Vox Meditantis

6 responses to “The Year I Stopped Believing”

1. 

   J.K. Marlin

   03/12/2025

   This is so beautifully said. As one who at 80 still believes God is, I wonder if our cultural traditions of Santa or Father Christmas steal from children the ability to recognize an invisible Spiritual reality, stolen at that moment of discovering the deception? Or is it developmental that children after six only believe what they see, or do children still keep other beliefs even after finding the Santa shoes in the father’s closet. Maybe I should ask a doctor of developmental psychology.

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   1. 

      Bob Lynn

      03/12/2025

      Thank you for sharing such a thoughtful and personal reflection. Your question reaches to the very heart of what the poem is trying to explore – the nature of belief itself, and how our early experiences with “enchantment” shape our capacity for faith later in life.

      You’ve touched on a profound tension. On one hand, traditions like Santa Claus can be seen as a child’s first curriculum in magical thinking: a joyful, tangible story that trains the heart to accept that the world holds more than what is immediately visible. It’s a practice run for wonder. In this view, the eventual “discovery” isn’t necessarily a theft, but a necessary graduation. The child learns to separate the literal vehicle (the sleigh, the workshop) from the transcendent cargo: the spirit of generosity, mystery, and selfless love that the story carried. That spirit, one could argue, is the very bridge to recognising an “invisible Spiritual reality.”

      On the other hand, as your intuition suggests, if the tradition is handled purely as a deceptive fact to be later debunked, the collateral damage can be a deep-seated distrust. The poem’s speaker laments not just losing Santa, but losing “the grammar of believing impossible things.” If a child feels deliberately fooled by the most trusted figures in their life about something so central to their joy, might they become more sceptical of all unseen realities? It’s a valid concern. The pivotal moment becomes less about development and more about betrayal.

      Your wondering about developmental psychology is astute. Many theorists, like Piaget, describe the “concrete operational” stage (beginning around age 6-7) as a time when logical thinking solidifies, making literal belief in magical figures less tenable. Yet this is also the age when many children are formally introduced to religious or spiritual concepts. The transition isn’t necessarily an on/off switch for belief, but a shift in how one believes – from a literal, figure-based magic to a more abstract, values-based or spiritual understanding.

      Perhaps the key lies not in the what (Santa vs. God) but in the how. The poem’s deepest sorrow isn’t that the speaker stopped believing in a red-suited man, but that the world became flattened by explanation. The sense of mystery evaporated. Maybe the goal of such traditions isn’t to sustain a literal belief forever, but to protect and nurture that innate human faculty for wonder – so that when the literal myth is outgrown, the capacity for awe, for feeling connected to something larger, remains intact and ready to be directed toward other, more complex mysteries: love, justice, the cosmos, the divine.

      Your own journey, believing in God at 80, is a powerful witness to that abiding capacity. It suggests that while certain childhood beliefs may be developmentally destined to transform, the foundational “grammar of believing” can be retained, or even rediscovered. The poem speaks of a loss, but your life offers the hopeful counterpoint: that the loss isn’t always permanent. Sometimes, we trade a simple wonder for a more complex, deeply rooted one.

      So, to your poignant question: Do our traditions steal or train? The answer is probably, delicately, both. Their ultimate gift or theft depends less on the story itself, and more on the wisdom with which we, as families and a culture, help children navigate its passing – ensuring that when the sleigh vanishes, the sky full of stars remains a place for wishes.

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2. 

   midwife.mother.me.

   03/12/2025

   I remember the day my then 7 year old Firstborn Son came crashing down to earth upon realising that neither Santa nor the tooth fairy were real… the worst thing was that I really thought he already knew about the benevolent deception!

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   1. 

      Bob Lynn

      03/12/2025

      That moment really does feel like a small earthquake, doesn’t it? One minute you’re quietly proud of how well you’ve kept the magic going; the next you’re standing in the kitchen with a seven‑year‑old looking at you as if the floor has just given way.

      There’s such a particular heartbreak in what you describe: not only their crash back to earth, but your sudden awareness that what you meant as benevolence has landed, in that split second, like a betrayal. You think you’re offering them a softer world for a few more years – and then you see it through their eyes as “you lied to me”, and your own stomach drops.

      What helps, at least in hindsight, is remembering what sits underneath the “deception”: the counted coins, the late‑night wrapping, the notes under pillows. It’s all just one long, slightly shambolic love letter in disguise. Most children, once the sting of being “in the know” fades, eventually reframe it that way too: less “you tricked me”, more “you worked so hard to make my world feel magical”.

      But in that first moment of being “found out”? Yes – millions of parents, all over the world, have stood exactly where you were, wondering if they’ve broken something precious. In a strange way, it’s just the magic changing hands. From then on, they’re not only the receiver of wonder but a co‑conspirator in it – and that, too, is its own kind of enchantment.

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3. 

   S.Bechtold

   03/12/2025

   I worked very hard to walk the fine line between outright deception and imagination. Any deception, no matter how small had to break on the positive shore. The Tooth fairy fell first to reality due to my mishandling of the payment but Santa never really fell since he was ever changing with Hollywood’s help. He went from being seen as a literal agent to becoming the icon of an ideal. After all, I always wrote the labels on the presents for everyone. We are all varied incarnations of Santa at Christmas. Time to do our share and make those boot prints, eat the cookies, and keep the magic ready for the future.

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   1. 

      Bob Lynn

      03/12/2025

      There’s such a careful ethical thread running through what you’ve written – that sense of “any deception has to break on the positive shore” feels exactly right. It honours both the child’s trust and the parent’s wish to keep a bit of enchantment alive, without pretending there’s no tension between the two.

      The way you describe Santa “never really falling” but evolving – from literal agent to shared ideal – is a lovely articulation of something many families feel but don’t quite name. It’s as if the costume stops belonging to one man at the North Pole and becomes a sort of communal cloak we all put on for a while. Your line, “We are all varied incarnations of Santa at Christmas,” catches that beautifully.

      There’s also something quietly generous about owning the mechanics – “I always wrote the labels” – and still seeing that as part of the magic rather than the death of it. The boot prints, the half‑eaten cookies, the slightly wonky handwriting on a tag: they become rituals of adult imagination rather than evidence of a lie.

      In that sense, your approach offers a gentle path through the dilemma the poem sits in: not choosing between truth and wonder, but letting the myth grow up alongside the child – from story, to symbol, to shared responsibility for making the world a bit kinder than it strictly has to be.

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