Religion was not a topic of discussion in my home. My mother grew up Methodist, but since then, with her readings and expansions, stopped carrying those beliefs with her. In my home were statues of Buddhas, Hindu gods and goddesses, books on Confucius, and Native American remedies. But even with these views, I went to a Christian daycare where I learned about the basics of Christianity. In this, stemmed my hatred towards VeggieTales–a show about Christianity with vegetables for characters. It was my least favorite part of the day, where all us kids would gather around the projector, and we, not including me, would jump with glee as we loved VeggieTales. I usually sat in the back, alone with my critical thoughts. I would look around the room at my, for a lack of a better word, peers, and couldn’t fathom that these children believed in any of this.
My hatred towards this show stemmed from my own views on Jesus and the religion: I thought it was a fairytale. At the age of four, I was already having the long and highly-debated, existential thoughts on the matter of Christianity and its God–i.e., all religion at its soul base. I was not a child who was influenced by the words of adults, and my mother never discussed matters of religion to me, in any way, therefore making my views on this subject matter, solely based on my old soul trying to connect dots to my four-year-old brain.
It wasn’t just the viewing of a tomato and a cucumber on the screen, trying to influence the already-susceptible-to-pressure of thoughts, that made me believe this branch of faith was a fairytale, but also talks of the Bible and Jesus never held my attention and made me wonder when the day when Jesus would arrive would happen. Rather, these talks made me go into my own mind, and zone out any words someone was speaking. Now, I wonder if my ability to listen to a person–whenever they are trying to teach me something or tell me something–but not comprehend or remember two words they said, comes from my zoning out during preschool.
As a toddler, I went to Sunday school. It was my first or second day there, and I entered the colorful room with Noah Ark’s animals. As tears formed in my eyes as my mother dropped me off at the classroom, the teacher told me to have a seat and gave me animal crackers and water…or the Blood of Jesus–I cannot remember which drink of choice it was. I was a shy child, and sat alone, observing the room and eating those delicious animal crackers you get in that fun box with a little handle that could now, in this age, be considered as “camp” in the fashion world, out of a Dixie cup.
At some point, we all lined up, and the teacher told us we were going to look for Jesus. We walked out of the classroom and through the church, where silence and grace fell upon the building as the words of God were being spoken to the adults in another room. Our little children’s feet marched in unison as we followed behind our teacher. Giggles from the juvenile echoed in the empty place of worship.
“Where’s Jesus? Where is Jesus?” The Sunday school teacher kept repeating. She proceeded to ask us if we had found Jesus yet. To which, in unison, in our little high pitched voices, “No Miss So-and-So, we have not found Jesus! But we will look and look until we find him.” Or maybe this is not what was said, for I add a bit of drama to add an effect of eeriness out of finding not a real person, but only a mere thought held in a certain space of faith.
We walked around the Church and stopped at the receptionist desk where our teacher asked, “Mrs. Johnson” – I am sure that wasn’t her last name but sounds the most accurate for the last name of a receptionist –”have you seen Jesus anywhere?” Mrs. Johnson replied that she had not but encouraged us to keep looking. By then, I was ready to leave the Church all together and walk home. I became annoyed at my teacher and my peers, for believing we were actually going to find this man everyone calls Jesus. We continued to walk around the Church and as I dragged my feet, I thought to myself: Jesus is not real and even if he was, he would not be in a random small town Church in the bayou of Florida; for he has other pressing matters to be held too.
And so, for hours (maybe 10 minutes), me and the minions, my peers, went around the ever expanding Church, with my teacher calling out every few minutes, “Where is Jesus?” I stayed silent the entire time, not due to my shyness but from self-control, as if I were to open my mouth, criticism mixed with annoyance would announce: How at risk are you all, really, to truly believe we are actually going to find this man humankind has no physical proof was even real in the first place, in our Church, right now, in the small bayou bay of Florida?
We actually did end up finding Jesus, in a mural, I believe.
Le Commune Review 
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