Categories: the-joys-of-parenthood, musings
Tags: parenthood, theology
Date: 11 November 2007 12:59:13
Thoughts on Tractorgirl's blog about teaching religion have reminded me that this morning at breakfast son started telling me about what he'd learned about the early chapters of Genesis in RS. In particular, about characters such as Adam and Eve and Methuselah living 900+ years. I was holding my breath waiting for him to ask about how literally we were meant to take this, but it turns out the subject of the lesson was different interpretations of texts, so I guess he's already been introduced to the question of symbolic readings (phew!).
He went on to tell me about the symbolic story he'd written in class, to express the concept of the Fall. It was very clever and funny, all about people walking backwards off a cliff to get the gold that was at the bottom, but dying in the process; while all the time there were pots of gold available on an easily reached platform but they didn't see it because they were walking backwards. Rather profound, really (how can I work that into a Bible reading note?), and impressive for a kid who's supposed to have Asperger's and therefore not be good at symbolism. But it's a very tentative diagnosis anyway - though I don't mention that when there are any potential benefits from the diagnosis! (Such as queue-jumping at Legoland...).