Storymania - Letting Go Of God by Julia Sweeney

Letting Go Of God
Julia Sweeney

On September 10th, the morning of my seventh birthday, I came downstairs to the kitchen, where my mother was washing the dishes and my father was reading the paper or something, and I sort of presented myself to them in the doorway, and they said, "Hey, happy birthday!" And I said, "I'm seven." And my father smiled and said, "Well, you know what that means, don't you?" And I said, "Yeah, that I'm going to have a party and a cake and get a lot of presents?" And my dad said, "Well, yes. But, more importantly, being seven means that you've reached the age of reason, and you're now capable of committing any and all sins against God and man." (Laughter)
      Now, I had heard this phrase, "age of reason," before, but the phrase seemed all caught up in the excitement of the white dress and the white veil, and anyway, I hadn't really paid all that much attention to that phrase, "age of reason." So, I said, "Yeah, yeah, age of reason. What does that mean again?" And my dad said, "Well, we believe in the Catholic Church that God knows that little kids don't know the difference between right and wrong, but when you're seven, you're old enough to know better. So, you've grown up, and reached the age of reason, and now God will start keeping notes on you and begin your permanent record." And I said, "Oh. Wait a minute. You mean all that time, up till today, all that time I was so good, God didn't notice it?" And my mom said, "Well, I noticed it." And I thought, "How could I not have known this before? All that being good and no real credit for it. And, worst of all, how could I not have realized this very important information until the very day that it was basically useless to me?"

      So I said, "Well, Mom and Dad, what about Santa Claus? I mean, Santa Claus knows if you're naughty or nice, right?" And my dad said, "Yeah, but, honey, I think that's technically just between Thanksgiving and Christmas." And my mother said, "Oh, Bob, stop it. Let's just tell her. I mean, she's seven. Julie, there is no Santa Claus." Now, this was actually not that upsetting to me. My parents had this whole elaborate story about Santa Claus: how they had talked to Santa Claus himself and agreed that Santa would come to our house while we were at nine o'clock high mass on Christmas morning. Which made me very suspicious. It was pretty obvious that it was really our parents giving us the presents. I mean, my mother's handwriting was so close to Santa's. Plus, why would Santa save time by having to loop back to our house after he'd gone to everybody else's? There's only one obvious conclusion to reach from this mountain of evidence: our family was too strange and weird for even Santa Claus to come visit, and my poor parents were trying to protect us from this humiliation of rejection by Santa. So, to find out that there was no Santa Claus at all was actually sort of a relief.

      Now, I didn't know it at the time, but I really wasn't turning seven on September 10th. For my 13th birthday, I planned a slumber party with all of my girlfriends, but a couple of weeks beforehand my mother took me aside and said, "I need to speak to you privately. September 10th is not your birthday. It's October 10." And I said, "What?" And she said, "Listen. The cut-off date to start kindergarten was September 15." "So, I told them that your birthday was on September 10, and then I wasn't sure that you weren't just going to go blab it all over the place, so I started to tell you your birthday was September 10. But, Julie, you were so ready to start school, honey. You were so ready." I thought about it, and what I think she understandably really meant was that she was so ready, she was so ready. Then she said, "Don't worry, Julie, every year on October 10 when it was your birthday but you didn't realize it, I made sure that you ate a piece of cake that day." Which was comforting, but troubling. My mother had been celebrating my birthday with me, without me.

Years later, two Mormon missionaries came to my door. Normally, I just ignore the doorbell, but on this day I answered. And there stood two boys, each about 19, in white starched short-sleeved shirts, and they had little name tags and they said they had a message for me from God. I said, "A message for me? From God?" And they said, "Yes." so I said, "Well, please, come in." And they looked really happy, because I don't think this happens to them all that often. And I sat them down, and I got them glasses of water and they said, "Do you believe that God loves you with all his heart?" And I thought, "Well, of course I believe in God, but, you know, I don't like that word, heart, because it anthropomorphizes God, and I don't like the word, 'his,' either, because that sexualizes God." But I didn't want to argue semantics with these boys, so after a very long, uncomfortable pause, I said "Yes, yes, I do. I feel very loved." And they looked at each other and smiled, like that was the right answer. And then they said, "Do you believe that we're all brothers and sisters on this planet?" And I said, "Yes, I do. Yes, I do." And I was so relieved that it was a question I could answer so quickly. And they said, "Well, then we have a story to tell you." And they told me this Lamanite story and this crazy gold plate story. Well, then they didn't look so fresh-faced and cute to me any more, but they had more to say. They said, "Well, we also believe that if you're a Mormon and if you're in good standing with the church, when you go to heaven you get your body restored to you in its best original state. Like, if you'd lost a leg, well, you get it back." I said, "Oh -- now, I don't have a uterus because I had cancer a few years ago. So, does this mean that if I went to heaven I would get my old uterus back?" And they said, "Sure." And I said, "I don't want it back. I'm happy without it." Gosh. What if you had a nose job and you liked it? Would God force you to get your old nose back?

Well, then they gave me this Book of Mormon, and they told me to read this chapter and that chapter, and they said they'd come back some day and check in on me, and I think I said something like, "Please don't hurry," or maybe it was just, "Please don't," and they were gone.
OK, so, I initially felt really superior to these boys, and smug in my more conventional faith. But then, the more I thought about it, the more I had to be honest with myself. If someone came to my door and I was hearing Catholic theology the very first time, and they said, "We believe that God impregnated a very young girl without the use of intercourse, and the fact that she was a virgin is maniacally important to us and she had a baby, and that's the son of God," I mean, I would think that's equally ridiculous. I'm just so used to that story. So, I couldn't let myself feel condescending towards these boys.
But the question they asked me when they first arrived really stuck in my head: Did I believe that God loved me with all his heart? Because I wasn't exactly sure how I felt about that question. Now, if they'd asked me, Do you feel that God loves you with all his heart? Well, that would have been much different, I think I would have instantly answered, "Yes, yes, I feel it all the time. I feel God's love when I'm hurt and confused, and I feel consoled and cared for. I take shelter in God's love when I don't understand why tragedy hits, and I feel God's love when I look with gratitude at all the beauty I see." But since they asked me that question with the word believe in it, somehow it was all different, because I wasn't exactly sure if I believed what I so clearly felt.

Looking back on this whole age-of-reason/change-of-birthday thing, that it dawned on me: I wasn't turning seven when I thought I turned seven. I had a whole other month to do anything I wanted to before God started keeping tabs on me. So on that morning of what I thought was my seventh birthday, I left the kitchen not really in shock about Santa, but rather I was just dumbfounded about how I missed this whole age of reason thing. It was too late for me, but maybe I could help someone else, someone who could use the information. They had to fit two criteria: they had to be old enough to be able to understand the whole concept of the age of reason, and not yet seven. The answer was clear: my brother Bill. He was six. Well, I found Bill about a block away from our house at this public school playground. I ran up to him and said, "Bill! I just realized that the age of reason starts when you turn seven, and then you're capable of committing any and all sins against God and man." And Bill said, "So?" And then I said, "So, you're six. You have a whole year to do anything you want to and God won't notice it." And he said, "So?" And I said, "So? So everything!" I was so angry with him that I turned to run, but then I turned back around dramatically and said, "Oh, by the way, Bill, there is no Santa Claus."