Vincent Van Ben

Back in the second grade my teacher assigned our class to draw a picture of God. Being as that I attended a Catholic grade school, God and the idea of him as a superior holy being was often integrated into almost every aspect of our education, but this was the first time that I can recall being asked to draw what I thought he would look like. Having been forced to go to Church at least twice a week with my school and then possibly again on Sunday with my mother and sister, and having attended a Catholic grade school from Kindergarten up until this point of my second grade education, I was well aware of what my teacher expected me to draw. What she wanted and what she expected from the rest of my class was exactly what they provided her: long white hair, long thick white beard, a flowing white robe, and oddly Americanized with a big golden halo floating around his head. In fact, to this very day when I get an image of God in my head I still see the exact same characterization of him without fail (yes, I believe that God is male. Thirteen years of Catholic education will do that to you. For all of my questions regarding religion, I will never waver in my knowledge that God is a male. If God were female then she wouldn’t have stopped after seven days and all things would be beautiful. Male God, however, saw what he created after seven days, figured he deserved a quick nap, and just never really got back up off that couch to finish the job. How else can you explain the appearance of animals like the three toed sloth. Seriously? He couldn’t finish that job? Or is it just a horrible joke? God is most definitely a male.)

Anyway, back to my picture.

I knew what the teacher wanted but for some reason I didn’t feel like drawing him that way on that particular day. Whether it was God himself speaking to me or the fact that I was always looking for a way to be different (thank God I don’t do THAT anymore) I made up my mind to draw God looking like somebody else. Now, it could have been a lot worse and I could’ve drawn him looking like Mr. T or Hulk Hogan or something, but my muse was something much less offensive and (in my mind) borderline adorable. On that particular day I thought that God looked like Fozzy Bear.

I quickly took crayons to paper and, being the artist that I am, soon sketched my rendition of Fozzy Bear in his old press hat. I remember this moment vividly because another boy who sat next to me named Brad saw what I was doing, took my cue, and quickly drew a picture of Animal to go along with mine. Now, it was never my intention to start a following and have others join me in disobedience, but Brad followed anyway and at the end of the art period we were left together holding our Muppet deities.

Needless to say, our teacher was unimpressed. Within the hour she had taken all of the other kids’ pictures of “God” and hung them on the back wall but intentionally excluded mine and Brad’s from the group. I’m not going to pretend that I was any stranger to getting in trouble so the fact that my teacher was disappointed in me did not really affect me in the least. What did affect me was that even though my picture was not of your garden variety God, she excluded it from the wall. Maybe if Brad hadn’t mimicked me my picture would have been seen as a work of art and an open minded free spirited example of God being in everyone and everything. Maybe it would have opened the very closed minds of the Catholic church and I would have been heralded as a visionary – a savant if you will. Maybe I would have been asked to travel to Italy to meet the Pope and discuss my revolutionary views on the idea of God and what he actually is and can be found within. I mean, maybe God did look like Fozzy Bear. Hell, maybe he even looked like that three toed sloth. Unfortunately, Brad DID follow me and whether that was the reason for exclusion or not, our pictures were left off of the wall.

The bottom line is that even though my teacher was doing her job by protecting my classmates (temporarily) from my shenanigans, she was at the same time stifling my creativity. Did she know what God looked like? No. Was she promoting open mindedness or was she taking the “we are God’s sheep” thing a bit too literally and forcing me to follow the flock? Regardless, for some reason this instance has stayed with me for years and years and I have never been able to forget the sense of exclusion that I felt that day.

Last Friday I found out what that reason was.

Last week was Dr Seuss week at my son’s daycare. Throughout the week they celebrated the birthday of the great Dr. with various activities and events. I have long been a fan of Dr Seuss and was really excited every day when Ben would come home and tell me what they did at school. He was even excited about a Dr Seuss DVD that he received for Christmas with cartoons such as “The Sneetches” and “Green Eggs and Ham” and requested to watch it over and over. On Tuesday he came home wearing a paper Cat in the Hat hat that he had made and refused to take off prior to going into Target that evening. Then on Thursday morning they were even treated to a breakfast of green eggs and ham. He was really enjoying the week. I was really enjoying the week also - until I dropped him off on Friday morning.

For some reason when we walked into school that day the daycare director ran up to me and told me how she couldn’t wait for me to get there. Now, I’m quite used to eliciting that reaction from women, but this was a professional environment so I was immediately clued in to something being wrong. Luckily, what came next from her was a huge smile and a verbal description of what they did yesterday at school. Apparently, Ben’s class was asked to draw their interpretation of green eggs and ham. They were given a white sheet of paper and green watercolors and were left to work on their own.

At this point, the teacher was grinning uncontrollably and she pointed to the far wall to see if I could pick out which picture was Benjamin’s. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long at all because smack dab in the middle of a presentation of your typical 3 and 4 year old green blobs of paint was this striking picture drawn by what could have only been my son:




I don’t get embarrassed easily but within seconds of being shown this picture by Ben’s female daycare director and told that all of the teachers (all female) couldn’t wait to see my reaction, I was sent on a one way trip to blushville. I laughed with them and as hard, I mean difficult, as it was I prevented myself from making any inappropriate comments and got out the door to my car as soon as possible.

Yes, it looks like a dick. In fact, it very well may be a dick. Who knows what was going through his mind that day? At first I was unsettled by the fact that my son was asked to draw green eggs and ham and instead drew a huge dong, but over the weekend I recalled the story I started this out with and came to a new understanding. Sure, green eggs and ham may have a more tangible view than an image of God and can actually be defined as having a certain shape, but maybe his green eggs and ham fell on his plate kind of funny. Maybe he ate a bunch of it and the visual that stuck with him was of the remaining penis-like shape of food that was left on his plate. Who knows? What I do know is that despite it’s most definite pornographic connotation, Ben felt free to draw what he wanted and his teachers were not going to tell him that that was NOT what green eggs and ham looked like. In fact, they celebrated it and put it on the wall with the rest of his class right where it belonged.
I’m just worried what he’ll draw if he’s ever given the task of drawing God.

Actually, I can’t freaking wait!!

Thanks for reading