Guns and pansies

I do not agree with my husband's church. It's something going on post what they call the "Old" Testament, but that is beside the point. I was trying to get in with the women and to do their craft group with them and to teach-- I want that camaraderie in my life. I didn't get far. Earlier in the week, I went to the craft group and that went really well. I like probably all of the women. It was MLK Day and many of our husbands had our children so only a few kids were at the church with their moms. There were just enough that they were a manageable number and they were all good-- even the ones who misbehaved were good!

Today I went to a teacher training. I got my teenager out of school early so she could be in the training and I was looking forward to a fun afternoon of learning and mother-daughter time with people who I want to like.

The other ladies are wonderful people, but we have a slight disagreement on guns. When I grew up, I was taught to respect guns. A toy gun was still a representation of a tool. You didn't aim it at anyone, but you could aim it at things. The things had to have no one behind them. A lamp was OK, unless someone was on the other side or next to it. A wall was not OK because you had no idea of who, if anyone, was on the other side. (It was OK to throw darts if someone was on the other side because darts, real or fake, couldn't go through the wall. Duh!)

So at the training today, the leader was talking in her breathy voice about how to teach lessons when out of the corner of my eye, I saw a group of kids with fake semi-automatics and pretend guns circling the parish hall. (Fake semi's are plastic models that look like semi-automatics. Pretend guns look like sticks, pieces of toast, or PVC pipe.) They bothered me. Then the little brats came inside. I mumbled that they looked like a band of terrorists and a few of the moms giggled, "Boys will be boys!" Well, these kids were mixed and the boys included boys and girls and they were running. One of the moms didn't like the running and told them to run outside.

A little later, one of the daughters of a high ranking man of cloth said something snooty to Cloud when she told her to take the giant PVC pipe out. That was when I decided that I needed to go home and that I'd not be teaching there and I pretended to check my messages and made an abrupt getaway with Cloud and Starshine, who'd been pretty quiet and had played really nicely with another little girl.

As I was leaving, a small band of kids were running inside and one of them pointed his fake semi-automatic at me. I told him to point it at the ground and he sneered at me and pointed it at my head and yelled, "BLAM-BLAM-BLAM!" I pretended to ignore him and looked at him again when I was 20' away and he was smiling with his fake gun pointed at me. I realized that with such disrespect that I personally can't go back there and do much of anything.

I texted my husband and he said that boys would be boys and blew it all off and said I was over reacting. Somehow, I am not supposed to gather from this that he doesn't value me! Whatever-- but I was greatly annoyed. My husband is a member of the church board and I really wish (for the sake of me being able to do more than have dinner with him) that he had at least faked concern, "I can see how you would find that scary since you were raised to respect guns. I'll bring it up at the next church board meeting that we ask all parents to have their children leave their fake guns at home." (He said that if we were together that he'd have talked to the brat's father, but I seriously doubt that he would have done anything. I don't go there and I am not really a part of the group. If he thinks that I was over reacting in what I told him, he wouldn't have done anything. He claims that he has taken guns from kids, but I just don't believe it!)

Anyway, as quickly as I got involved, I decided to leave, as has Cloud and she won't teach there, either. It is sad because I would like to be a part of a religious learning group, but I do not belong there. I don't have an issue with people having guns and using them properly.

Several months ago, I FaceBook'd a quote that had to do with the Korean War and taking away guns and one of the mothers from that church got upset thinking that I wanted to take away her guns. I thought that bickering at my FB page was overreacting and a bit invassive, and since she had helped me a great deal in an emergency, I was wont to slam her about anything. I couldn't possibly bring up my concerns without being publically slammed by her and her friends with basically how my husband feels.