Tell the Truth but tell it slant

So I told my first parental lie today...well, the second, if you count the bit about Santa Claus. We've had some thunder and lightning this afternoon, and Logan's a little freaked out by thunder. He hears the noise and his mouth drops open, his eyes go wide. I think it bothers him most because he can hear the noise but can't see where it's coming from. "Thunder! Wanna see it!" He says. No amount of logical explanation helped soothe his frazzled nerves, and he even started crying. "I know thunder is loud, but you can't see it. It's like when you sing. You can't see your voice, right? But it doesn't matter. It won't hurt you." Yeah, not helpful at all. How many times does a kid hear "Now, this won't hurt a bit," when it actually does quite a lot...the shot from the doctor's office, the Bactine dabbed on a fresh boo boo.

So it turns out that the explanation my mom gave when I was little worked much better than my vain attempts to console with logic. "God's bowling, Logan. Doesn't it sound like that one was a strike?" He immediately seemed to accept that rationale happily. "God bowling!"

It really is like that Emily Dickinson poem "Tell all the Truth but tell it slant" when she says that only "explanation kind" can ease children's minds about lightening. How true, how true. And down it pours.