We’re about a month into a situation I was at first — selfishly, I admit — hoping would go away.

A couple of months ago, my 8-year-old was jabbering at me, because that’s what she does. I admit I was only half-listening, acknowledging her with the occasional scattered “Uh-huh,” “Oh yeah?” and “OK.” It was still early, and I was on auto-dad setting.

Then she said something that got my attention.

“Daddy, can I go to church?”

Whaaaaaa!? This was so out of left field, I had no good answer. Suddenly, it was like someone hooked me up to a caffeine IV. I was awake.

My wife’s family is Catholic, a religion she practiced into her early teens. I never had any religion to lose in the first place, but when I was 18, I discovered that my biological father’s family is so Catholic that his sister, a nun, oversaw all Catholic education in the United States, I believe. My first job in high school was at a Catholic retreat house. So we’ve both been around organized religion and the church; we just don’t go inside.

My daughter Lucy’s little buddy does go to church. He told her about all these fantastic things they do on Sundays and suggested she come, too.

My wife and I were at a loss. We consider ourselves agnostic, and that’s something that, at least for me, will likely never change, for many reasons that are personal and important to me. None of our other kids ever expressed any desire to explore religion. Honestly, I hoped the subject would go away, but of course, it didn’t.

So my wife — being the better parent — started taking Lucy to church so she could explore what it was about. This was fine with me, so long as no one asked me to do abandon my own Sunday morning religion, which this time of year is something called “football.”

This church is pretty liberal. There’s no talk of fire and brimstone and no leaders condemning so-called “lifestyles,” which is one of our biggest issues with religion. This church talks about love and peace and community, all concepts that are difficult to argue with — not that I’d want to.

A few weeks later, I was summoned to hear my daughter sing with the rest of the kids. I’ll be honest — I wasn’t crazy about going. But I am crazy about my kid, so I went anyway, and things went about how I expected. I wasn’t offended, the people were friendly, and we hung around afterward and chatted with some folks. I did hear someone mention something about wanting their kids to fear God, which wasn’t so thrilling. Then again, I’ve been known to want to put the fear of God in my own kids sometimes, so there’s that.

Now, more than a month into something I never saw happening for my family, the experiment continues. Lucy loves the interaction, the singing and the overall positive atmosphere. As far as I’m concerned, she can go as long as she wants, and she can stop whenever she likes. If she truly finds religion, that’s fine. I can think of about 3 million worse things she can get into. If it turns out to be just one big learning experience, that’s fine, too.

I’m interested to see how this experiment turns out and, despite my own feelings, will do my best to respect hers. As I should — she’s a pretty bright kid. And she doesn’t get that from me, I assure you. When I was 8, the closest my friends and I got to religion was sitting in a recycling dumpster in the local church parking lot, looking for magazines we weren’t supposed to be looking for.

As long as she finds reasons to keep going — and I can keep going to my own church of the gridiron most Sunday mornings — I think we’re going to be fine.