But that’s not to say that the topic of religion never came up again. My mom just has yet to call out my heathen-ness again.

My mom still talks about religion with me in an indirect way. She talks about it a lot actually, perhaps in the hopes that such discussion will eventually wear down my religious immunity and infect me. When you think about it, this is extremely manipulative, but also extremely smart. My mom is actually an idiot savant when it comes to manipulation. She’s the Rainman of manipulation, so to speak.

Or perhaps not since it never works on me.

One day over lunch she mentioned to me that some women in her Sunday school class just got back from a mission trip to Russia. I asked her where in Russia. She said she couldn’t remember the name but it was a small town. I asked her what religion most people in that town were. She said they were Russian Orthodox.

So they were trying to convert Christians to Christianity?

My mom: deer in headlights.

Though in defense of my mom’s fucked up way of thinking, she also believes that Roman Catholics aren’t true Christians. Logically then, it makes sense that she would believe that Orthodox Christians also aren’t true Christians, though I doubt she understands the relationship between Orthodox Christian and Roman Catholic. Perhaps you don’t either. You can fire up the Google machine and figure it out yourself, but in a nutshell they are both considered Catholic religions and they have the same origins. Though technically Protestantism also has the same origins. It just came around later. And if you want to get whacky, Mormonism also has roots in Christianity and thems some weird-ass motherfuckers (but so incredibly nice.. like excruciatingly nice… like I want to smack that congenial smile off your face nice). But, to be fair, most religion is pretty fucked up, eh?

Ironically, my second husband was born to a Russian Orthodox father and a Roman Catholic mother. I told her he was way more religious than I am, which is actually not hard to be, but he actually does believe in god and likes going to church every now and again. Though in her eyes it matters not how religious he is, nor that they believe in the same god.

He’s still a fucking heathen.