A Sunday School Teacher I Am Not

I admire the folks who volunteer their time as Sunday school teachers. They inspire hope, nurture faith and tie shoes if need be, guiding our impressionable youth along life’s uncertain path. It’s a thankless job at times, I imagine, yet one that is rich with pockets of priceless commentary. Commentary that spills forth without censorship. Without tact. Without shame.

Kids are a trip. That’s a given. And no where on earth could that truth be more evident than Sunday school—a venue where openness is welcomed and children are encouraged to ponder the great mysteries of the world and to dig deep for answers—inviting equal doses of wonder and hilarity. Yet despite its wealth of undeniable high points, I cannot bring myself to become a Sunday school teacher.

Not now. Not ever.

For starters, it’s highly probable I’d swear like a sailor if I stubbed my toe during class or suddenly realized I left my damned windows down in the pouring rain. I can’t pronounce three-quarters of the stinking names in the Bible and I couldn’t say which books are located in the Old Testament (as opposed to the New Testament) to save my soul. Forever, it seems, I’ve wrestled with understanding the whole church calendar thing and I’ve struggled mightily with both geography and the subject of history since the dawn of time. So it’s no surprise that I’d find the B.C./A.D. thing infinitely challenging (if not impossible!) to impart to anyone—let alone swarming masses of grade-schoolers.

But mostly, my doubts stem from knowing that I stink to high Heaven when it comes to fielding the many and varied questions that routinely tumble from the mouths of my seven-year-old charges, Thing One and Thing Two. Like the time one of them earnestly whispered in my ear upon finishing the Lord’s Prayer one Sunday, “When I get all these things memorized, I get to drink the wine, right, Mom?” I was rendered speechless with that little gem, eventually muttering something about it being her father’s turn to respond to such foolishness. But the most recent religion-related Q & A session to which I was a party (i.e. my pitiful attempt to answer the unanswerable) unfolded thusly while taxiing the pair hither and yon:

Thing One: “Mom, where did the oceans come from? Was there a big flood or something?”

Me, chugging along on fumes after another fun-filled (read: horrendously exhausting) day of summer vacation home with the heathens: “I don’t know. God made the oceans, I guess,” I offered, half yawning, half wishing my husband had been there to address that one. At least he’d have come up with something reasonable on short notice—something suitably stated, if not flawlessly delivered. Out of guilt and necessity, I snapped out of my mid-afternoon lethargy and continued, “Yes, God made the oceans and there was a big flood, but that happened waaaaay after the fact.”

Thing One (ostensibly less than satisfied with my response): “But where did the oceans really come from?”

Me: “Where does anything come from?” I tossed back with bravado, in a rhetorical-yet-challenging fashion, utterly convinced she’d be stumped, and completely pleased with myself for having rallied with confidence, despite my limited arsenal of knowledge as it relates to creationism.

After a deliciously long pause during which I imagined great weeping and gnashing of teeth, Thing Two offered up the unexpected, “Milk comes from cows.”

Then I began the terrible weeping and gnashing of teeth, gripping my steering wheel in frustration, wondering how the tables had turned so quickly and how she had totally missed my pitifully argued point. The pressure was on to perform. To provide guidance and assurance.

To save face.

“Yes, milk does come from cows,” I groused through clenched teeth, wondering if and when she’d begin quoting Animal Planet purely for my benefit.

“But where do cows come from?” I countered, praying the circus would soon end. And after another lengthy gap in the conversation, she enlightened me with a blurb for which I had no sage advice. My supply of snappy comebacks had been all but depleted for the afternoon.

“From their mothers. Cows come from their mothers, Mom,” she stated as if she were telling me the sky was blue and that ducks sometimes quack.

That being said, I’m no candidate for teaching Sunday school. The future doesn’t look all that promising either—unless and until I can outwit a seven-year-old.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live. Visit me there at www.notesfromplanetmom.com.

Copyright 2008 Melinda L. Wentzel