Phoebe Kate

As a little kid, I misunderstood a great deal of what I heard in church.  As a result, I knew God’s first name and what His profession was because the Lord’s Prayer said:  “Our Father Who does art in heaven, Harold be Thy name.”  I liked to draw, too, so I thought Harold sounded like a pretty cool and fun guy.  Thanks to that same prayer, I found out where He bought groceries when not busy at his heavenly easel: “Give us this day our deli bread,” which made me happy because I loved Kaiser rolls.  The next sentence informed me that garbage, for some reason, had to be forgiven:  “Forgive us our trash passes as we forgive those who pass trash against us.”  (Actually, if you think about it for a moment, that verges on profound.  Aren’t gossip, slander, insensitive or unfair criticisms and mean remarks the things that hurt us most and are among the hardest to forgive?) 

My arcane religious knowledge extended to the Mother of God, too.  I discovered what her favorite food was and that she had a bad boo-boo because the Hail Mary went:  “Hail Mary, full of grapes, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy wound, Jesus.”  Well, she was full of grace and it was a womb not a wound, but it made sense to me nonetheless. And in the 23rd Psalm, I got a heads up that I was being stalked by a weird mother and daughter:  “Shirley Goodnest and Marcy shall follow you all the days of your life.”  The idea creeped me out but let’s face it, it’s never too early to learn street smarts if your future is in dicey metropolises.   Hey, at least I can give the police the names of the perpetrators when they finally corner me in one of life’s dark alleys.

–phoebe kate