It was an innocent question and yet it still sort of startled me.
While waiting for a class to start at the gym today, one woman asked another, “What church do you go to?” After receiving a reply of a large church in the county, she asked another woman, “And what church do you go to?” It was as if asking what school their kids went to or what town they lived in. Innocent, friendly, just making conversation. And yet until moving here, I never heard that question asked in general conversation. Never.
Now that I think of it, I’m not sure why church (read Christianity) was such a forbidden topic in the Bay Area. By contrast, I was pretty well-versed in Jewish traditions by the time a lot of my friends had their bar and bat mitzvahs. In later years, I developed a working understanding of Islam and knew when it was Ramadan. But Christian based stuff? Absolutely clueless.
Our county, and particularly our little slice of it, is fairly religious. Lots of churches, lots of Christian-themed bumper stickers, lots of traffic on Sunday mornings. It’s not uncommon to see people saying grace at restaurants. In fact, I observed that last week while enjoying my set of chili dogs at Wienerschnitzel.
Although we’ve been here almost four years now, and although Rob and I are a part of that traffic on Sundays, it still takes me by surprise how openly and comfortably people wear their faith here. Even more surprising is a news article I saw a few years ago that said the Pacific Northwest is one of the most “unchurched” parts of the United States. Wouldn’t know it from here. Faith here is not in your face, it’s not pushy, it’s not critical. It just is. And that's pretty cool, regardless which church you go to -- or not.
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