i heard "mary had a little lamb" this morning.

then i thought maybe this innocent nursery rhyme is really a reference to christianity/catholicism. maybe the person who wrote it was a hardcore christian but it happened when christians were being killed so they had to profess their faith in a rather weird way: nursery rhymes. it makes sense in a way because then you could teach your children about your faith and it wouldn't be too obvious and they wouldn't be killed.

there's this prayer i learned way way way back and it goes like this: "Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, Have mercy on us" and there's another one that goes "Mary mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, amen."

so i'm thinking mary in "mary had a little lamb" isn't really that sheep herder, but she's really the virgin mary. and the lamb, of course, is jesus christ.

but i just googled "mary had a little lamb" and according to wikipedia it's really a poem in 1830's "insipred by a true incident." but i can't take my mind off it being a christian thing. i still think it is.

if you think about it, "it made the children laugh and play to see a lamb at school" and jesus supposedly likes children, in a good way of course.

i also looked at the original poem. it says, "why does the lamb love mary so/[...]/why, mary loves the lamb, you know." so i guess it's also supposed to teach you about loving your children and respecting your parents. but that's probably overthinking and overrreaching for things that are not even there.