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Heaven vanished

Littlest is now having formal RS (Religious Studies) lessons at school and this has led to the sort of tricky philosophical questions that innocent seven year olds do best.

We have a 25minute car journey to and from school each day, which is usually a time to practice times tables, recite poems, sing, discuss who has been nice/nasty that day, what it takes to be a good teacher (you have to smile a lot), how very extreeeeemly sore it is to have a graze on your elbow, what fillings are best in baked potatoes, or if  tired, to gaze vacantly out of the window. The driver, particularly at the end of the day, often feels like gazing vacantly out of the window too ... but now the brain is kept awake trying to help Littlest sort out weightier issues - Should she believe in God? What is God anyway and where is he? And what about other peoples Gods - some of them are easier to believe in apparently because you can actually see them, like the half man half animal gods of Hindus? Why can't we see our God?

Then yesterday - she wasn't sure if she should believe in Heaven. "Some people think it's up there, in the sky - like there's a great lid above the clouds. You go through the lid and line up."

She however thinks that heaven probably isn't in the sky. "When you get put in your grave, your body sort of sinks, and goes deeper and deeper into the earth. Until it has vanished.That must be where heaven is."

... Earth to earth? How poetic!

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