THE AGE OF REASON

In 1958 I was six years old and in the first grade. Mother Bernard was my teacher. She was short, very short…  Maybe that’s why they had her teaching first grade.

Mother Bernard made a big impression on me. She had IMAGINATION!  Nobody could describe Hell. like Mother Bernard. She had a gift. Mother Bernard would get going the first thing in the morning during religion class. WOW.  She was vivid! She would have us picturing hell, or heaven, or Baby Jesus and Mary and a host of angels and saints.  Her hell had giant pots of boiling oil and another pot had burning flames and the third cauldron was full of snakes… I’m telling you she was GOOD.

On the days when Mother Bernard would be expanding on the concepts of infinity and eternity I was enraptured. This was serious stuff and I wanted to think about it all day long. It was like toys for my brain. Trying to get my head around no beginning and no end. Trippy.  ( may I remind you I was only 6 yrs old…) Thank you Mother Bernard.

When  I got to first grade I had an above average imagination but when Mother Bernard finished with me I was in the ZONE. I was soaring.

That little religious nun was obsessed with lots of things about Jesus and God and Mary and Joseph and the Angels and saints but her visuals of the devil were her forte. She made him real REAL  Scary stuff . She’d put that red devil on my left shoulder and made him talk to me.  On my right side she floated the the image of a pure and innocent angel come to save my soul.  Left shoulder battling right shoulder. Would I choose to go UP to heaven or be naughty and take the road to hell with my little red friend? 

It turns out, according to my first grade teacher and the Catholic Church that only a few short months prior to first grade the devil couldn’t get me.  Mother Bernard informed us that 5 years old was the cut off date.  Once you hit the big 6 you entered THE AGE OF REASON.  Now when I listened to the red guy and took his side it was a SIN!  A new word that would change my life… Guilt, shame, confession, mortal sins and venial  sins.  First graders join the ranks of mortals experiencing anxiety and become God fearing.  I made the transition easily.

60 years later the names have changed but Mother Bernard’s shoulder pals are still up front and center stage.  I no longer refer to my guiding angels or consider seriously a devil luring me into the depths of hell.  Good or Bad. Evil or Innocence.  Right and Wrong.  Black and White. They have all blurred over the years.  At the very least I’ve got a whole new vocabulary.  Now I like to talk about ‘frightened parts of my personality’ and I’ve dropped the word SIN.  I have a ‘higher self’ and expanded consciousness and more awareness.  Sometimes I call God The Universe.  And most days I don’t picture Him with a long white beard sitting on a throne.  I’m very modern and updated.

Mother Bernard was right  I probably did reach THE AGE OF REASON by the time I was 6.  What she called MY CONSCIENCE was perfectly functioning at that tender age And my intuition (sometimes I call it MY DIRECT LINE TO GOD or prayer) was already developed and assisting me to know my way.

I want to say Thank You to Mother Bernard.  You impressed upon my baby soul the magnificence of the time that I will spend  here. You gave me the depth of a knowing that I have choice. And that, most importantly  it is my conscious choices that create  my heaven on earth.  How delightful!