July 5, 2004 - Monday
This is a picture of one of the jumping castles that our town had for kids to play in during the Independence Day celebration on Saturday and that's Harry sitting out front after having spent at least an hour jumping inside this one and two others. But, I took this picture for a little different reason.

Harry's mother and I have been reading Harry chapters from the Little House books, the "Laura and Mary" stories, occasionally over the last several weeks. For the most part the chapters in these books stand on their own as little stories and, therefore, work pretty well for Harry, who has sufficient focus to stay listening for the 10-20 big print pages of a chapter. They're interesting and adventurous stories, too, about another, older time when things were a little different and a little more basic and they often serve to explain general principles of life we need to teach. For example, Harry asked today about why I give the gas station attendant my credit card and I used a chapter we'd just read that included Pa trading furs for goods at the general store to explain that we use money to keep track of our trading and how the credit card keeps track of the money. Of course, there are also more difficult issues in the chapters, like Pa hunting with his gun or meeting a bear in the woods, and sometimes we'll see Harry working through those ideas in his play. But, at least the Little House books never get too scary or too controversial.

About a week ago after reading a chapter which included talk of Sundays and prayers, I asked Harry if he and mommy, or anyone else, had ever talked about prayers or God. He said 'no,' so I took a stab at introducing the concept. I said something like, "some people, lots of people, believe that there is a God who lives up in the sky, in Heaven, and looks upon us all and protects us all. Prayers are the way we talk to God and ask him to protect us." I think I said something about God creating the world and how God always knows and sees everything and how that idea gives lots of people great comfort. Harry didn't say too much at first.
"Why does he not fall down," Harry asked, showing a grasp of empirical thinking that I just have to admire.
"That's a very good question, Harry, and I don't really have a good answer for you."
"Do you believe it?" he eventually asked after I had bounced around a little more trying to explain.
"Well, Harry, I tend to think that the idea of man sitting in the sky is a little too literal," although I didn't figure Harry really understood what being too literal was all about, but I didn't know how else to say it. "I tend to think that it's probably a little too simplistic to think of a man sitting up in the sky, but that perhaps there is something greater than us that connects us all together and perhaps watches over us in some way and keeps us safe."

I had tried to take an approach that would present the idea of God to Harry as a possibility, something for him to consider and decide about for himself. There was a little more to it than what I remember now, including trying to explain to Harry how important God can be to other people and in society in general. Maybe I succeeded a little and failed a little. I guess Harry was at least thinking about it because a week later just before I took this picture Harry pointed to this castle and happily said something like, "those are two rockets on top and that's God in the middle."


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