BNFree / Bloomington-Normal Freethinkers

One of my favorites poets ever is Emily Dickenson.  I’m not sure why she was considered so ‘dark’.  She wrote beautifully of a complicated world.   She spent some time writing about the fear instilled in everyone about hell and her own fear of eternal life or, at times, her longing for it.  Maybe it was this common curiosity about living forever that drew me to her.  Much like the beauty Vincent VanGogh found in the Starry Night or Sun Flowers, she seemed to see beauty in everyday things.  The poem that shows this best and I love the most, is about the color yellow in nature.  Seriously.

Nature rarer uses yellow
Than another hue;
Saves she all of that for sunsets,–
Prodigal of blue,

Spending scarlet like a woman,
Yellow she affords
Only scantly and selectly,
Like a lover’s words. continue reading…

Being nonreligious, I no longer say grace before meals, but I do appreciate the work of the farmer, the cook (typically myself) and, especially, nature.  So as a parent, I want to convey to my daughter the appropriateness of thoughtful reflection on where our food comes from, but I also want to be clear that our appreciation does not require a supernatural provider.  I say if you’re giving the glory to God then you must be stealing it from somebody else.

I think it’s common for religious people to think atheists must be inherently unappreciative and thoughtless.  This is far from true in our house.  In fact, I happen to think the religious view that everything good comes from God is so simplistic it’s effectively mindless and therefore thoughtless.  But I digress.

So my daughter, C, who is in kindergarten, has a very good friend, K, who is being raised Mormon.  My husband and I get along with K’s parents very well.  They are genuinely nice people.  Of course, at playdates where I provide her dinner, K insists on saying a prayer before eating.  K took it upon herself to coach my daughter on the importance of this ritual and how to properly close her eyes and place her palms together in front of her.  I allowed this because I view it as a cultural exposure that I can discuss with C later.   But it became clear that C felt disadvantaged; she did not have her own similar expression she could teach K.  So I provided her with one that her dad and I agreed was a pretty good alternative. continue reading…