"Not Even the Beatles": What have we done to our Children?

Rather an academic title, that. Pretentious, to boot. But, then, I'm a pretentious academic, so it's all right. At least I didn't give it an alternate title, though I might easily have done: "Not Even the Beatles"; or, "Who will Police the Police?": What have we done to our Children?

When Penelope was very young--just over a year--I managed to teach her a phrase (inadvertently, of course). Some things were going on then with the local and federal governments, and I happened to ask, "Who will police the police?" Penelope thought this was marvelously funny. She asked me to say it again, so I did.

But then she started to ask me to say it whenever she saw a police car, which was fairly frequently. Then she began to say it herself, as clear as a bell and quite frequently. Finally, she started to say it whenever we happened to walk past a policeman (or even a security guard--she wasn't quite as astute then as she is now). It began to get embarrassing, especially when the policeman or -woman was doing something slightly odd: looking at jewelry in a store window, writing a parking ticket, taking a bribe. I started imagining what would happen if I were pulled over for a speeding ticket:

Cop: "Are you aware you were going fifty-five in a thirty-mile-per-hour zone?"

Me: "Er . . . ."

Voice from the back seat: "Who will police the police?"

Cop: "All right, wise guy . . . step out of the car!"

Van started using his own daddy-inspired phrase, and Powell immediately picked up on it. This one, fortunately, was more of a paraphrase of a phrase rather than the well-known one, but it still is an oddity of our family.

Recenly, the children have been trying to understand Christ's divinity. It all started with a discussion of who could throw the stuffed bear the highest. Powell can throw it pretty high; Van can throw it higher, but Penelope can throw it the highest. But Penelope decided that a bit of humiliy wouldn't come amiss when Van declared that he could throw it higher than anyone. "You can't throw it higher than God," she declared. (It wasn't clear whether she meant that he couldn't throw it higher than God could throw it or that he couldn't throw it higher than the point at which God was--either one, you'll agree, would be a feat well worth seeing.) "No one can throw higher than God," she concluded.

"Jesus can!" Powell instantly declared.

This lead to a lively debate about the relative power of each member of the Trinity. Penelope finally concluded, "Well, Jesus is God, so he can throw it just as high as God. But he isn't as big as God."

"Yes, he is," said both boys in stereo.

The discussion of the hypostatic union that followed would have made Thomas Aquinas go to bed early with a headache. The conclusion was that Jesus' incarnational body (which he still possesses) is not very big--a bit bigger than Daddy, they declared--but that his spiritual state and his divinity are co-equal with God's.

"Not bad," I thought. "All that work with the Westminister Confession has paid off."

Then they started chanting their conclusion in a way that would have lead Agustine to run off and find a random passage in his Bible so that he could write quite a lot about it: "Nooo one's bigger than Jeee-sus! Nooo one's bigger than Jeee-sus! Nooo one's bigger than Jeee-sus!"

That's when I joined in.

"No-ot even the Beeeea-tles! No-ot even the Beeeea-tles!"

Now they do know about the Beatles, primarly because Elmo has done a verion of "Drive my Car" that is horrific in most ways but that is most horrific in that Penelope prefers his version to the Beatles'. Curse you, Elmo! But they don't, of course, know the whole "Bigger than Jesus" [find out about it at http://www.newsoftheodd.com/article1012.html] fiasco. Naturally, they thought this was hilarious, especially because of their intense interest in bugs. I think they were imagining a mammoth beetle (John's voice cuts in: "Imagine there's a beetle . . . bigger than the sun . . . ").

Now, embarrasingly, the kids frequently employ the phrase in public.

Of a mansion: "That's a big house!" "Not as big as God!" "Nobody's bigger than God. Not even the Beatles!"

Of a baby we know: "My, but you're getting to be such a big girl!" "She's not bigger than God. She's not even bigger than the Beatles!"

Of a glass of water: "Will you get me a big glass of water, please?" "I'll bring you a big glass, but it won't be bigger than Jesus!" [thousands of giggles].

Let's combine both these in a tacky conclusion. It's good for Christians to be reminded that they may have a log in their own eye. "Who will police the police?" serves this function. It's also good to remember our own nature. "Not bigger than Jesus" does that.

[more later; the children awake!]