The Son With Two Mom's, Chapter 1

The Son With Two Moms Chapter 6

Every Sunday morning, I found myself reminiscing about Saturday's game. Which play I made to deceive this player or that, which play I could have made better, which goal let in by our team might have been my fault in some way, and how I would remedy this in the next game, were all thoughts that ran through my mind.

However, I couldn't fully concentrate. Someone's voice kept interrupting my inward conversation. Before I knew it, I had lost focus altogether, and was forced to turn my gaze up to a pulpit, where our pastor was starting her sermon. She spoke of something Jesus said in a complicated diction I didn't understand.

"This is so boring," I thought. The 1889 mahogany wood bench was just as uncomfortable as it was last week, and the service was just as long. Actually, the service might have been a little longer than last week...

Either way, Sunday morning needed to be over. Now. The clock needed to hit 12:15, and we needed to stand up and go home. However, I would not tell anyone that I felt this way. No, I would sit here on this long wooden bench, pretend to listen intently, and sing every hymn asked of the congregation—and I would sing them well, too.

My heart, however, just wasn't in it, a fact that I hid fairly well from Mary and Janet, who applauded my attentiveness and recounting of parts of the sermon as great strides forward in my growing maturity. They were right in one sense, I guess: I was getting better and better at lying about my true emotions, something adults do on a daily basis.

To their credit, though, Janet and Mary never forced me to say anything positive or negative regarding religion. They always invited me to think for myself and draw my own conclusions from what I learned.

Our church, Takoma Park Presbyterian, encouraged open mindedness as well. Outside the old gray stone building there was a quote from Dr. King on a sign in front of the church that read, "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everlasting stream."

The church considered itself to be a safe haven for peoples of all different ethnicities, creeds, and sexualities. The majority of the congregation was white, with a few African-American and Asian families sprinkled into the mix. In addition, the church also had several African immigrant families.

In addition to racial diversity, Takoma Park Presbyterian had a few gay and lesbian members as well. The church itself was (and is) very liberal, but that did not apply to the Presbyterian Church as a whole.

In the traditional Presbyterian Church, women as well as gays were prevented, until recently, from being ordained as elders within the church. Today, women are allowed to be ordained as elders, but gays are still cast out, depending upon the congregation.

Takoma Park Presbyterian for its part had no issue ordaining gays as elders and proved it by ordaining Mary as one. She served on the board of the church and was charged with making decisions about the church's future.

All the same, several members of the church took issue with the fact that Mary, as well as several others, were even allowed to attend the church. An atmosphere of tolerance was preached, but was not always followed.

Janet recalled an occasion in which a woman refused to hold her hand during a prayer circle. Sunday service had just let out and a vote was to be held on whether or not to accept members of the gay, lesbian, and transgender community. At the end of the vote, the members held a prayer circle to close out the session. Janet dangled both hands out for her fellow members to hold in meditation. The woman to Janet's right refused to take her hand, placing her own hand on her thigh instead. Janet simply took the hand of the other woman next to her, prayed, and said goodbye to the other members of church as she always did. She confesses today that the woman's actions didn't exactly make her happy, but she never let her anger get the best of her. She went back to church the next week.