Pearly Whites

Bleaching the Pearly Whites While Purifying the Soul

Having brunch with Dr. Laura. Running naked across the 101. Reading the News-Press.

These are all things I'm more likely to be doing on a Sunday morning than attending church.

I'm an atheist. Not an agnostic. Not "spiritual but not religious." Just a full-blown, you-people-are-crazy, call-me-a-heathen-if-you-must atheist. I can't even get myself to capitalize the word god (so if it's upper-cased in this column, you'll know my editor feels differently).

When our first son was born, my Methodist in-laws asked if we planned to take him to church. "It's a great place to meet like-minded parents," they said.

"Unless you don't believe in god," my husband chuckled. "Then it's a place to meet unlike-minded parents."

But I did go to church — just once — earlier this year. I had heard about this cool local parish that's high on karma and low on dogma. Everyone I know who goes there is free-thinking, unpreachy, and socially conscious. And I was curious. What could make people give up a precious Sunday morning — unique to the week for its sunny, undemanding emptiness — to put on undergarments and sit on a wooden bench where you might have to think about locusts?

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