“First Lessons in Faith”

I am sitting in the front seat of a car with Dad.  Perhaps I am four years old.  We are parked on a street near the garden apartment in Bayside where we lived before we moved to Connecticut.  The car is not moving; we are just sitting there talking.  We must have just come from somewhere, because Dad is in the driver’s seat and I am next to him.  But at such a young age, wouldn’t I have been in the back seat?  This was long before the era of seat belts or car seats.

I am stroking my fingers back and forth across what I later learn is called the dashboard, which is made of a material that I think is leather.  The dashboard, tan in color, is ridged vertically and prominently stitched with what looks like upholstery seams.  This design feature fascinates me, as do the push-buttons that Dad uses to make the car start up or drive or back up.  When our next car had a lever to do those things, I thought it very strange.  This car is a Ford Mercury, marketed for its “space age” looks.  The push-button automatic transmission appeared in the 1957 model year and was withdrawn in the 1958 model year.  Not sure about the “leather”.  

Sitting next to Dad, I ask, “But what if God makes another flood?”

“He will not,” Dad answers.  “He promised.”

“But what if God does decide to make another flood?” I persist.

“He will not,” Dad answers.  “He promised.”

I have a feeling this dialogue goes on for a little while.  It is the first lesson in faith that I remember. 

***

My second lesson also took place in Bayside, around that same time, inside the apartment.  Dark, but not night, very early morning.  I was sleepily aware of Dad sitting on the edge of my bed, in his overcoat.  So it must have been winter, probably Advent, though maybe Lent.  He smoothed the covers and tucked them up around my chin.  I do not recall any words between us, but I knew that he was up very early to go to Mass, before going to work.  I just knew this.  This knowledge made me feel secure, and I disappeared back into sleep. 

The childhood faith lessons continued, with the scene shifting to Connecticut, where the family moved when I was six.  I was in school by then, of course — Catholic school, of course — but the lessons that I remember best did not take place in a classroom.  These were lessons in faith, not religion, a distinction I am finally appreciating.

Except on Saturdays and Sundays, Dad’s alarm clock would go off very early in the morning.  The alarm would often wake me up, too, and often I would get up to go to the bathroom and, on the way, peek into my parents’ bedroom.  No closed bedroom doors in our household!  In darkness, Dad would be sitting on the edge of the bed.  His feet flat on the floor, the palms of his hands resting on the mattress, his slightly bent arms supporting him, his chin tucked in a bit.  He would sit slouched like that for quite some time.  Then he would stand up.  At that point, I would melt away back to my bedroom, because we all knew that Dad had a get-ready-for-work choreography that no one disturbed.

The lesson?  That Dad was praying.  Which didn’t dawn on me until many years later, when I began to understand Matthew 6:6.  But I always knew I was witnessing something very personal.

***

My apprehension of another faith lesson was immediate.  It has shaped how I use language to this day.

I attended a local kids’ art-and-crafts camp for a couple of weeks the summer I was eight or nine.  On the last day of camp, there was a little show of our work.  As Dad and I strolled through the simple display, he was silent, as he often was.  Trying to fill the silence, I was chattering, as I often was.  “Isn’t that adorable?” I asked about something or another.

Dad stopped stock-still.  He looked deep into my eyes.  My chatter died away.  Then he spoke. “Nothing is adorable except God.  Only God is to be adored.”  

After all these many years, I can still feel my face burning with shame.  This was no patient lesson about Noah and the flood.  Nor was it a gentle lesson about worship or a secret lesson that he didn’t even know he was giving about how to pray.  This was serious as could be.  This was a flat-out correction of something very wrong.  I only had to be told once.

In fact, except in prayer, I have never since uttered the word “adorable” or any of its variations.  I cringe when I hear them used casually in conversation, when “cute” or “pretty” or “special” are what’s needed.  I have never even written them until now.