When I was in fifth grade, my parents decided to move me from the public schools to St. Paul's Lutheran school. The local elementary school wasn't working out for me which I will discuss in a later post, and there really weren't any private options that weren't religious. There were several other children in the neighborhood who went there, and the school came with a pretty strong recommendation. My fifth grade teach was named Miss Thunder, and she had the ability to scare a lot of learning into someone.
When we started at St Paul's we found out that attending church was a requirement and that they would take attendance on Monday morning. Fortunately they didn't require you to go to their church, just that you went to church on Sunday. I suppose Saturday would be okay too. My family had never attended church, and my dad was a pretty ardent atheist, so this was a pretty big downside of the new school, but since it was a requirement, we started attending church.
I can't remember if my dad went to church with us or not. I definitely remember my mom going, so I have the feeling my dad stayed home. We started out by going to the Methodist church in downtown Ann Arbor. I remember having to get up early on Sunday and wear nice clothes, then sitting through sermons being bored out of my mind. I couldn't believe how many times we had to stand, then sit, then stand again. I was constantly in trouble for fidgeting, and I really didn't like anything about it. I remember one time when the minister was discussing faggots asking my mom what that was, and she said it wasn't a nice word and was obviously uncomfortable with the sermon. There really was a lot of confusion between the way I had been brought up and the messages coming from the pulpit.
The worst was when the minister would get out his guitar and start singing the sermons. I am not sure if he had any talent as a minister, but I was certain he had none as a performer. I guess having a captive audience makes it easy to have a false sense of confidence in your abilities. At least with the guitar playing, I didn't fall asleep the way I did when the older minister would speak.
As I have mentioned before, my dad was not a religious man in any way. That being said, he didn't push his views on me. He let me discover my lack of faith on my own. I think going to church and going to St. Paul's accelerated that view. In the end neither one of us were militant atheists. My dad never argued with anyone about it, it just wasn't a topic he discussed. He figured there were a lot of people who got a lot out of their faith, and if it was working for them who was he to judge as long as they weren't interfering with his life. I would say I am much more argumentative, but I am still respectful of other peoples beliefs. I just enjoy an intellectual debate more than he did.
After a particularly boring church service, I was talking to my dad at home, and I told him how much I hated going to church and wished I never had to go again. Now my father was a very honest man, so lying wasn't an option, but that doesn't mean he wasn't willing to explore loopholes. He asked me what exactly did they say when they took attendance on Monday mornings? I remember saying that the teacher just asks if you went to church over the weekend. He looked at me with a grin and said, "do they ask if you went inside?". I started smiling as I replied no, no they don't ask that. He said, so there is no mention of whether they are even open when you go. I was like, no, no mention at all.
After this enlightening discussion with my dad, we started going to a chapel on U of M's campus since it was actually open all the time. We would drive downtown, go into the chapel, say a quick prayer which was probably hoping we could stop by Burger King while we were there, then we would go home. We did this for a while, and I would smile every Monday morning as I honestly answered the question from the teacher as to whether I had gone to church over the weekend.
After a while it became quite a chore to drive all the way downtown to go to the chapel. We would run out of time on the weekends, and there was a Lutheran church just down the street. We would wait until the evening and drive over to the church, run up to the door and touch then handle, then run back to the car. Every now and then we would have to sing in a school function, and actually have to go to the St Paul's church, but other than that and a couple of weddings, my father and I never attended a church service again.
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