Have You Ever Been Asked?

[peter_mary]

When we first became "inactive," we anticipated having to answer a lot of hard questions. In fact, my dear wife was so concerned about the bumbling things I was likely to say to the Bishop or other inquiring members that we often rehearsed (mostly for my benefit) what our responses would be to various questions. After a year of laying low, practicing and anticipating everything someone might pose to us, we felt we were ready. Our first real step out was when we notified the Bishop that we would not be coming in for tithing settlement. And then we waited for the phone call we knew would come. And we waited. And waited. Five years later, we're still waiting, and not once, not ONE TIME has any member of our ward EVER asked one thing regarding why we don't come out to Church. In fairness, my wife's sister did call just a few short months ago and ask my wife "what's up with Paul?" and she ended up hearing a lot more than she bargained for...but at least she asked. Nobody else seems to bother.

And that all by itself wouldn't bother me so much EXCEPT that there have been all these charming rumors that have been circulating around our current ward, spilling over into our OLD ward, and out into the wider community. These juicy, interesting and (oops!) wholly untrue rumors that we've been blessed with include: We're getting a divorce (never been happier together); we've become Buddhist (love the philosophy, not interested in the religion); our son was involved in a homosexual relationship with another boy in the ward (nope, not true--he's quite normal in that regard); our daughter had an abortion in the women's bathroom at Church (you think I'm making that one up, but I'm not. We actually were approached by the Bishop, asking us if it was true because he had been notified of such by a "concerned ward member." We assured him that if our daughter were to have an abortion, she was smart enough to do it somewhere else besides the meetinghouse bathroom during Church...hello!); our daughter was also accused of making a pornographic video with her boyfriend and posting it on the internet (once again, not true, but our daughter had to leave the High School she was in partly due to the new-found fame from her starring role in a video that never happened); and the best one of all--we formed our own polygamist cult like the ones in southern Utah and we're recruiting. And those are just the ones we KNOW about...

So I don't know whether to be glad no one ever talked to us, or really really concerned that they never did!

Anyone ever really talk to you?

Paul