Journey of a Janus pt 2, Sunday School

(Tomorrow's post tonight, while I wait for a call back...there now you won't be shortchanged.)
So continuing where I left off, my parents decided I was at that age to start attending Sunday school so I can learn about God and some of the people in the Bible that I had recently started to read but was still trying to make some sense of. It took a week or two for things to start up for me because they were just getting ready to begin a new unit, which was a good break (some would say Divine) for me, since I would be on the same page as the rest of my class (in many cases literally.)
Now if you haven't gathered from hearing about me before I did not grow up in a big town like Rockford or Naperville, but I grew up in Boucanville (ok I made that name up, but really the town is too small that I figured I better change it.) Boucanville has about 400 people in it including sheep and cattle. In every one of these towns...Boucanville, Shultz Crossing, and Harlemans Stream..every town has a church. Or at least a building that calls itself that and has a steeple usually. We will go into this more later, I promise.
So in my huge metropolis of Boucanville we had a whopping eight children that were between the ages of 6 through 11. Out of those eight, three of us were triplets who were 11 years old and would be done with Sunday school soon. I was one of the two kids that was actually there because I had a choice in the matter, most of the kids were related to the minister or somebody on the board and had to be there whether they liked Jesus or not. From this not overwhelmingly promising set of circumstances a faith with God was watered and blossomed.
First thing we did every Sunday morning is we sat on carpet squares and we sang some of the great classics that were big in Sunday schools back in my day. "The B-I-B-L-E" (yes, you sing it as letters,) "Their is a joy joy joy..down in my heart", "Jesus loves me"(I hope you heard at least of that one), and "If you' re Happy and you know it clap your hands." At this tender age I learned how to lip synch. To this day I still can not sing if people could see me sing, I freeze up, so I learned to move my lips enough to not attract attention. Though I sing just fine when no one else is around, I think.
Then after singing we split up into different groups, based on our age. My class consisted of two of us and our teacher that probably knew the bible so well because she was alive when it was first written down. Seriously though, we only had one Sunday school teacher (4th and 5th grader level) that was not at least 74 and usually fairly grumpy. Bouncanville is not overflowing with volunteers to wake up early on Sunday and teach. So Brice (the other kid) and I were the entire class. Brice was there because his Uncle was one of the people on the board and would rather be playing baseball or something. Again...not a promising start, but God doesn't need a seed drill, bucket of seeds, and fertilizer. He just needs a seed...and he got me with that.
Sunday school for a small child that normally can't read at the six year old level consists of a lot of coloring, and cutting stuff out with safety scissors and pasting, and fuzzy felts and magnet boards. I don't know how many of you went to Sunday School when you were kids, but fuzzy felts and magnet boards really were fun. You basically got to put them up on the board when the teacher read you the story so you could have something to visualize the story you were reading.
The Jesus one always gave him this little smile like he finds the whole fuzzy felt thing rather amusing, We got a couple smiling apostles, and a bunch of scowling guys that were Pharisees or grumbling wandering Israelites depending on whether you were talking about Jesus or Moses. Moses always looked kind of like a bearded old grandpa carrying around the 10 commandments (Yes...I found out who the guy carrying the rocks with words on them was!) You can't forget David and Goliath either, they all make great magnet figures...I could go on about the cute Noah animals and Zacheus (the little guy that climbed a tree to see Jesus...but fuzzy felts alone would take too much time.)
Many questions were answered but even more were forthcoming. The thing is when you are dealing with kids, you have to dumb it down to our level I suppose. It is slightly whitewashed for kids, I mean who wants to talk about the Moabite women seducing the men of Israel, David having an affair with Bethsheba and murdering her husband, Noah getting drunk, and all those smotings when you are talking to a six year old. Though since it is geared for children I got a few ideas about God that stuck with me for a while that might of been less than perfect.
I always thought of Jesus and God as two completely different people, instead of them being one. (No I am not going to try to explain the trinity here either...I can barely grasp it myself.) So I thought of God doing all the smoting and when someone screwed up God (voiced by James Earl Jones) would reach down from heaven and start smacking the crap out of people when they got too far out of line. Jesus on the other hand was always forgiving people, loving people, carrying around baby lambs and surrounded by the most ethnically correct group of children in all his photographs (A blond boy, a brunette girl, an african american boy, an Oriental girl, a Latino boy, and I believe a native american girl all in one picture apparently hanging around Jerusalem in about 30 A.D. all hugging Jesus with a happy looking lamb in the background.)
So this made me think that they were two people that just kind of worked together for a while. Call it Good God and Bad God. Jesus pulls Noah aside and says..."listen...I like you ok...but God here, he's had a rough week. I mean he is over there saying (like James Earl Jones) 'I am sorry I ever made people, I am going to flush them all down the toilet.' Noah...buddy...I don't want my partner to do that to yas. So...you make the ark, load it with animals...I am sure we could work something out."
Noah looks over at God in the corner as he cracks his knuckles and says..."s-s-s-sure Jesus...whatever you s-s-s-say."
Apparently God and Jesus had a really bad scripted Law and Order series back then.
Well eventually I would figure it out though, don't worry. I would suggest you read the unedited book with a commentary if you are new to get more of a perspective. Don't take my six year old ramblings too seriously.
Eventually they figured out that I knew how to read at a 5th grade reading level, and I got bumped up to Mrs. Avery's class (The only person younger than 74...if you recall.) I did much better there, and both of the kids in the class were able to help explain things to me if I asked nicely and I became the pet of the class. Part of it was good because it was more on my level, but I still was a kid and I liked coloring sometimes.
After being in Sunday school for a while I signed up for the memorizing portion of the class. I would get my own Bible (a Revised Standard Version) from the church in exchange I needed to memorize the 10 commandments, the 23rd Psalm, and the Lord's Prayer.
It took a little work and having my mom helping me memorize it (I used to say he leadeth me down by green crackers...I learned that it was pastures at this point.) After a week of drilling, flash cards, and trying not to break any of the 10 commandments in frustration I did it. In the presence of the entire congregation plus the parents that showed up for holidays and special occasions like kids getting Bibles, I recited them to Rev. Bridges with only one minor correction. I got a firm handshake and a hint of a smile, and Rev. Bridges presented me with my first Bible of my own.
All good things must come to an end though, and I eventually graduated from Sunday school...and it was time to try out Big people church. More to come...