Julia Sweeney - Letting Go of God

Julia Sweeney: Letting Go of God

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On September 10th, the morning of my seventh birthday, I came downstairs to the kitchen where my mother was washing the dishes and my father was reading the paper. And I presented myself to them in the doorway. And they said, "Hey, happy birthday!" And I said, "I'm seven!" And my father smiled and said, "Well, you know what that means don't you?" And I said, "Yeah, that I'm going to have a party and a cake and get a lot of presents?" And my dad said, "Well, yes. But more importantly, being seven means that you've reached the Age of Reason and you're now capable of committing any and all sins against God and Man."

Now I had heard that phrase, "Age of Reason" before. Sister Mary Kevin had been bandying it about my second grade class at school; but when she said it, the phrase seemed all caught up in the excitement of our preparations for First Communion and First Confession. And everybody knew that was really all about the white dress and white veil. And anyway, I hadn't really paid all that much attention to that phrase: Age of Reason.

So I said, "Yeah, yeah. Age of Reason. What does that mean again?" And my dad said, "Well, we believe, in the Catholic Church, that God knows that little kids don't know the difference between right and wrong, but when you're seven, you're old enough to know better. So, you've grown up and reached the Age of Reason. And now God will start keeping notes on you, and begin your permanent record."

And I said, "Oh." Wait a minute, you mean all that time up till today, all that time that I was so good, God didn't notice it?"

And my mom said, "Well I noticed it!" And I thought, "How could I have not have known this before? How could it not have sunk in, what they'd been telling me? All that being good and no real credit for it. And worst of all, how could I not have realized this very important information until the very day that it was, basically, useless to me?"

So I said, "Well, mom and dad, what about Santa Claus? I mean Santa Claus knows if you're naughty or nice, right?" And my dad said, "Yeah. But honey, I think that's technically just between Thanksgiving and Christmas." And my mother said, "Oh Bob, stop it. Let's just tell her. I mean, she's seven. Julie, there is no Santa Claus."

Now this was actually not that upsetting to me. My parents had this whole elaborate story about Santa Claus, how they had talked to Santa himself and agreed that instead of Santa delivering our presents over the night of Christmas Eve, like he did for every other family, who got to open their surprises first thing Christmas morning, our family would give Santa more time. Santa would come to our house while we were at 9:00 High Mass on Christmas morning, but only if all us kids did not make a fuss.

Which made me very suspicious. It was pretty obvious that it was really our parents giving us the presents. I mean, my dad had a very distinctive wrapping style and my mother's handwriting was so close to Santa's. Plus, why would Santa save time by having to loop back to our house after he had gone to everybody else's?

There was only one obvious conclusion to reach from this mountain of evidence. Our family was too strange and weird for even Santa Claus to come visit. And my poor parents were trying to protect us from the embarrassment, this humiliation of rejection by Santa, who was jolly, but let's face it, also very judgmental.

So, to find out that there was no Santa Claus at all was actually sort of a relief. I left the kitchen not really in shock about Santa, but rather, I was just dumbfounded about how I could have missed that whole Age of Reason thing. It was too late for me. But maybe I could help someone else, someone who could use the information. They had to fit two criteria: They had to be old enough to be able to understand the whole concept of the Age of Reason. And, not yet seven.

The answer was clear: my brother Bill. He was six!

Well, I finally found Bill about a block away from our house at this public school playground. It was Saturday and he was all by himself, just kicking a ball against this brick wall. I ran up to him and said, "Bill, I just realized that the Age Of Reason starts when you turn seven and then you're capable of committing any and all sins against God and Man." And Bill said, "So?" And I said, "So, you're six. You still have a whole year to do anything you want to and God won't notice it!" And Bill said, "So?" And I said, "So!? So, everything!" And I turned and ran, so angry with him. But when I got to the top of these steps, I turned dramatically and said, "Oh by the way, Bill, there is no Santa Claus."

Now, I didn't know it at the time, but I was actually not turning seven on September 10th.

For my thirteenth birthday I planned a slumber party with all of my girlfriends. But a couple of weeks before hand, my mother took me aside and said, "I need to speak to you privately. September 10th is not your birthday. It's October 10th."And I said, "What?" And she said, "Listen, the cut-off date to start Kindergarten was September 15th. So, I told them that your birthday was September 10th and then I wasn't sure that you weren't just going to go blab it all over the place, so I started to tell you your birthday was September 10th. But, Julie, you were so ready to start school, honey, you were so ready!"

I thought about it, and when I was four, I was already the oldest of four children, and my mom even had another child to come. So what I think she, understandably, really meant was that, "She was so ready, she was so ready." Then she said, "Don't worry, Julie, every year on October 10th when it was your birthday, but you didn't realize it, I made sure you ate a piece of cake that day." Which was comforting, but troubling. My mother had been celebrating my birthday with me, without me.

What was so upsetting about this piece of information was not that I was going to have to change the date of my slumber party with all of my girlfriends. What was most upsetting was that this meant I was not a Virgo. I had a huge Virgo poster in my bedroom. And I read my horoscope every single day and it was so totally me! And this meant that I was a Libra?

So I took the bus downtown to get the new Libra poster. The Virgo poster was a picture of a beautiful woman with really long hair, sort of lounging by some water. But the Libra poster was just a huge scale. This was around the time that I started filling out, physically, and I was filling out a lot more than some other girls, and frankly, the whole idea that my astrological sign was a scale just seemed ominous and depressing. But I got the new Libra poster and I started to read my new Libra horoscope. Which I was astonished to find was also totally me!

It wasn't until years later, looking back on this whole Age of Reason, change-of-birthday thing that it dawned on me. I wasn't turning seven when I thought I turned seven. I actually had a whole other month to do anything I wanted to before God started keeping tabs on me. Oh, life can be so unfair!

Not too long ago, two Mormon missionaries came to my door. I live just off a main thoroughfare in Los Angeles, and my block is a natural beginning for people peddling things door to door. Sometimes I get little old ladies from the Seventh Day Adventist Church showing me pictures of heaven. And sometimes I get teenagers who promise me that they won't join a gang and just start robbing people if I only buy some magazine subscriptions from them. So, normally I just ignore the doorbell. But on this day, I answered.

And there stood two boys, each about 19, in white, starched, short-sleeved shirts. And they had little nametags that identified them as official representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And they said they had a message for me. From God.