The Bride of Christ vs. The Stepford Wives

I feel it only fair to warn you that what I'm about to say is coming from a place of frustration. But if you can't spout off on your own blog, then where can you?

Recently I found myself amongst a group of christian mothers. We were not at a church building, but we were at a business that while opened to the general public, tends to cater to christians. Perhaps because I was the only dad in the room or because I didn't know anyone there or (I fear) because of the way I was dressed (not very nicely), no one seemed all that interested in speaking with me. They were however, very excited to speak with each other. I lowered my head and tried to remain as inconspicuous as possible, but my ears were attuned to my surroundings. In other words, I did some big time eaves dropping!

Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. When I arrived at this establishment I noticed my dirty Honda stood out like a sore thumb in a sea of top of the line mini-vans and SUV's. I hesitated after entering and almost stepped back outside to make sure I was in the right place. I thought I might have mistakenly joined a Mary Kay cosmetics party. Finally, as I made a quick scan of the room I was surprised to see that apparently I was the only one there who was neither a member of a tanning salon nor had participated in breast augmentation surgery. Hey, I'm a healthy guy! Give me a break, it was difficult not to notice.

So, I began to listen to the conversations around me. The themes were common: kids, husbands, school starting, etc. There was talk of vacation homes, husbands' great new jobs and boasting about how talented their children were. There was also a lot of talk about church. These ladies were all church attenders, but did not seem to attend the same churches. Some bragged about their churches programs, while others complained about theirs. Some spoke about how awesome their pastors were, others rolled their eyes and said they wished they had a cool pastor.

I began to consider what a non-church attender would think of what he/she heard. The more I listened, the more sickened I felt by it. In fact, if you replaced "church" with "country club" and "pastor" with "tennis pro" you could not tell a bit of difference between this and any other group of rich women.

There were a few "God blesses" and some talk of prayer thrown in, but that only seemed to make it worse. "My Brittany is such a gifted dancer! You'd have to be blind not to see she's the most talented one in her class. If she doesn't get the lead in the upcoming production, it will be a crime and I will have to have a talk with that director, God bless him. So, we're praying about it."

It was the PTL networks version of the Stepford Wives.

I felt a mixture of anger and embarrassment welling up inside, so I stepped out of the room and called my wife (the polar opposite of these women). She talked me off the ledge, but I haven't been able to shake the frustration of that experience, partially because I know in similar situations I have contributed to the problem.

I'm going to try not to do that anymore.