Thursday, September 10, 2009

Flanked by Christians


First of all, let me say that my family is not Christian.

I am quite happily an agnostic secular Christian.

My daughter was a Christian when we went to a church she liked. She turned Muslim when we went to a Mosque a few times for a college assignment I had. She turned rabidly atheistic when we moved and we couldn't find a church she liked. She turned into a pantheist when she saw a play with Greek gods in it. God bless her.

And my husband? Agnostic, maybe, with atheist leanings and an affinity to Buddhist theology but no inclination to become a Buddhist.

And now we are trying to find a homeschool group to join. We live in a small town. There is one homeschool group here and it's Christian. There is a secular group in a town 45 minutes south and I'm sure there would be one in the larger town an hour east of us. I would be willing to travel that far a couple times a month that a group would meet, but think of it. The point of a group is to make friends, go on field trips together, share ideas, and have support. A group an hour away would mean friends an hour away. It kind of defeats the purpose.

So, we went to our local homeschool group this morning. I gave Mi'ita the lecture on respecting other people's religions, steering clear of the subject, what to say if it came up. I told her that we were just looking into this group and if it wasn't for us, we wouldn't have to join.

They started with a prayer and ended with a prayer. Their introductory paper stated their religious theology. I talked a bit with the leader and she said that there have been non-Christians in their group, but they had to fit in.

After that, we talked a lot about curriculum. We decided that we would do three units this year: one on the history of our state and the Oregon Trail, one on marine biology, and one on forestry. They talked about how they were going to skip their usual Christmas pageant this year because they wanted to focus on these units. There was another brand new homeschool mom there whose daughter is only 12 days older than mine and we have a play date set up for tomorrow.

I asked Mia if she wanted to keep going. She said yes. Of course she complained about the group--she seems incapable of not complaining about something. She complained about the how they played dodgeball, though, and not the prayers, and she is excited about her new friend.

Success? I am hopeful. We officially joined and I forked over my membership dues.

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