In Tess's class of preschoolers and kindergarteners, the kids learn the parable of the Good Shepherd. Cynthia, the teacher, rolls out felt shapes, green for the grass, blue for a pond, and so on. She places little wooden sheep here and there, one quite far off. She demonstrates how this slacker shepherd can't be bothered to help them out, much less round up the strays. The Good Shep­herd, though, doesn't rest until he takes care of all his flock, she says. The kids watch Cynthia's hand as she bumps the sheep around the felt swatches and reaches to bring the stray into the fold. A pause. A significant look. She asks the kids who they think this Good Shepherd is. Blank stares all around. I feel for them; even the disciples were baffled by the parables. Finally, one little girl says, "Dorothy?" Later, I go to the passage in John 10 and one line leaps out at me. Jesus speaks of his "sheep" and says, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." More abundantly: That's what I want for my children.

November 19

On the sidewalk before we head into church, I wipe Will's nose. "What's more important," he asks crossly, "wiping my nose or God?" Things have gotten a bit out of hand with Sir Bows-a-Lot. One example, from a few weeks ago: I pick Will up from school, and he looks a bit forlorn. Me: "Buddy, did anything happen today that bothered you?" Will, after a heavy sigh: "Yeah. At recess, me and Ryan and Elaina wanted Johnathan to play with us and he didn't want to." Me: "So what did you do?" Will: "I said to Ryan and Elaina, 'Let's go pray to God about this at the basketball court.'" "Really?" I say brightly, a cartoon of someone trying to maintain composure. "What did you say in your prayer?" Will: "I showed them how to put their hands together, and Ryan said, 'I don't know how to pray,' and I said, 'You should!' And then I said, 'Dear God, please help us all get along . . . And don't let people cut down any more trees.'" I've clearly blown the job of explaining that you don't push your beliefs on others. And what's with the basketball court?

November 26

At the service, Tess gets lost in a dog-eared kids' book called The Queen Who Saved Her People. In the weeks ahead, I will come to love the queen because she also saves me. The book consistently occupies Tess for a good 10 minutes at a stretch because Esther (the queen) "got fashion," as my daughter says, and does a royal wardrobe change every few pages.

January 7

Tess was fluish through much of December, and we celebrated Christmas out of town with John's family. So it's been a while. The kids don't want to go, they whine all morning while I pop Advil and slam the medicine cabinet door in exasperation. Why am I doing this again? But novelty is our savior; regular classes are canceled for Three Kings Day and instead all the kids and parents walk under the winter sun to a nearby church for a joint celebration. In the parish hall, a teacher asks the kids why we honor the three wise men, and my heart plumps up when she picks Will, his hand stretched high. He's suddenly shy — there are a good hundred people here — but says solemnly, "They traveled far and that's special and we should thank them for traveling far to see the baby Jesus." My boy. The teacher explains how it's also customary to give gifts on Three Kings Day, especially to the poor. Something clicks for Will, who later asks if we can find a poor person to give his gift to. All week he lobs questions at John and me like "Why are there poor people?" "Are rich people all bad?" As Will gets in touch with his inner socialist, John begins to soften on this church business. "If it's teaching him that empathy is not just a nice thing, that it's a need, a moral obligation, then I'm more than okay with that," he tells me. "As long as there's no fear or guilt though." I nod vigorously. "You know," he goes on, "maybe a third party like the church can even teach this better than we can." "Maybe," I say nonchalantly, trying to suppress a smile.

January 14

I ask Will if he liked his class. "I didn't like it," he says, "I loved it!" I'm jazzed; he's been tetchy about Sunday school for a while now. I find out later that the lesson was Jesus' miracle at the wedding at Cana — as a thematic tie-in, the teacher passed out big slices of cake.

January 21

The parents take turns teaching Will's class, and today I'm up. The lesson is on another of Jesus' miracles, the healing of Simon's mother-in-law. As the kids watch with curiosity, I lay out a bottle of ibuprofen, a thermometer, and some My Little Pony bandages. Then I do the reading (Luke 4:38–39): "And He arose and left the synagogue, and entered Simon's house. Now Simon's mother-in-law was ill with a high fever, and they besought Him for her. And He stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her; and immediately she rose and served them." I ask who's had a fever and hands shoot up. Stories flow of 104.5 degree temperatures and delirious visions, of broken bones and bee stings. "I threw up 15 times in one night!" says a boy. I try to bring it back to the mother-in-law. "She must have felt so good when Jesus cured her. I mean, doesn't it feel great," I add sunnily, "when you finally get well?" Another kid says, "No! I'd rather stay home from school and watch TV." All the others nod in support. The lesson plans suggest the kids make get-well cards, and I set out construction paper and markers. The kids dedicate cards to their aunts, their dads, their pets. Will, delicious hypochondriac that he is, writes: "Get Well Will." The next day, I'm telling my friend Trisha about class and she teases me for teaching the lesson so literally. I feel a tiny stab of disquiet. It's true: I didn't exactly help them read between the lines, or explain that the miracles can be interpreted metaphorically, rather than as factual history. It just brings home how squirrelly I feel about this religious education business. The truth is, I have my agnostic days. And I'm ridiculously careful to tell my children that many people think there is no God. Or that those who do believe in God worship in countless ways. Someday, I hope to take them to a Passover seder, a ceremony at a Hindu temple and an Islamic mosque. Question what you learn, I urge them, stay open. But the fact is, at this age, they're more confused than helped by my contortions. My friend Moira's son is in Will's Sunday school class, and she and I get to laughing about this later. What if we spoke to our kids about soccer the way we speak to them about religion? "Honey, some people believe there's a ball, others don't, and that's okay. There are all sorts of ways to kick it, and all of them are okay too. The black and white spots on the ball could be just random designs showing that fate is out of our hands, or they could be poignant representations of the light and dark of our souls..."

February 3

After the lesson in Tess's class comes children's choice time. The other kids haul Moses and his people through the desert (a box of sand) or mess around with Jonah and the whale (what you'd expect). But, as she's done for weeks now, Tess plays with a brick-size replica of the altar. She arranges each tiny altar piece as if she's playing with her Polly Pockets. The paten, the gold plate that holds the communion wafers, is the size of a quarter. The lavabo bowl of water in which the minister washes his hands is a smidge bigger than a thimble. I feel a frisson; my mother and her mother before her, fine ladies of the Altar Guild, spent most Sunday mornings of their adult lives doing just this, on a slightly grander scale.

March 18

Today's entire service is devoted to, and partly run by, children. With her teacher's patient help, Tess prepares the altar. She carefully fills the two glass decanters, one etched A for aqua, the other V for vinum. She carries out the silver communion chalice studded with onyx. It's exquisite, and she's thrilled to be helping in such a grown-up way, but I'm a bit unsettled that church has become a sort of spiritual Target for her. False gods, and all that. The deacon gathers all the children, by turns distracted and attentive, in the front of the church. As the congregation listens, he hands a puzzle piece to each child. They work together to complete the puzzles on the stone floor, and the deacon says, "All of us matter to God. And if we get lost, like a puzzle piece, He won't rest until He finds us." The service includes a reading of Psalm 32, and a line shimmers: "You are my hiding place; you preserve me from trouble." I look at my son, my remarkable, anxious, intense boy. I realize that if I want religion to shepherd Tess beyond thesuperficial, I hope it brings Will this hiding place of calm and comfort.

March 25

"I'd rather have head lice than go to church!" Will shouts. Well, that's a new one. It's more hellish than usual getting him out the door; there's been soccer or basketball on Saturdays and what with school, he has no free mornings. We're all sour and exhausted by the time we reach the car. At the Sing, I take the first tune to heart. It's "Walk a Mile."

Remember that fight that we had?
Why did we both have to lose?
It's because we both walked away mad,
Instead of walking a mile in each other's shoes!

Tess probably thinks the song is about girlfriends feeling better because they borrowed each other's footwear, for fashion's sake. But Will knows the score. At dinner that night, he tells me, "It's about trying to understand the other person." And even now, months later, when we're at loggerheads, one of us says, "Let's try and walk a mile in each other's shoes." Sometimes it even helps.

April 15

We visited my parents for Easter weekend and skipped church in favor of a long, chatty breakfast and an egg hunt. Now I feel odd, at loose ends, that we've missed the most monumental days in the Christian calendar. While we were away, the kids in Will's class wrote and decorated their own notes to Jesus, and they're posted on the walls. As everyone snacks on pretzels and juice, I read the crayoned sentiments: "I'll bet you were nice to people." "Thank you very very very much." "That crown of thorns must have hurt." "I'm sorry you had to die."

May 13

A man I haven't seen before sits in the pew in front of us. Disheveled, intent. I think he's homeless. We're at the part of the service where people may come forward to be blessed by the minister. The man rises and joins the others. My kids have seen panhandlers, and I've given Will dollar bills to drop into their cups, but homelessness and poverty have been mostly theoretical. After church I decide to mention the man and explain more vividly what homelessness is. They are dumbstruck. "You mean he don't have family and cousins?" says Tess. "Where does he sleep?" asks Will. Tess says she wants to get him toothpaste and shampoo that's "travel-sized." Talk of homelessness leads to talk of suffering, which brings us to the subject of Easter, and I take a deep breath. Now or never. I can't believe I'm doing this, but I take the straws out of their lemonades and cross them into a crucifix. I explain how the Romans punished people they thought were criminals or with whom they didn't agree, and this was one way they killed people. I stretch out my arms to show how a person could be nailed onto a cross. I tell them it's wrong and scary and sad, but that's why in Will's class these last few weeks they talked about the marks the nails left on Jesus' hands and feet. Will stares at me, trying to take it in.

June 10

It's the last day of Sunday school. During the church service, there's an informal graduation ceremony and each child gets a little certificate. I assume there will also be some token gift. But no. On behalf of all the church's children, the teachers purchased a water buffalo — a pregnant water buffalo — for an impoverished rural family through Heifer International. Aside from the jokes that pop into my head (Hey, that's what I looked like in my third trimester!), this gift strikes me as perfectly symbolic of the spiritual journey that my children and I have been on. It's been so ungainly, yet so sustaining. When we began, Will and Tess wanted to know just what you should say when you pray. I kicked up a round of my usual overexplanations, but then stopped, and told them something I'd heard long ago. When you get right down to it, there are really only two kinds of prayers. One is: "Help me, help me, help me." The other is: "Thank you, thank you, thank you." You just fill in the details. So on this Sunday morning, my fidgety graduates and I kneel down. And we bow our heads.

About the Author: Katharine Whittemore is Wondertime's features editor. Her daughter Tess thinks God wears "red pants, blue top, and white shoes." Her son Will says, "I don't believe in God now, but I do believe in aliens."