Agnostic Mom

The kids are down, the house is quiet, and Israel and I just watched the 3rd to last episode of Six Feet Under. That’s a show that makes me pensive afterward. It was tense tonight because it was the day of Nate’s funeral. Nate is a main character who died last week: the show is wrapping up, not just for the season, but for good. What I love about Six Feet Under is how it displays both life and death in such a beautiful complex package. The tree in the intro is a perfect symbol (nature/life) to offset the tragedy of death; it seems to say there is a beauty in it all.

Tomorrow I’ll be enjoying coffee with my girlfriends while the kids participate in a story/singing time, which I arranged for my club through a coffee shop. Two years ago we moved to a new town 30 minutes away, and not having a church community to jump into, I made no friends for two years. I know things are different in the midwest and other places, but here, it’s very difficult to get to know your neighbors. And eventually when you do, you still can’t really call it a community because you’re just not that close. These days, if you don’t belong to a church, you have to go out and make a community in some other way. I was scared at the idea of raising my children without a supportive group like the one I grew up tied to. A year ago I discovered the MOMS Club, a non-profit organization with local chapters for at-home moms. We have activities scheduled one to three times a week and we can attend as many or as few as we want (at no cost: there’s just a yearly membership fee, my chapter is $20). I had no idea that these ladies would become some of my closest friends. We get together, our children play, we share our hobbies and insanities, and we have a blast! Some moms are religious by faith, some by heritage, and some, like me, not at all. It’s a totally secular group, and it was the missing piece I needed! I highly recommend it, if you’re like I was, and without a community, go find a chapter in your area. You can find it online at www.momsclub.org.

Ok, so finding a club was a triumph for me. I am also experiencing struggle. What do you do when your family life is infiltrated with the extended relatives’ religion? We just attended the baptism of my kids’ 8 year old cousin, Nana just took my kids to church while we were in Florida last weekend, and my son’s best friend has been telling him he won’t go to heaven if he doesn’t pray. He also read the Bible to my son. Suddenly Blake (7 yrs) announced to me that the Bible is true, he loves church (he didn’t like it before, so that made things easy), and he wants to get baptized when he’s 8. Maybe I’ll go into more detail next time (unless something new pops up!). Will this be a continuous battle? I think so. It’s all an adventure.