Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Brian has a girlfriend

She's twelve too.

They met because they were both in a recent children's theatre program. She was a juggler and he was a mime in Robin Hood's band of merry out-of-work-performers. A group comes into town every year.

At first he was sad because he did not get her phone number. Then we told him that her last name is fairly uncommon, and he called her. She is home schooled. Brian considers himself homeschooled these days, even though he is only half-way there.

Anyway, she invited him to her youth group tonight.

Her mother asks lots of questions about us. She told us about how G-d just prompted them to give up their jobs and move to this small town with no idea of what they were going to do, but that G-d has blessed them greatly. They are involved in a new church start-up. It is a scary fundamentalist denomination. The youth group though is at an established Baptist church.

She wanted to know if we had a church home. I told her we went into The City. I gave her the name very clearly so that she could check us out. "Is that the church that doesn't use any instruments?" "Oh no," I assured her. "We have a great organist and a wonderful bell choir. We have lots of good music." I did want to say, "It's the church with all the homos" but I was nice and didn't.

Hubby took Brian to the youth group.

Hubby came back and was very gentle with me. He said that Brian had a really good time, and that it was good to see him interacting with a group. He needs to develop more social skills, and make more friends. Hubby thinks we should let him go.

Have you ever had a set of instructions start with, "First, DON'T PANIC"?

"It's really conservative, isn't it?"

"Well, they're really into memorizing Bible verses. And they all have uniforms. Brian wants a one."

A bunch of small town kids in uniforms memorizing Bible verses. It does not sound good to me.

Why can't Brian have a crush on a nice liberal girl?

7 comments:

  1. "Why can't Brian have a crush on a nice liberal girl?"
    Because that wouldn't push his Mama's buttons???
    (Though to be fair, that does not sound like what is going on from your description.)
    Hang in there. You raised your boy right. He has a good head on his shoulders. He will deal.

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  2. Oh boy.

    When my son was much younger, he wanted to be a Boy Scout. I did not want him to be a Boy Scout. I explained to him why I didn't want him to. He still wanted to. I told him I would not participate in anything Boy Scout-related, and I let him do it. He went for awhile, and then he stopped. These days he is very, very liberal.

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  3. Anonymous6:14 AM

    Yucky. Bug goes to the same program. I take her, but I don't participate. They get points for how many verses they memorize, if they wore their uniform, if they went to church that week and if they have their Bible. Bug never gets the church points. Haha. I went to parent's night and it creeped me out because they played dodgeball. But she loves it.

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  4. Yikes, that would freak me out too. But I guess that's part of growing up - testing the waters to see what's out there and what we choose to take on as our beliefs. Breath deeply, mom. It's so hard to let them spread their wings.

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  5. EEEK!! I would definitely be panicked... Jacob and I often joke about how we could handle our kids turning out just about any way except conservative... which is exactly what they will probably do, LOL.

    Good luck!

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  6. Anonymous6:30 PM

    Oh gosh. That is a hard one. My knee jerk reaction was don't let him go back! HAHA like that would work. Especailly with the whole ril thing being involved. I think I would have to be having some seriosu talks about what we believe and how it might be challenged at this church.

    I am more spiritual than religious, but we do attend church, although somewhat sporadically these days, Since I am not anti God or anti bible I really don't have a problem with memorizing the bible verses. Where the problem arises is in how they are taught after that. Is there room for thinking and interpretation? Are we going to study the bible with all of it's flaws and interpretations and in historical context? At that church I doubt it.Hopefull he will realize some things on his own and either stop going or just go for the social interaction.

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  7. I LOL at the liberal girl comment!

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