suddenly jewish

As my children began to grow into curious students of life, I noted that Jerry was gently beginning to mention Jesus to them. I knew that Jerry was a Christian when I met him, the son of a preacher even, but what kind of Christian? Surely he was about as Christian as I was Jewish. He never went to church, I didn’t see him pray much, he had not appeared to live a particularly godly life. For that reason we got along just fine. But when he began to talk to my children about Jesus, I suddenly got very Jewish. I wanted my children to get at least as much instruction about their Jewish heritage as Jerry gave them about Jesus. In order to do so, I was going to have to learn about being Jewish too.

Together with my children I introduced myself to the holidays that hadn’t made it into my childhood repertoire, like Purim and Yom Kippur. We participated in Passover seders and occasional Shabbat services, sometimes of our own invention and sometimes with community. We developed deeply introspective exercises to honor the Day of Atonement. I told my children about the war and our family history. I taught them Yiddish songs and made sure that all mom's great Jewish jokes got passed on. This was what I imagined it meant to be a Jew.

Jerry and I balanced our inter-faith marriage with a minimum of strife. He would make a nice Christmas and I would make a nice Chanukah. He would help us to acknowledge Easter, and I would make a Passover seder. I used to say, “We have the Old Testament in common.” This was before I ever considered even cracking the cover of the bible, so I had no way of knowing that we had the New Testament in common as well.

I knew that as my children grew they would come to their own understandings of the divine, and make their own choices of how to worship. In the back of my mind I knew they may become Christians one day. I was willing to accept that. All I cared about was that they had a sense of God's presence.

I had a very satisfying relationship with the God of the Many-Legged Stool, and could have gone on just like that for the rest of my life. I had accomplished what I supposed was enough Jewishness to satisfy myself that Jerry’s Christianity would be well balanced. My belief in God seemed to make you and Mom uncomfortable, but not too much. At least I was demonstrating loyalty to my people. At first Mom thought that because I was praying and loving God, Jerry must have turned me into a Christian, but I assured her that wasn’t so, and even promised her it would never happen.

stumbling block

Jesus was a stumbling block for me. I loved the paintings of Cranach, El Greco and the Siennese medievalists, but I couldn’t get past that Jesus thing. I loved gospel music and even worked for two and a half years as musical director in a church, but I couldn’t get past that Jesus thing. In my mind I covered over with masking tape the places where Jesus was mentioned. I would painstakingly choose gospel songs to sing, based on their mention of God without mentioning Jesus.

For years I asked God if he wanted me to become a Christian, and told him of my willingness to do so if he would only make it clear that he wanted me to, but I never seemed to get an answer to that question. You are fond of saying that sometimes when we don’t get answers we are asking the wrong questions. But I have discovered that is not true. Maybe we just don't want to see the answers that we are getting. I got an answer in due time.

When the kids became pre-teens I joined with them in lobbying Jerry against going to church any more. We began our own tradition of family prayer and worship time out in our yard sitting cross-legged on the big trampoline beneath the redwood trees. I was relieved to be spared that awful pressure and the confusion and embarrassment I felt when I couldn’t stop crying. Jerry would read from the bible and I would lead songs.

Then when the children were older, all on their own they came to Christ. This was a natural thing for them to do, considering the gentle teachings they had received from their father. I was confounded, faced with a disturbing question regarding, of all things, my eternal soul. According to Christian belief, Lochlan, Jerry and Raechel would spend eternity somewhere different from where I was going to spend it. What an absurd idea! Yet I had to admit I didn't know what was true. I only knew I didn't want to be apart from my children. It began to dawn on me that the stool I'd provided for God to sit on might not be big enough for him. God used my growing conviction that I might need a savior as the answer to that question I'd asked about if he wanted me to become a Christian.

culture gap

On one visit to Alabama to see Jerry’s family, we accompanied Grandma and Granddaddy Shelfer to a church service at a tiny little chapel where Granddaddy was preaching. During the service Granddaddy called my little family up before the congregation. He asked for God’s blessings on his grandchildren. I was happy for him to bless them.

Granddaddy began calling on the Lord as Pentecostal preachers do, gradually growing louder and more vehement in a heightened state of prayer. In the swell of the moment he turned to me and asked if I accepted Jesus as my savior. I think he fully expected that the Holy Spirit would come down on me right then and there, bringing me to salvation. The congregation was swept up in the expectancy, full of "Amen" and "Hallelujah", and all eyes were on me.

My mouth fell open and no words could be found to mitigate the disappointment I was about to cause all these nice people. Like an actor on stage who hasn't learned her lines, I forced a smile as I stumbled through my shock at his effrontery until I found words to respond. I replied as honestly as I could, stammering to him and everyone there that I loved Jesus because Jerry loved him. Seeing that this was not destined to be my big moment of salvation, Granddaddy didn’t press me further.

I went home with a juicy story to tell, all about the nerve of this guy, and I told the story with a perfectly scrumptious self-righteousness. I was not able to cross the cultural divide that separated Granddaddy Shelfer and me. I was ignorant about Christianity and assumed that all those noisy Christians down there in Alabama were anti-semites, even though Granddaddy had told me of his love for the Jewish people. To a suspicious mind, even that statement was evidence of anti-semitism. It took me 22 years to get over my offense and see that what Granddaddy Shelfer wanted for me was a treasure that was rightfully mine.