses there, because their bodies might be different. Maybe they are invisible, or maybe they are always warm. They might not need houses to protect them.”

Perplexed, he asked, “Then where do they put the BEDS??”

One evening, the children playing shepherds practiced the line, “No Samaritans allowed!” over and over. On the way home afterward, my son asked, “Mom, why did the shepherds say ‘No Samaritans allowed?’”

I answered in the simplest terms possible, “Well, the shepherds were Jews. They didn’t like Samaritans.”

He squinted his eyes and asked in a low, serious voice, “Why Mom? Were the Samaritans girls?”