The Do-It-Yourself Catholic KiddieKism*

Q. Who made you? 

A. (Melissa Murphy, Age 10):

Who makes me you should say!
I co-creates me ev’ry day.
My tender psyche I unlocks
& with my mental pencil box
I brightly crayons, without fault,
My very very own gestalt
& so I comes to be alert
To all my pain & all my hurt
& then when sister gives the nod
I starts my angering—at god.

Q. Who is God?

A. (Megan Kowalewski, Grade 3):

Our teachers, our sitters, our helpers, our mothers.
Our partners and pals and Significant Others,
The people who work in the Caring Professions,
The service that pays for my therapy sessions,
The Muppets and Smurfs and of course Mr. Rogers,
The U.S.C.C. and Los Angeles Dodgers,
The lady who serves as our story-time reader
(At present) the Senate Majority Leader,
Delores in day-care, Ms. Sands in ceramics,
Francesca who networks my fam’ly dynamics,
Picasso and Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion
And Ronald McDonald and Richard Mcbrien,
Miss Piggy and Kermit and Bozo and Bartok,
Corita and Gloria Steinem and Starhawk,
And Rudolf the Reindeer and Santa’s ten elves
But best of all most of all, god is our selves!

Q. Well . . . yes . . . uh . . . why did God make you? 

A. (Scott Rodriguez-Dorff, Age 9):

I’d never lend personal credence
God’s serpents, god’s fruit-trees, god’s Edens,
Were it not that god tried
In god’s way to provide
God’s pronouns with god’s antecedents.

*Kiddie-Kism and caring are registered trademarks of the American Catholic Church, Inc. All rights reserved.

Paul V. Mankowski, S.J., is a Ph.D. student in Comparative Semitic Philology at Harvard University.