Can I Ask You Why You Don't Go To Church?

It starts innocently enough. You're eating dinner. Your kids are playing in the play place with someone else's kid - and parents start randomly chatting.
See, in many places in the United States, this sort of conversation can be pleasant. It doesn't have to be invasive or intrusive or otherwise busy-body in nature. There is this device in place, in many places, called small talk.
According to wikipedia, small talk is "conversation for it's own sake."

But here, in Dixie, you just know it's coming. No matter how level and generic the conversation, no matter how convivial your fellow conversant is......it never, ever fails.

"So, do you all go to church?" (we say "you all" when we're being more formal than "ya'll" )

Sigh. Here we go.

I pull a tight yet friendly smile and just say, "No." and change the subject. And the conversation muddles around and goes back to friendly small talk........but I feel it.

The Beast is in the room.

Organized Religion has sent a zealot into the Chik-Fil-A and seated her next to me.

In the midst of conversation, the news that our twins are autistic comes up, which shocks, dismays and surprises her. Seeing them play with her child had tricked her into believing we were also blessed by God with perfect children, I suppose. So then, when she see that we so clearly NEED the Lord's Help (my own interpretation) she pulls out the whopper.

"Can I ask why you don't go to church?"

Let me share something with you people. I grew up going to church. I attended Sunday school with people I went to regular school with, people who were my friends. And VEGAS rules applied to Church. You didn't go babbling on about church, getting in people's faces ABOUT CHURCH. Doing that is annoying, it's bad manners and truthfully - it's behaving a bit LIKE ONE OF THOSE HYPOCRITES that Jesus was so against. What happened at church stayed at church.

I do believe it was that fellow Jesus also said that it was better to pray in a closet alone than in synagogue with the hypocrites.

Don't come at me with your Bible. Know why? Because I've READ the Bible. Cover to cover. I've read the apocrypha as well. I know what it says. Do you?

So I get a little testy when someone who informs me that she just started going to church two months ago starts stepping onto the moral high ground with me.

I get a little testier when she insinuates that "she sees miracles every day".......indicating that the LORD is going to help my twins. And then when she asks if I don't attend church because I hurt too much.

Sigh. Seriously. Just Sigh.

So I ponder my responses.
"Can I ask why you don't go to church?"
How do I answer this? A million really shitty responses come to mind.......because I'm so unbelievably offended at the intrusiveness of this question. I mean, how DARE you ask me such a question. Seriously. It's none of your business.

My response was "Because it's not something I'm interested in."

And I'll tell you what, when your God comes down from heaven and cures my twins of their autism - we'll go to church. I'll sing in the choir.