Winter comes. It does this every year, I know. It's done so exactly 20 times from the moment I was born.
But there's something different about this year, a subtle yet profound shift in thought which makes me all the more aware of the changes taking hold of the earth around me.
Trees once arrayed in fine gold are losing their splendour now, silhouetted against skies of ice-grey. Around me songs of winter romance and bright, glistening promises of cementing every relationship in my life with the purchase of some thing, any thing, swirl like fallen leaves in the biting wind. Though bright and beautiful, with no access to roots, they are nonetheless dead.
In winter, at least to me, the pain of loss must be so very acute. I don't yet know that pain, though it nips closer and closer at my heels each year. As of yet I only know the pain of separation...but it's more than enough for now. Perhaps it is more piercing this year because I have no way to drown it. Outside my own solemn thoughts cash registers clink and lights blink to mark this Exmuss season that occurs between Thanksgiving and December 25th.
But it is not Christmas yet. Counting today, four Sundays will pass between now and then.
Today the color is purple. Now is the time to make up my mind what I shall be in the coming year. Now is the time to divest myself of what I've done these two decades that has wrought ill. Now I and others wait, prepare, pray, allowing our joy to swell until it bursts.
And then it will be Christmas, and it will remain so for us long after the stores have cleared away the wire reindeer to prematurely put out the heart-shaped boxes of chocolate. (Which, if I recall correctly, is usually about December 27th.)
Though those who know me wouldn't believe for a second that I'm not busy ordering the last of my gifts, or making preparations for gingerbread and cookies and pies.
So have a blessed Advent, my friends, and may Christmas find you surrounded by all those you love.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
I Can Has Theologeez? Part 3
The lovely Everly Pleasant asked me about my Theological studies, and as it fills up a post's worth of space. she agreed to allow me to post it here! So...
Everly,
Currently, I'm making my way through the Bible as always. I'm jumping around a lot because it's rather slow going this time: I'm not only reading it in English, but also in the Latin Vulgate, the exhaustive and unparalleled work of St. Jerome which brought the Scriptures, up until that point written in several languages dependent upon who penned them and when, all together under one language.
I'm reading a book called My Catholic Faith as well, which is intended for middle schoolers, I believe, give or take a couple of years, but is really quite great. It's very simple and straightforward and lays down in no uncertain terms the tenants of the Faith. I appreciate it, since I never really got a complete education on the core points that make one Catholic rather than anything else.
I'm looking for a good translation of St. Thoma Aquinas' Summa Theologica, and in the meantime I've been reading the Confessions of St. Augustine. They're less theological, and more of a memoir, but it makes them approachable. St. Augustine knew better than most the healing power of Grace, and the staggering scope of God's mercy to the truly contrite, and that makes his writings especially touching.
On top of this, of course, layered the article I linked too a while back on the Theology and Spirituality of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre's Open Letter to Confused Catholics, aaaaand...
A fantastic little book called Where We Got the Bible by the Rev. Henry Grey Graham, the text of which can be found here; http://www.catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/protestantism/wbible.htm
Everybody who loves and reveres the Bible ought to read it. It's taken from a series of talks he gave to audiences of Catholics and Protestants, so it's very conversational, very quick, and at times quite witty. He is Scottish and preaches like a Scotsman, if that gives you any idea. It's more than a book about the Catholic Church's role in the creation of the Bible, it's a defense of the validity and applicability of Scripture itself. There are a few passages in there that ought to be in the arsenal of every advocate of home education, as well.
And there you have it! You know, there was a Methodist preacher in New England once named Jonathan Edwards who read so much he built himself a rotating, six sided table so that he could always have six books open at once...I may have to get something to that effect.
Everly,
Currently, I'm making my way through the Bible as always. I'm jumping around a lot because it's rather slow going this time: I'm not only reading it in English, but also in the Latin Vulgate, the exhaustive and unparalleled work of St. Jerome which brought the Scriptures, up until that point written in several languages dependent upon who penned them and when, all together under one language.
I'm reading a book called My Catholic Faith as well, which is intended for middle schoolers, I believe, give or take a couple of years, but is really quite great. It's very simple and straightforward and lays down in no uncertain terms the tenants of the Faith. I appreciate it, since I never really got a complete education on the core points that make one Catholic rather than anything else.
I'm looking for a good translation of St. Thoma Aquinas' Summa Theologica, and in the meantime I've been reading the Confessions of St. Augustine. They're less theological, and more of a memoir, but it makes them approachable. St. Augustine knew better than most the healing power of Grace, and the staggering scope of God's mercy to the truly contrite, and that makes his writings especially touching.
On top of this, of course, layered the article I linked too a while back on the Theology and Spirituality of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre's Open Letter to Confused Catholics, aaaaand...
A fantastic little book called Where We Got the Bible by the Rev. Henry Grey Graham, the text of which can be found here; http://www.catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/protestantism/wbible.htm
Everybody who loves and reveres the Bible ought to read it. It's taken from a series of talks he gave to audiences of Catholics and Protestants, so it's very conversational, very quick, and at times quite witty. He is Scottish and preaches like a Scotsman, if that gives you any idea. It's more than a book about the Catholic Church's role in the creation of the Bible, it's a defense of the validity and applicability of Scripture itself. There are a few passages in there that ought to be in the arsenal of every advocate of home education, as well.
And there you have it! You know, there was a Methodist preacher in New England once named Jonathan Edwards who read so much he built himself a rotating, six sided table so that he could always have six books open at once...I may have to get something to that effect.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Kicking the Habit
My name is L, and I was a Facebook gaming addict.
It was pretty bad. Not to the point of spending small fortunes on play money bad, but...close. We had suffered falling outs in the past, but I'd always come back to that little Flash fantasyland, where you can trick yourself via noise and color into thinking you've accomplished something other than spending time and in some cases money to collect arrangements of pixels to decorate your pixel menagerie.
Seriously, think about it. That's what Farmville, or Frontierville, or CafeWorld, or any of those games are. Pixels. You want to talk about investing in things you can't take with you? You close the tab and it's gone. That Maison you spent two weeks frantically hunting down enough climbing vines and slate tiles for? Doesn't exist. The beehive you have to check every two days or the bees with leave? It's fake. The "achievements" you've earned by doing certain things in a certain order in a crunched time frame? A stream of data waiting to be called up. And the limited edition item you plunked down real money for? You don't have room for it in your pixel menagerie, so I guess it's time to start harvesting pixels on an unforgiving schedule until you have enough game money to expand your pixel square.
It doesn't actually sound that fun, does it?
I know the purpose of things like this is to be an escape for harrowed Facebook users in this world, but really? I found them to be more trouble then they were worth. Heck, I was even carting around the official application on my phone so that I could harvest my fake blackberries while walking to class. I really couldn't stop.
And then? I went out of town for four days and had no Internet. I came home to withered *crops* (That I could un-wither for a small fee!) and overgrown land (That I could clear faster with more energy for a small fee!). It's all quite ingenious.
Except for the fact that this time, I didn't do it. Sure, I tried to pick my games back up once or twice, but it just wasn't worth it. I was going to spend ages trying to work back up to where I was, and then what? A bigger pixel square?
For some people, I understand, Farmville is no more than a few passing clicks in their day. But not for most of the "friends" I had, who would scour their Facebook feeds all day long to snatch up a choice item in the first ten seconds.
I'm also aware that for most people this is the closet they'll ever get to a cow or a stalk of wheat. And it's on this particular measure that I thank God it doesn't apply to me! In my own little twist of the inescapable fact that we are of dust, and to dust we will return, I am of the soil, and I plan to go back to it someday.
And with dead leaves to be dug into the raised bed, so that next spring I can harvest some actual vegetables?
I've got enough to do without worrying about un-withering fake tomatoes.
It was pretty bad. Not to the point of spending small fortunes on play money bad, but...close. We had suffered falling outs in the past, but I'd always come back to that little Flash fantasyland, where you can trick yourself via noise and color into thinking you've accomplished something other than spending time and in some cases money to collect arrangements of pixels to decorate your pixel menagerie.
Seriously, think about it. That's what Farmville, or Frontierville, or CafeWorld, or any of those games are. Pixels. You want to talk about investing in things you can't take with you? You close the tab and it's gone. That Maison you spent two weeks frantically hunting down enough climbing vines and slate tiles for? Doesn't exist. The beehive you have to check every two days or the bees with leave? It's fake. The "achievements" you've earned by doing certain things in a certain order in a crunched time frame? A stream of data waiting to be called up. And the limited edition item you plunked down real money for? You don't have room for it in your pixel menagerie, so I guess it's time to start harvesting pixels on an unforgiving schedule until you have enough game money to expand your pixel square.
It doesn't actually sound that fun, does it?
I know the purpose of things like this is to be an escape for harrowed Facebook users in this world, but really? I found them to be more trouble then they were worth. Heck, I was even carting around the official application on my phone so that I could harvest my fake blackberries while walking to class. I really couldn't stop.
And then? I went out of town for four days and had no Internet. I came home to withered *crops* (That I could un-wither for a small fee!) and overgrown land (That I could clear faster with more energy for a small fee!). It's all quite ingenious.
Except for the fact that this time, I didn't do it. Sure, I tried to pick my games back up once or twice, but it just wasn't worth it. I was going to spend ages trying to work back up to where I was, and then what? A bigger pixel square?
For some people, I understand, Farmville is no more than a few passing clicks in their day. But not for most of the "friends" I had, who would scour their Facebook feeds all day long to snatch up a choice item in the first ten seconds.
I'm also aware that for most people this is the closet they'll ever get to a cow or a stalk of wheat. And it's on this particular measure that I thank God it doesn't apply to me! In my own little twist of the inescapable fact that we are of dust, and to dust we will return, I am of the soil, and I plan to go back to it someday.
And with dead leaves to be dug into the raised bed, so that next spring I can harvest some actual vegetables?
I've got enough to do without worrying about un-withering fake tomatoes.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
I Can Has Theologeez? Part 2
So what is Theology?
Simply defined, it is the study of God and of God's relationship with the world. It can also mean the collected teachings of a particular Faith in God. Not surprisingly, there is good theology and bad theology, though depending on where you stand your opinion on what constitutes either may be different. I normally have three criteria that I use when assessing a work of theology;
1. It must be Truth. If it isn't truth, and therefore is wrong about the nature of God or any facts concerning Him, it's not really the study of God and as such cannot be called theology.
2. It must be challenging. If the unexamined life truly is not worth living then my study of God must inspire me to examine myself. Basically if it isn't telling me I could stand to change a thing or two about myself and could grow a little more from area to area, it's probably not worth reading.
3. I like a good, meaty theology. Something I can sink my teeth into. Something that'll fill me with ammo for those inevitable debates.
Following those three criteria, I can safely say that throughout my academic career I haven't ever studied Theology.
The chapel I attend was only recently affiliated with the SSPX. Before that, they were affiliated with the FSSP, and there are a lot of points of contempt between the two. Consequently I was a little confused as to why in the space of less than a year everyone I had met seemed to be really, fully on board with the SSPX's stances that differ with the FSSP, in some cases quite strongly. And then I got my handy-dandy "New to Tradition Kit" in the mail. Sure, I could see the obvious differences, and there was a way that I felt inside the nave of St. Michael's that I had never really felt before, but I still wasn't really, truly certain about why.
I'm trying to maintain some measure of seriousness here, but I really can't describe this any other way.
This, to a Catholic that has grown up in the Novus Ordo and is only just now learning about the differences between it and Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, is like being hit in the brain with a fully-loaded freight train full of Theology. My only issue with it, my only issue, is that it is printed on shiny paper which is not conducive to highlighters.
Every book and booklet I pull out of this box is the same way. I am hit, head-on, with doctrine beyond decay and above reproach. And in that I am confronted with my own errors, my own false ideas. And at once I'm filled with comfort and courage, aware that I may not have all the answers yet, but I know I'm not far from finding them.
I had a conversation with a young lady from Kansas City this afternoon about the way God works in our lives, and I began to realize the utterly providential events that led me to where I am now. I am at last where I was always meant to be. And it gives me hope. When I was a little girl, watching my Dad leave with an armful of clothes on hangers, still not fully understanding the implications of what was going on, I never, ever would've dreamed that it would somehow, someway, lead me to where I am now.
But I can't possibly deny that if that day had never happened, I wouldn't be here. Now, I have no clue where I am to go next...He laughs at every plan I make and steers me gently where I ought to be heading...but I do know that He knows exactly what he's doing. After all, look where I am now!
For the first time in two decades, I'm finally studying Theology!
Simply defined, it is the study of God and of God's relationship with the world. It can also mean the collected teachings of a particular Faith in God. Not surprisingly, there is good theology and bad theology, though depending on where you stand your opinion on what constitutes either may be different. I normally have three criteria that I use when assessing a work of theology;
1. It must be Truth. If it isn't truth, and therefore is wrong about the nature of God or any facts concerning Him, it's not really the study of God and as such cannot be called theology.
2. It must be challenging. If the unexamined life truly is not worth living then my study of God must inspire me to examine myself. Basically if it isn't telling me I could stand to change a thing or two about myself and could grow a little more from area to area, it's probably not worth reading.
3. I like a good, meaty theology. Something I can sink my teeth into. Something that'll fill me with ammo for those inevitable debates.
Following those three criteria, I can safely say that throughout my academic career I haven't ever studied Theology.
The chapel I attend was only recently affiliated with the SSPX. Before that, they were affiliated with the FSSP, and there are a lot of points of contempt between the two. Consequently I was a little confused as to why in the space of less than a year everyone I had met seemed to be really, fully on board with the SSPX's stances that differ with the FSSP, in some cases quite strongly. And then I got my handy-dandy "New to Tradition Kit" in the mail. Sure, I could see the obvious differences, and there was a way that I felt inside the nave of St. Michael's that I had never really felt before, but I still wasn't really, truly certain about why.
I'm trying to maintain some measure of seriousness here, but I really can't describe this any other way.
This, to a Catholic that has grown up in the Novus Ordo and is only just now learning about the differences between it and Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, is like being hit in the brain with a fully-loaded freight train full of Theology. My only issue with it, my only issue, is that it is printed on shiny paper which is not conducive to highlighters.
Every book and booklet I pull out of this box is the same way. I am hit, head-on, with doctrine beyond decay and above reproach. And in that I am confronted with my own errors, my own false ideas. And at once I'm filled with comfort and courage, aware that I may not have all the answers yet, but I know I'm not far from finding them.
I had a conversation with a young lady from Kansas City this afternoon about the way God works in our lives, and I began to realize the utterly providential events that led me to where I am now. I am at last where I was always meant to be. And it gives me hope. When I was a little girl, watching my Dad leave with an armful of clothes on hangers, still not fully understanding the implications of what was going on, I never, ever would've dreamed that it would somehow, someway, lead me to where I am now.
But I can't possibly deny that if that day had never happened, I wouldn't be here. Now, I have no clue where I am to go next...He laughs at every plan I make and steers me gently where I ought to be heading...but I do know that He knows exactly what he's doing. After all, look where I am now!
For the first time in two decades, I'm finally studying Theology!
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Short: Opposite Reactions
I arrived home with a new potato ricer last night, very pleased with myself for making said purchase and having at least five different uses for it in my head at the moment.
Me: Look! Isn't it cool?
Mom: What the heck is that?
Me: It's a potato ricer.
Mom: What does it do?
Me: Purees stuff. It was only 30 dollars.
Mom: *makes a face that I can only describe as bulging eyes and Disapproving Mom Mouth coupled with her Inflation-Still-Bothers-Me noise.*
Me: . . .
Mom: The idea is just...very foreign to me.
Five minutes later...
J: What's that?
Me: It's a potato ricer.
J: You know usually you have either potatoes or rice, but not both.
Me: Ha, ha.
J: What does it do?
Me: It forces boiled potato through at an angle, resulting in little fluffy rice-sized grains of potato...
J: ...So in other words it makes the best homemade mashed potatoes ever?
Me: Yes.
J: SCORE!
*High five*
Me: Look! Isn't it cool?
Mom: What the heck is that?
Me: It's a potato ricer.
Mom: What does it do?
Me: Purees stuff. It was only 30 dollars.
Mom: *makes a face that I can only describe as bulging eyes and Disapproving Mom Mouth coupled with her Inflation-Still-Bothers-Me noise.*
Me: . . .
Mom: The idea is just...very foreign to me.
Five minutes later...
J: What's that?
Me: It's a potato ricer.
J: You know usually you have either potatoes or rice, but not both.
Me: Ha, ha.
J: What does it do?
Me: It forces boiled potato through at an angle, resulting in little fluffy rice-sized grains of potato...
J: ...So in other words it makes the best homemade mashed potatoes ever?
Me: Yes.
J: SCORE!
*High five*
Monday, November 1, 2010
I Can Haz Theologeez? Part 1
Nobody seems to study Theology anymore.
There a select few things I remember from studying my faith in a Catholic school. Let's go by year, shall we?
Key: * No Catholic teacher, # Catholic teacher rotated religion and another class with my homeroom teacher because homeroom teacher was not Catholic.
*Salad Days: I went to Mass with Mom, usually on Saturday nights. Our Church was Saint Mary's, and we had a little statue of her which I used to sit and talk to outside. Years later I left her a rose on an Easter trip back. I remember thinking they were singing "You take away the cents of the world" and it made sense to me because we had just gone through the Offertory, after all. I would usually sit on the floor by Mom's feet until "The part where Father told jokes."
*K-2nd grades: Went to a "non denominational" Christian School. Excellent Curriculum, close-minded principal. And a lot of silly assumptions about things like peace signs and animals not having souls. Watched a lot of Veggie Tales.
*3rd grade: Get called "Mary Worshipper" in class. Get laughed at for making sign of the cross. Teacher tries desperately to help, being married to a Catholic man, and wants the class to learn more about Catholicism. Principal doesn't even bother to tell the kids teasing is bad. Mom angrily calls school board. Board chair is a limp noodle about the whole thing. Later learn through his business dealings with my Dad that he pretty much always is a limp noodle. We decided we had to move.
#4th grade: I arrived with no clue how to say about half the prayers in the Rosary. So I learned all of those. Didn't learn much else because whenever we took quizzes the teacher sort of rigged it. "Is the answer A, B, C, or D?" she'd read out loud. I do remember my homeroom teacher saying she thought the idea of Lent was stupid. That's pretty much it. Oh and I accidentally took Communion at the beginning of the year, and didn't have my actual First Communion until that Spring. I had my first taste of a feeling I've yet to encounter anything comparable to: the feeling of absolution. Received my only failing grade through grade, middle and high school: an essay on Stewardship in which I said I thought the idea of mandatory volunteer hours made no sense and that the Church sent way too many specialized collection envelopes home. Apparently God really, really wanted me to serve chili pies at turkey bingo.
#5th grade: I had really bad penmanship and consequently it took half of the year for the teacher to realize I was not, in fact, spelling Jesus "Gesus." I became an altar server and I remember no one ever wanted to be "Server 2" because that involved the most work. "Server 1" had to ring the bells. Ideally you'd be "Server 3," but not on a Sunday when they used the big, heavy procession cross. We watched a movie about Fatima. Discovered writing "JMJ" atop my math tests before taking them was not a valid substitute for understanding the concepts.
6th grade: A guy in my class didn't know how to pronounce "chaste." We went over abstinence and "girl/boy stuff" for the first time. I wrote a lot of letters to a lot of nuns. I wanted to be a cloistered Carmelite. Was in Children's Choir. Remembered really wishing we would have done "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty" instead of "People Worry About This and That" during the Archbishop's visit.
7th grade: We had to do a "Return to the Church" ad for a project and two of the guys did a song parody of "I Ran" by A Flock of Seagulls for theirs. Also at some point I was Napoleon in a skit about a persecuted French soldier. There was swordfighting with rulers. I did a 180 from the year before and couldn't care less about the Faith. Studied Church History, and instead of actually talking about the Inquisition in the context in which it took place the book spent a paragraph saying, "Oh, yeah, that. That...well...we were all on vacation. With the Sephardic Jews and Moors. In Palm Beach. They liked it so much they stayed." Received thurifer training. Did KEEP, which made me leery of drinking after people who had recently eaten Doritos owing to a demonstration about kissing we did. Though I firmly intended to save myself, I wasn't too fond of the "u guyz 4bst1n3nc3 iz roxxorz!" approach.
#8th grade: Ugh, what a year. Teacher had a remarkable gift for explaining things in the poorest, harshest and most inaccessible way possible. Learned more from the life and example and conversation from my History teacher that year than from all five years of Religion classes combined. Election year and the whole school acted like Bush had descended from heaven to save us from Planned Parenthood...which actually received a pay spike during his previous tenure. Whole school shut down the day Benedict XVI was elected. I remember watching the reveal on TV.
9th grade: Classes were now called "Theology" classes. I don't remember much about Theology being prevalent. I remember reading "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens" and watching "What About Bob?" There was also a graphic and depressing presentation on abortion that really made me wish I hadn't taken the class in first hour.
10th grade: Left for correspondence courses. Discovered Ladies Against Feminism and wrote a few articles for them. Contemplated attending a traditional Catholic Mass with a friend of mine who went, but it never panned out.
*The rest of the time: Bouncing back and forth between being Catholic because that's what my family 'did,' the ever-popular 'agnostic' label, and Calvinist Protestant. Didn't have much of a clue one way or the other, but emerged knowing two things: 1. The world couldn't possibly be as old as this Biology book was telling me, and 2. I really didn't like pants.
To be Continued.
There a select few things I remember from studying my faith in a Catholic school. Let's go by year, shall we?
Key: * No Catholic teacher, # Catholic teacher rotated religion and another class with my homeroom teacher because homeroom teacher was not Catholic.
*Salad Days: I went to Mass with Mom, usually on Saturday nights. Our Church was Saint Mary's, and we had a little statue of her which I used to sit and talk to outside. Years later I left her a rose on an Easter trip back. I remember thinking they were singing "You take away the cents of the world" and it made sense to me because we had just gone through the Offertory, after all. I would usually sit on the floor by Mom's feet until "The part where Father told jokes."
*K-2nd grades: Went to a "non denominational" Christian School. Excellent Curriculum, close-minded principal. And a lot of silly assumptions about things like peace signs and animals not having souls. Watched a lot of Veggie Tales.
*3rd grade: Get called "Mary Worshipper" in class. Get laughed at for making sign of the cross. Teacher tries desperately to help, being married to a Catholic man, and wants the class to learn more about Catholicism. Principal doesn't even bother to tell the kids teasing is bad. Mom angrily calls school board. Board chair is a limp noodle about the whole thing. Later learn through his business dealings with my Dad that he pretty much always is a limp noodle. We decided we had to move.
#4th grade: I arrived with no clue how to say about half the prayers in the Rosary. So I learned all of those. Didn't learn much else because whenever we took quizzes the teacher sort of rigged it. "Is the answer A, B, C, or D?" she'd read out loud. I do remember my homeroom teacher saying she thought the idea of Lent was stupid. That's pretty much it. Oh and I accidentally took Communion at the beginning of the year, and didn't have my actual First Communion until that Spring. I had my first taste of a feeling I've yet to encounter anything comparable to: the feeling of absolution. Received my only failing grade through grade, middle and high school: an essay on Stewardship in which I said I thought the idea of mandatory volunteer hours made no sense and that the Church sent way too many specialized collection envelopes home. Apparently God really, really wanted me to serve chili pies at turkey bingo.
#5th grade: I had really bad penmanship and consequently it took half of the year for the teacher to realize I was not, in fact, spelling Jesus "Gesus." I became an altar server and I remember no one ever wanted to be "Server 2" because that involved the most work. "Server 1" had to ring the bells. Ideally you'd be "Server 3," but not on a Sunday when they used the big, heavy procession cross. We watched a movie about Fatima. Discovered writing "JMJ" atop my math tests before taking them was not a valid substitute for understanding the concepts.
6th grade: A guy in my class didn't know how to pronounce "chaste." We went over abstinence and "girl/boy stuff" for the first time. I wrote a lot of letters to a lot of nuns. I wanted to be a cloistered Carmelite. Was in Children's Choir. Remembered really wishing we would have done "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty" instead of "People Worry About This and That" during the Archbishop's visit.
7th grade: We had to do a "Return to the Church" ad for a project and two of the guys did a song parody of "I Ran" by A Flock of Seagulls for theirs. Also at some point I was Napoleon in a skit about a persecuted French soldier. There was swordfighting with rulers. I did a 180 from the year before and couldn't care less about the Faith. Studied Church History, and instead of actually talking about the Inquisition in the context in which it took place the book spent a paragraph saying, "Oh, yeah, that. That...well...we were all on vacation. With the Sephardic Jews and Moors. In Palm Beach. They liked it so much they stayed." Received thurifer training. Did KEEP, which made me leery of drinking after people who had recently eaten Doritos owing to a demonstration about kissing we did. Though I firmly intended to save myself, I wasn't too fond of the "u guyz 4bst1n3nc3 iz roxxorz!" approach.
#8th grade: Ugh, what a year. Teacher had a remarkable gift for explaining things in the poorest, harshest and most inaccessible way possible. Learned more from the life and example and conversation from my History teacher that year than from all five years of Religion classes combined. Election year and the whole school acted like Bush had descended from heaven to save us from Planned Parenthood...which actually received a pay spike during his previous tenure. Whole school shut down the day Benedict XVI was elected. I remember watching the reveal on TV.
9th grade: Classes were now called "Theology" classes. I don't remember much about Theology being prevalent. I remember reading "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens" and watching "What About Bob?" There was also a graphic and depressing presentation on abortion that really made me wish I hadn't taken the class in first hour.
10th grade: Left for correspondence courses. Discovered Ladies Against Feminism and wrote a few articles for them. Contemplated attending a traditional Catholic Mass with a friend of mine who went, but it never panned out.
*The rest of the time: Bouncing back and forth between being Catholic because that's what my family 'did,' the ever-popular 'agnostic' label, and Calvinist Protestant. Didn't have much of a clue one way or the other, but emerged knowing two things: 1. The world couldn't possibly be as old as this Biology book was telling me, and 2. I really didn't like pants.
To be Continued.
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