Limbo

The word limbo originated from a Catholic Definition, meaning  in-between the outer layer of hell, in accordance with Dante. It has since progressed since that time to just mean a stage of in-between. A time where there is no solidification,  no one place, no permanence, an texistence between two different realms. 

Limbo. Our entire life is a limbo.

 But, this is not what  I'm not going to write about.

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I heard the whirling repetitive wind of the fan as  her small lips uttered words of Jesus. The pictures in the book were colorful, the words were simple. "Jesus was King!"  She sat back, her Jonas Brothers flannel pajamas contrasted the pale pink of her wallpaper. The corner of her room was peeling, exposing a weathered off-white wall,  the peeling printed flowers wilting. "Jesus was the King, and he was born in Bethlehem."

I looked over at her wall. There was a Psalm 2 on her written on a polished, shiny tree trunk that contained a blurry reflection half my face as I read it.  Next to it, a picture of Hanna Montana, that read, 'Girls Rock!'

"He was King." She kept reading, the fan lulling my thoughts, her words familiar yet as they left her mouth, floated into the air above her, the sound falling,  becoming foreign. Those words formed another language.

She looked at me, each Jonas brother on her shirt, smiling. "Wait. So, if Mary was Jesus's mother, how come her husband wasn't Jesus's dad?" she asked.

I paused. 

For a while back in high school, I used to teach Sunday school at an Episcopal church. Every Sunday I would pick a lesson from the Bible, read it to the children, grades 4-6. I would then assign them exciting art projects to do that adhered to the moral lesson. I asked them questions, like, "What is right and what is wrong?" or "How do you become a good person?" It wasn't so much that I held the words I read to them to be absolute Truth, but rather, I liked hearing what kids would say when you asked them philosophical questions. I was 17, selfish, immature, insecure and vapid. I was, an American  teenager. I had sex. I drank booze. I smoked pot in my hot tub while I was naked with the opposite sex. I snuck out of my basement window when my parents were sleeping. I toilet papered houses.  I was not moral.

 However, every Sunday, I was someone who could make the class of 6 kids think. I liked this. 

I guess, my Sunday's were cheap, knock-off version of  Bill Cosby's show, "Kids Say the Darndest Things."

When asked,  "What is the difference between right and wrong?" a little girl, named Sara responded, "Well, I guess it is when you know deep down what you did will hurt someone else!"

I still use that definition to establish and perfect my own binary of right/wrong in morality. 

So here I am, eight years later, realizing my own disconnect from this small girl reading me words of Jesus. Her world is  full of things I cannot understand, Ke$ha, Jonas Brothers, Hanna Montana, using Youtube to find dance music, texting her mom and emailing her grandmother.  Now, she thinks that the words and stories she is reading to me, to be real. To her, they are Absolute Truth. In her life, there is no limbo. To her, everything makes sense. If not, someone has the answer. 

I pause. I look at the Psalm, I look at her Jonas Brother Pajamas, the Hanna Montana on the wall, and I answer.

"Well, to some people, mostly Catholics, they believe that Jesus planted the Seed into Mary's belly. Mary's husband isn't Jesus's father-- Jesus has a father and that is God."  and then, I say, "Uh, Yeah, Jesus was also brown!"

"What? Well then, God could be purple," She said.

I read her another story, the one about the three wise men. I think about how awful the frankincense smelled every Christmas Eve for two hours during service.  I close the book and put it down on her nightstand. 

 I look at her, her room with the peeling wallpaper, the walls with the strange symbols. Here, Hanna Montana, Jesus and the Jonas Brothers are all smiling their straight, white teeth at me. I don't know how Mary got pregnant, I don't know what Jesus did, I just know he existed.  I don't know who the Jonas Brothers are and I don't know if God is purple. 

I close the door, turn off the light, shielding my vision from Hanna, Jesus, Jonas and her wilted, peeling flowers.