Tonight Xanny asked for a "time" from when I was a little girl. I told him about when I six years old, I did an experiment. I decided if Santa was real, I would find an orange in the toe of my stocking on Christmas morning. The orange - that was the Santa test.
And then I told him this time ...
Once upon a time, there was a boy who asked his mother if Santa was real - if he was true. The mom thought for a long time and told the boy it didn't matter if he was real or not, it mattered only that the boy believed in him. "Believing is fun", said the mom to her boy. "Believing in Santa is good practice for becoming what grown-ups call a Believer."
Later on when the boy grew up, he was really good at believing in things even when he wondered if they were 100% true or not. He knew it was more fun to believe than to know if it was always true. He was happy in a confusing grown-up world of doubts and half truths.
The End.
Then Xanny said to me in his sleepy falsetto voice, "Mom, would you be sure to buy some oranges and give one to Santa on Christmas Eve so that I can wake up to find one in the toe of my stocking?"
Sure, Xanny.
I think he gets it.
This was a good lesson for me this week. God asks us to be believers first. In our doctrine, being a believer is more important than knowing if it is True with a capital T. God clearly tells us that we CAN know the truth of all things, but he never tells us that we MUST know the truth of all things. But he does command us to be believers and doers.
So, that's it. Who cares if Santa is true. Who cares if our grown-up lives of love, purpose and work are true -- not God. If we were to ask God to tell us whether love is "True" I am sure He could give us a solid "yes or no" but that's not His point. He would say, "Hey, my point is that you should believe in love even if sometimes you don't know that it's real. Believing Is Way More Fun! Believing that someone altruistically wants to bring you something sweet because you are nice is especially fun. And ... it's good practice for becoming a Believer with a capital B."
Maybe tonight I will ask Heavenly Father to buy a few extra oranges to hand out.
2 comments:
That was an extremely good story, Andi.
That was awesome. I need to memorize that. My 8 year old baby is still not sure even though she always gets answers like "what do you think?" and is a little suspicious. She often asks about fairies and magic too, and I mostly say things like "I believe in miracles, how about you?" I've never told her there was a Santa. I just went with the flow. She does know that we can put things in each other's stockings the night before in addition to what Santa does.
--Emily B.
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