Atlas was Demoted

 
 

Looking into his bowl of cheerios with much thoughtfulness, Skye, who just turned six a day before thinking these thoughts, lifts his head up from his bowl, tilts it back while chewing as if that will help him swallow his large mouthful of cheerios faster so he can ask me the larger question that he has been pondering during each bite. With still a few cheerios remaining in his mouth, he says "I wonder what God's and Jesus' kindergarten was like?"

"I don't know. What do you imagine it was like?"

"I don't know. I think they had to learn how to kill warriors."

After another mouthful and more thoughtful staring into his cheerios as if reading the news he said "Who did God marry?"

In my ten years of parenting I have never been asked this question before and in my unpreparedness, hoping not to be too transparent that I really and truly have no idea who God married, feebly guessed, "Mother Nature?"

Right away he came back with: "I thought she married that guy who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders." As if he'd heard through Dylan, who had heard through Jack, who was told by Noah who saw it in a tabloid at the checkout line at Giant Eagle with his mom.

"Atlas?"

"Yea. Atlas.......Is he still carrying the world?

"No. He was just a Greek god. They made him up. They thought he was so strong and muscular that he could actually carry the weight of the world."

"Oh. I bet he's just a constellation now."