The Day I Drew God

It was a poser, all right. I honestly didn't know how it could be done. Not without a little miracle right here in the class: a visitation, perhaps. Or one of those out of the body experiences you hear about on TV.

The problem was, no one else seemed to see anything difficult about it. There they were, row on row of little bent heads, busy scribbling and colouring in for the teacher. And the vicar. I looked up at them, hoping to read some kind of clue on their faces. Him, a big, round figure, a black robe pulled tight around his belly. Like a big black tent, I thought. He visited us every week, always a little awkward, as though he was happier with the grown-ups. Probably the reason he had us drawing today: so he wouldn't have to talk to us.

The teacher was stick thin by contrast. And everything about her seemed pursed up tight. Lips, cheeks, waist. Everything. Miss Gomersal. Double maths on a Monday morning Gomersal. And God help you if you got too many corrections to do.

I normally had lots of corrections.

Maths really wasn't my thing at St John's Church of England School for Infants. Still isn't, if I'm honest.

Drawing, though. That, I was normally good at. But not today.

Draw God, they'd said. Draw God for Father Peter.

Trouble is, I didn't know what God looked like. Even the vicar didn't seem too convinced. Trinity, that's what he called it. Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Or Spirit, as he preferred. Sometimes He looked like a dove, too, didn't He?

Then there were the things you heard outside school. My mum and dad didn't seem to hold with the God stuff much at all. But even at the tender age of six, I knew that a lot of people seemed to disagree about what He was like. Even very wise people. Some people even said He was a She.

You can probably tell, I was an earnest little child. A bit too thoughtful for my own good, perhaps.

But I had to draw something.

Unable to make the momentous decision about which incarnation the deity really looked like, my ardent little six-year-old self decided to draw all of them.

The possibilities. I'd give them the options, so to speak.

First, a cross. With a man on it. A difficult one, but I probably didn't do too bad a job, for my age. Drawing was my thing, as I said. Then, the Holy Spirit. That was harder. I can still see that one now, quite clearly. A bit of a grey murky blob, but it would have to do. There wasn't that much time left. Then I did a ghost too, for good measure.

God the Father was next. An old man, bearded, with a gold (well, yellow) crown on His head. And a yellow throne. Last, I drew a dove. With perhaps the beginning of an inkling of an insight, or just the lack of space in my school notebook, I didn't draw God the Woman. Thankfully.

I looked at the page. It was all a bit confusing. Particularly the grey-blob-holy-spirit-ghost thing. I wasn't sure they'd get it.

That was when inspiration really struck. In my neatest writing, I wrote: "Is this God?" over and over next to each of my renderings.

There. Done. I was satisfied with my efforts. I hoped the teacher would be too.

Miss Gomersal gathered in our notebooks to show off her class's work to Father Peter.

To look at her, you wouldn't think Miss Gomersal's mouth could purse up any tighter. But it did, the day she showed my drawings of God to the vicar.

You might have thought she wouldn't have shouted so loud in front of him, either. His mild-manneredness looked a bit shaken.

Possibly, the bitterness of the rollicking sprang from disappointment. She liked to show off in front of the vicar. Now, she had a deceiver in the midst. A serpent in Eden. A little heathen in six-year-old shoes, showing her up.

It's probably hard to believe just how disappointed I was. I didn't know it was possible to be so wicked, when you were trying so hard to be good.

Trouble was, no one else in the class had any problem drawing God, at all. Every one of them, without exception, without even a word or a whisper to let me in on the secret, had plumped for the old man on a throne. Ten out of 10. Pat on the back. Vicar smiling, teacher happy, children good. All going to heaven in a little rowboat.

That day, I learned that teachers own all the questions. I learned that, if you're told to draw God in a C of E school, you damned well sit down and do a man with a beard and a yellow crown and a yellow throne. Or be damned.

If you don't, your imagination might just get ripped apart like a page out of your school notebook.

I learned how much it hurts when you're trying so hard to please and you don't.

But I also learned that day that the establishment isn't always right. Not teachers. Not vicars. He knew, you see. I could see it in his face. Father Peter knew exactly what I was getting at. Through a glass darkly, he always said. He no more knew what the face of God looked like than a six-year-old child.

He betrayed me with his silence.

It's a lesson I haven't forgotten.

Note: names have been changed to protect the Godly!