Parenting Beyond the Pale

We had the most wonderful invitation to Shabbat dinner...in Gabriel's room!  He has a small Ikea coloring table up there, and he decided that it was high time we all came up to "his house" for Shabbat.  It was adorable, he cleaned off the table and helped set it, graciously led the blessings and kind-of ate his tuna noodle casserole (it was way too exciting to focus on the food much).  He did really seem to enjoy the challah he'd brought home from the Gan, which he had covered liberally with sesame seeds and cinnamon-sugar.  All and all, it was the best invitation we'd had in a long time!  Gabriel tells me, "It's nice to have visitors for Shabbat!"

I am truly blessed to have such amazing and wonderful friends.  Two of the best are Genevive and Peter, a fellow PhD student and her husband, a pastor.  They came under heavy, public fire this week at their new church because - get this - because they associate with me, a Jew and a lesbian.

I think that Melissa and I are the first gay couple that Gen and Peter have known well, and I count them among our dearest friends.  It pains me that someone attempted to wound them using me as the instrument, but I am fabulously, immeasurably, insanely grateful that they stood up to the accuser and demonstrated the beauty of their characters and the generosity of their courage.  I'm blessed. 

Faith, Hope and Love.  Remember??

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

And when I exclaimed "Noa, what on earth are you eating?" She proudly pointed to the dog dish and said, "CRACKER!"

A couple of degrees in theology are no match for a justice-minded preschooler. The conversation on my bed this morning went like this.

Gabriel: Wake up mama! There was a big spider on my wall and I killed it with Noa’s bear and flicked it off because it was yucky!

Me: Eww. But I thought last week you said that bugs were God’s creatures, and we shouldn’t hurt them.

Gabriel: That’s good bugs. Spiders is not God’s creatures.

Me: They aren’t?

Gabriel: (thinks a moment…) No. God makes all the good stuff, but there is a bad God too and he makes the bad stuff like spiders. And boo boos and injrees. (He means injuries. I will have to ask the difference between boo boos and injuries…maybe just a matter of degree?) The bad God fights the good God and the good God wants to defeat him.

Me: (sensing trouble) Um, well. There certainly are people who have said that. Usually Jews think that there is just one God and that God is good. But there is a bad “power” in the world. And we get to be superheroes and try to help God defeat the bad power and make the world good.

Gabriel looks at me skeptically. I went too far with the superheroes bit. I think we’ll be returning to this discussion.

 Well, folks, it was just a matter of time.  I've finally been publicly accused of promoting avodah zarah.  (That's idol worship to some of you.)  Well, it was bound to happen.  I mean, some of my best friends are heretics and idol worshippers.  I guess it rubbed off.  [...and maybe now they all will be receiving toasters?]

My loved ones will be nodding sagely as they read this; they knew it was coming.  That Erica just can't pass up a good heresy. 

Hopefully it's not catching.  Please wash your hands responsibly after reading this post.