At the Smithville Methodist Church

At The Smithville Methodist Church


It was supposed to be Arts & Crafts
for a week,
but when she came home
with the "Jesus Saves" button,
we knew what art was up,
what ancient craft.

She liked her little friends.
She liked the songs
they sang when they weren't
twisting and folding paper into dolls.
What could be so bad?

Jesus had been a good man,
and putting faith
in good men was what we had to do
to stay this side of cynicism,
that other sadness.

OK, we said, One week.
But when she came home
singing "Jesus loves me,
the Bible tells me so,"
it was time to talk.
Could we say Jesus

doesn't love you?
Could I tell her the Bible
is a great book certain people use
to make you feel bad?
We sent her back without a word.

It had been so long since we believed,
so long since we needed Jesus
as our nemesis and friend,
that we thought he was
sufficiently dead,

that our children would think of him
like Lincoln
or Thomas Jefferson.
Soon it became clear to us:
you can't teach disbelief
to a child,

only wonderful stories,
and we hadn't a story
nearly as good.
On parents' night there were
the Arts & Crafts all spread out

like appetizers. Then we
took our seats in the church
and the children sang a song
about the Ark,
and Hallelujah

and one in which they had to
jump up and down
for Jesus.
I can't remember ever feeling
so uncertain
about what's comic, what's serious.

Evolution is magical but devoid of heroes.
You can't say to your child
"Evolution loves you." The story stinks
of extinction and nothing

exciting happens for centuries.
I didn't have
a wonderful story for my child
and she was beaming.
All the way home in the car
she sang the songs,

occasionally standing up for Jesus.
There was nothing to do
but drive, ride it out, sing along
in silence.

Stephen Dunn

Posted over on Poetry Archive