one of my grandmothers — i forgot which, and both are now gone — used to collect porcelain jesus dolls with big eyes and foreheads. they were part of a collection called precious moments. it usually involved infantilized scenes from the bible. a big baby-headed guy in a shepherds frock with a cane, directing a lamb to a patch of grass. or maybe three baby boykings looking down at a baby baby jesus in a manger.
to my knowledge there were no real violent or gnarly bible scenes. have you ever read the song of solomon? that part of the bible is racy. i dont recall them ever teaching us youngsters that book. definitely no solomon themed precious moments.
i vaguely remember at one point i got a porcelain, wide eyed archangel michael, big head and all, looking for a cartoon sword plunged deep into a cloud, sort of like a non secular version of the sword in the stone. or maybe arthur had divine right to the throne and it was already a non-secular story. i guess thats what kingship means.
when you are a kid things like this statue collection can influence you positively on religion. “look, angels have swords, kids! that means the bible is cool.” sure why not. i mostly liked the cartoon sword.
i dont remember tons about my catholic upbringing except for all the times i said i was going to the bathroom during mass. instead i used the opportunity to explore all the other rooms in the church, which were empty because everyone was attending the church part of church while i was messing around. when you are six years old and have to be quiet for an hour it might as well be an eternity.
i dont think i ever did anything actually bad during exploration time. i might have found some communion wafer sleeves and had a snack. either way, when i go to hell, it will be for something much worse than swiping communion wafers. probably all the times i ditched CCD classes.
in any case, i think at some point my grandmother gave me some of those precious moments statuette dolls. now they are probably in my familys attic in texas somewhere. it has only just dawned on me that precious moments were a kind of proto-beanie babies for religious people, only probably more expensive and less collectible.
though watch me look them up on ebay and see that im sitting on a goldmine. even if so, im too lazy to sell them online. and my ego isnt resilient enough to handle a reputation of getting rich off of jesus dolls for kids.