Casa de aag is located, believe it or not, directly across the street from a church whose denomination espouses views which are extreme not only in comparison to your humble narrator’s heresy but also when measured against your average brand of Christianity. Nevertheless, I had enough residual religion to summon up the courage to attend a service some decade or so ago. Toddler in tow I received the warmest of greetings by clergy and congregant gathered at the door; in the pew hymns washed me in such nostalgia for the God I knew as a teenager than I resolved to come back week after week. This decision held all the way through the first moments of the sermon, which the pastor dedicated to admonishing those who flaunt God’s rules for the separation of man and woman — specifically the injunction that to be in worship and female one must always and only wear a skirt.
Pants-clad and mortified I slunk away and never went back.
Two years ago and after much impassioned begging I allowed my eldest to attend VBS with a couple of her friends. She came home unscathed, so far as I could tell, and bearing each night a different variety of sugary treats, the theory perhaps being that hellfire becomes more palatable when served with jellybeans. Upon witnessing this astounding circumstance the little ones extrapolated that going to church was all about candy and thus was born in my preschoolers an abiding hunger for religion.
It’s hard to avoid questions of a theological nature when each and every minivan jaunt takes us past the compound. “Why are all those cars over there,” they’d ask on a Monday.
It’s a school, I’d say.
“Our school?” they’d ask. Their school is adjacent.
No, I’d say. There’s a religious school in the church.
“Why can’t we go to religious school?” they’d say, and depending on their age and the level of patience at that moment I possessed I would explain why that was probably not a good idea.
The rain finally gave up in time for us to hit the pool on Sunday. “What time does it open?” asked my eldest.
Eleven, I said. We should be there when it opens.
“While everyone else is at church, right?”
That’s it, darlin’, I said. And when the time came off we went. Right past the church.
“What are all those cars for?” asked the middle child.
They’re having church, I said.
“Why don’t we go to that church?” said the boy.
Because we don’t believe what they believe, I said.
“Like what,” asked the eldest.
Just for starters, they don’t believe gay people should be able to get married. We’d been talking a lot about this recently.
“Anyone who loves each other should be able to get married,” she said, with surprising vehemence.
They just don’t believe that, I said. She requested more examples. They believe that every pregnancy should go to term, I said.
“Even if the woman didn’t want to be pregnant?” I nodded. “Even if it was by force?”
Even if it was by force, I said. They’d say that she should either raise the baby or place it for adoption.
“That is not right.” Again with the vehemence. “What else?”
They think that the man should be the head of the household, I said. Women aren’t allowed to lead worship. They’re basically seen as less than men.
Saying that they prayed to His Noodly Appendages could not have provoked a stronger reaction. “Why would they think that!” she burst out. “I want to be married to a man who treats me like an equal!”
I hope you find that, I said.
“But why would the women put up with it,” she wondered. “Why would they even belong to a religion that treats them so poorly?”
People tend to believe the way they’re raised, I said. These are lessons they’ve gotten since infancy. They think if they don’t follow the rules they’ll go to hell, and that’s a pretty powerful motivator.
And then we were at the pool. I hastily added, But we still respect their beliefs, even if we don’t agree.
“Right Mom,” she said, then off she went to the slides.
Hours later it came up again. “I just don’t understand why people would believe that,” she said.
“Note to self. Religion: freaky.”
“That’s from…”
I interrupted. Yes, yes it is.
“It sure is,” she said.
