I live in the Bible belt, about 15 minutes south of Nashville, but I didn't grow up here. I was born here, my parents divorced, my mom remarried, and we moved around a bit before landing in the SF Bay Area.
We never went to church. The only exposure I had to religion was when my mother would yell, "Jesus H. Christ, Bill!" when arguing with my step-father (I'm still trying to figure out what the "H" means). My mother was an Atheist. Anytime someone would mention the word "god" she would go on a tirade about how as long as there were children being abused in this world she would never believe in any god.
None of my friends ever went to church. I don't ever remember even seeing any churches when I was growing up. Nobody talked about god, prayed before a meal, or had fish on the bumper of their SUV. I didn't even open a Bible until I was in college.
I moved back to TN when I was in my twenties, got married, had 2.2 kids, a dog, a white brick house in a great family-oriented neighborhood, yada, yada, yada. And all of sudden...BAM!
Churches on every fucking corner in sight. A faith section in the newspaper (there is even an Ask Pastor Mike column like Dear Abby). A mom's prayer group at the elementary school on Tuesday mornings. A neighbor knocking on my door inviting me to a Purpose Driven Life study group at her home (she actually came into my kitchen, where I was cleaning up the whole bottle of wine that had spilled out of the refrigerator door and had been chain smoking...you had to be there to see the look on her face).
I couldn't help but start to think, am I missing something here? Was this so common in everyone's lives but ours? I'm not exaggerating when I say that, excluding people I grew up with in CA, I don't know anyone, ANYONE, IRL that is not a Xtian. My family? All Xtian. My friends? All Xtian.
My family thinks I'm the one they talk about in the Bible where it says messengers of the devil will try and lead you astray. The few friends I do have just laugh and say I'm going to hell. These are all educated, relatively reasonably, middle to upper class people I'm talking about here.
My father won't be an active participant in his grandchildren's lives because I won't allow him to be their "spiritual advisor." Whatever the fuck that is. Some of the neighbors won't allow their children to come over to our house (I'm divorced, decent looking, and outspoken so I'm sure that adds to their fears as well). The first question out of everyone's mouth when meeting anyone is, "Where do you go to church?" When I say we don't attend church they actually step back like we've got the plague.
The most recent shocker is my daughter's homeschool Daisy Troop. The leader said we were taking a break for the holidays and would start meeting again in January. Well, January came and went and I didn't receive the regular weekly email reminder. I emailed her and she didn't respond. I figured they has disbanded. Wrong. I saw one of the other mothers at the grocery and she said they have been meeting for weeks. I must have been inadvertantly removed from the email list. Not.
What is wrong with these people?
Rant of the day...See above.
Thought of the day...What the fuck?
Peace, BridgetJ