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While I'm don't believe anymore I'm still surrounded and
inundated by the religious sentiment of my family. On my mothers side they are
the strong protestants that shored up my faith when I had it.
They are the people I clung to when I needed answers that the Bible or prayer
just could not give. I love them
They are my family. I disagree with them on matters of faith but
They're still my family. So being
in and around the church on in my life is something that is
unavoidable if I wanna see them. I can sit through dinner prayers and even
church if need be.
This is not something that's unsettling to me as it is to other atheists.
Though inviting me to church functions and things might be their way of saying
they still have hope that I'll come back to the faith.
I know now that this won't happen. I know too much.
So when it comes
my children I have a stance that it is not a bad thing to talk to them about
religion and let them make up their own minds
If I tell them what to think, I won't be able to make them truly free thinkers.
My son has confessed to me that he does not believe there's a God,
although I don't know if he's able to articulate why just yet.
I admonished him to think about it and tell me how it thoughts progress.
When I asked him why he still likes to attend church youth group his reply was
exactly what you would expect from a teenage freethinker, " all my friends go
- there -
- and there is free food and a drum set I can play after the service ".
My daughter six and while I've asked my ex-wife to talk to her about God
this is not a very high priority on her list of things to do.
Last week and discovered that my daughter will be attending a week-long
vacation Bible school because several of her cousins had attended
and it was a good way of keeping the kids out of my ex's is hair for a few hours the
day.
Once the week was over the kids would perform sing-alongs and skits for their
parents
My daughter just wanted to sing the same lame on songs I learned when I was a
child
" Our God is an awesome God " and the like. I was torn;
I had a double standard. On the one side I would bring her around my
multi-generational religious family and say this is OK.
Then Hate Hate Hate
the fact that my ex wife would so blithely put her in a church function
without consulting me.
I was pissed! I felt like my end if it was unavoidable; after all that's my
family, I cant keep her from them.
But she explained that she would never stop me from talking to the kids about
religion
and thinking for themselves. I understood my ex's position and -
she's not the type o f ex that keeps me from the kids or takes me to court over
petty things,
or asks me for really much of anything except for child support
and that I be there for the kids whenever they needed me,
and that I take them on my selected days. I do all these things gratefully
and happily. So it didn't take me by surprise that the
end of the week sing-along fell on my selected day. This meant that I would
have to attend a church service in which my daughter may sing about Jesus
I was stricken. Can I watch her in her beautiful dress and flowered headband
sing
a song about a God I no longer believed in?
It seemed they would have to I shored myself up hoping that I could talk that
little face
afterward about what she had learned about the Bible and Jesus.
I picked her up from my Ex's thinking of the things I would ask her.
Thinking of the things I would tell her. Knowing that I would love her no matter
what she said to me.
We rode in the car silently to the church.
Me peering back at her in the rear-view mirror every few seconds.
Her platinum blonde hair had been perfectly straightened and cut for the
occasion.
She wore a white dress with a watermelon print on it.
As I began to turn on some music in the car to distract myself from my task,
Just as I was about to throw on some good old- (At the Gates Slaughter of the Soul Plays)
She piped up with her little voice and asked " Daddy how come the Earth
doesn't fall into the sun? They said it's because of God. "
I wanted to turn around I wanted to go home.
but she did ask me and I couldn't ignore that she saw the information I had to
give.
She knew would be different than the information that they had given her.
I love this child with all my heart. This was the best distraction
I could have ever had. " The earth doesn't fall into the Sun because it's
moving fast enough to oppose the gravitational pull of the Sun,
kinda like when you keeping a tether ball around the top of a pole so it
doesn't wrap around ".
" It just keeps around and around? ". " Kinda like that, yep ".
Although one day it wont, but I wasn't about to tell her that.
" Okay ". With that I decided to going the function was in such a bad idea.
She obviously trusted me over them. We pulled into the church parking lot and were
met with decaffeinated smiles and acme Hello's that say:
" I don't know you, but the Good Book says blah ".
I held her little hand and walked up the stone steps of yet another Protestant
church.
We sat in a pew behind my nieces and nephews
My ex sister and brother-in-law and turned around and gave me that
" I'm sooo okay with the fact that you're gay ". smile.
Then returned their attention to the female pastor at the pulpit.
After a heated speech about how academia is leading our children away from God,
and how it's all evolutionist thinking that's making our children violent.
The preacher announced that the kindergarten class would sing.
Luckily my daughter hadn't been paying attention to the silly speech.
Either way once this was over I was going to have a little chat with her
about questioning authority.
All the boys and girls began to take the stage my daughter sat silent.
" hun it's your turn to go up ". " I don't want to Daddy ".
" Why not? " " I just want to watch the other kids and sit with you ".
We sent through another rendition of " Our God is an awesome God " and " Jesus loves me ".
I leaned in close to my daughter's ear and asked " Why you wanna sing with the
other kids? "
" I just came to see all of my friends and eat the snickerdoodles after ".
excited I asked " There's snickerdoodles after? " Did I ever tell you of my affinity
for baked goods? " " Yep there's
cookies and other stuff too ". " Yes! "
but I was thinking. I will eat the *** out of those snickerdoodles!
With her little voice and cheery disposition she reassured me once again
that she understood a lot.
You don't have to buy into anything when you come here. You can have all the
friends you like.
Atheists Christians Muslims Buddhists
Mormons. Children get this so easily.
they don't have a criteria. Somewhere along lines I think adults
lose this type of thinking. Free-thinking.
She showed me that I had done something right. We went to the rectory.
It was permeated by the small *** Folgers Coffee, peanut butter,
fruit punch, and course snickerdoodles.
She and I parted ways so she could play with her friends and I could assault the
baked goods arranged in the white table cloth covering a ping pong table.
I walked around the table with a paper plate arranging each confection neatly
until I had a pyramid of here come the diabetes,
then I got myself a styrofoam cup ofshitty folger's.
I sat and ate contentedly in the corner watching my daughter and her friends as
they giggled and chased each other,
winding between all the other parents who had decided to ignore the new guy.
I sat quietly munching on my goods observing the clamor tired moms and dads
talking ad nauseam about how Obamacare isn't working,
and how gay marriage will ruin the world.
They were just as frail and judgmental as I was.
Did I ostracized myself? Had the other parents ostracized me?
Maybe, but my daughter was doing well,
than the rest of us. I thought: " I'll just sit here need the *** out of all these
snickerdoodles ".
(Suicide Silence: You only live once Plays)