How Religion Colors Our World

I was about Abby's age now -- maybe 5 -- when my dad explained the concept of atoms to me. I grasped the essence of what he said, as in , that the universe was made of tiny little particles so small that no one can see them. Of course, in our part of the world, we say our 'd's as 't's, so I heard 'adam' instead of 'atom'. For years, I pondered the little tiny men wearing animal skins who made up the universe. Imagine my surprise in the fifth grade when we had to construct a model of an atom: it did not look like a tiny man wearing animal skins. Enough said.

Today in church, Abby was coloring a rock (yes, one from outside) with a crayon and announces, "You can't make blue because it's a church color!"

Me, very confused: "What?"

"Blue is a church color, so you can't make it out of anything."

"No, Abby, blue is a primary color." Then, "Oh. Primary. Right." Then, "Well, that's not exactly what that means  . . . " Then, "never mind."


On another note, Abby has been spending a lot of time fake reading in her room. I thought it was fake, at least, until I pulled out a brand new book tonight that she'd never seen. She looked at it and said, "Ooh, Mom and Me CookBook Have Fun In the ... k-i-t-ch-e-n. What is that word?" We haven't even worked on her reading for a long time. It just confirms my theory that all you have to do to learn something difficult is to introduce it to yourself and let your mind process it on its own without your intervention. It works! (This only works when what you're learning is tied to a system of thought, rather than when you have to memorize a whole bunch of crap dates from history class.)