Jade Fern Grove Sitting flat on your bum doesn't buy any bread.

More explanations and still some did not make any sense to Esma. Part of her mind wrote it off to her own incompetency - she by no means claimed to know everything about, how the spirit and god world worked (that included also logic). On the other hand that world could not be that much different from the one they lived in. Otherwise, how could they communicate clearly to their subordinates on this Earth? If they were not similar, their voices would be like that of the birds. Beautiful, but nonsensical.

"But, if you do not have a father, how do you cherish him?" Esma asked. Up until now Ash Paw had been her whole world - a father figure had never been part of it and therefore she had never felt a loss. Now, however, she took John's words on respecting your parents and merged with the idea of looking up to Atka and Sos. "What if... others want what you have? And they do not follow your god's rules. Will your god help you then?" she thought about all the toys she had had to give up to the other kids just because she was not assertive enough to tell "no". Having a god as an ally would be useful in that case. 

"What happens if your family does not live according to your god? You do not meet them on the other side? Or you being a good subordinate to your god means that he will extend his good will to your other family members," there was still so much to learn.