For the Children

Once upon a time, I taught preschool at a Baptist church.

Preferring to retain my creative liberty in washing their little brains squeaky clean, I generally ignored the assigned curriculum totally… however, there came a day when I was strapped for time and pulled out the fateful pre-packaged visuals in a mad dash for the classroom. So armed, I began giving the kids their lesson.

We were learning the story of Noah’s ark. The 18×24 cards depicted the biblical characters after the flood, skipping happily off of the ark whilst joyous animals frolicked all around them.

As I told the story, I would hold up the appropriate card for the innocent eyes to behold, taking a quick glance for my own reference. It happened, however, that what I perceived in one particular glance registered in my brain at the selfsame moment as the collective gasp of terror from the children.

Following the fanciful frolicking, was an illustration of Noah thanking G-d for safe passage through the flood. Front and center stood an enormous rock alter on which lay a child-sized lamb, with its throat slit open, tongue hanging out, and blood streaming down in velvety serpentine threads. Noah stood behind, arms outstretched toward heaven in joy.

This may have been my first step toward vegetarianism.

Most of the children eventually went to rehab for various drug and self mutilation addictions by the 1st grade. I hear that some of them are doing fine now.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 10:35 and is filed under Faith, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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