Sea Kittens ?!?

I'm sorry, but i just don't believe this is real. It has to be a spoof, right?

On Why I Go to Church, Part I

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and Earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilot, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended into Hell. The third day He rose again from the dead. He ascended in to Heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty. From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe in a Holy Catholic Church, the communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the Body, and the Life everlasting. Amen. In case you haven’t noticed yet, i have been raised in the Christian Church, and am myself a confessing believer. These posts concern my motivations, not for my conversion, but for my involvement in the institution of the Church. It is written more for my own satisfaction than anything else, so if rather incoherent introspection does not interest you, i recommend that you skip them.

Some months ago, my grandmother asked me why i attend the particular church that i do. She had heard some people complaining about its lack of a pastor (we just got one this month after over two years). It is a more traditional church, though not particularly conservative, and there is not much geared towards “young people.” Although there are several reasons, i could not give her an articulate answer. The truth is, i still can’t, but i had to try.

The first question is, of course, why go to church at all. Let me start by giving you a (hopefully) short history of my involvement with the church. My father is a pastor. My mother’s father is a pastor. My father’s uncle is a pastor. My father’s father’s father was a pastor. My father’s second cousin is a pastor. All of them are in the same, rather small denomination.

However, my father was also in the Navy. For many years we had not the luxury of a church in our denomination (which is a rather small branch of the Holy Catholic Church - it is often said that the Jehovah's Witnesses know that only 144,000 people will be saved, and we know who they are. Not particularly funny perhaps, but this denomination is known for its stolid respectability and emphasis on academics, not for its great wit). My family is of a very Reformed (Calvinist) background, but my best friends were Catholic, Mormon, or Agnostic. We discussed our various faiths with each other in much the same way we discussed our various tastes in food and clothing - with curiosity and politeness, and a complacent certainty that it was our family who were "right."

And so it is perhaps not completely presumptuous to say that i have had a good deal of experience with churches of all shapes and sizes. I have attended a rural church whose congregation met in a small Northern town (population 20), where they seemed to have only two surnames to choose from. I have attended an American chapel on a military base in a foreign country, as well as services in Spanish, Italian, Latin, and Dutch. I have attended Roman Catholic, Mormon, Baptist, Gospel, Presbyterian, Reformed, and Non-denominational services. I have participated in services performed at a megachurch (which was attached to the school i attended at the time), at a moderately sized church in drained swampland of the rural south, at a small church in a huge metropolitan area, and I am starting to sound like Dr. Seuss.

The two stereotypical reactions to this upbringing are prim purity and self-righteous rebellion. Fortunately my parents were always fairly balanced, and so was my reaction. Being a PK (pastor’s kid), i was privileged to see what goes on behind the scene. I was fortunate enough to know of all the petty squabbling and back-stabbing, the snubs and the cliques. Though my cynicism was necessarily restrained in public, given my family’s position, i had a difficult time believing good of any church and gave my parents rather a hard time. I swore i would not attend church once i left the house.

Each denomination, each individual church, believes itself to have all the answers. Each individual in the congregation expects the pastor to be their exact ideal of perfection, and when he isn’t they feel betrayed. The pastor thinks of himself as the most important person there (always, of course, excepting my father), and believes that the congregation is going against the word of the Lord when he doesn’t get his every desire. Sunday School for the younger children is entirely about the various wives’ power plays. The older children are taught by people trying desperately to be hip and coming across as even more juvenile than the students. There also seems to be a prevailing belief among youth workers that sexual promiscuity and drug abuse are the only issues anyone over 13 ever thinks about. The lessons were obvious, thoughtless, clichéd, and sometimes just plain wrong. The music is either by some pathetic garage band who has taken all of the poetry out of the lyrics, or by a choir who faints with shock if any song younger than their geriatric director is sung. Church is, at best, totally and completely irrelevant. The phrase “Catholic Church” is the height of irony, the best of oxymorons.

Part II

My Solution to World Peace, or How Werthers Echte Saves Lives

Once upon a time there was an ornery little girl. She had two ornery little brothers, two annoyed parents, and two amused grandparents. They were all in the process of completing an ordinary little road trip. This little girl was a very clever little girl – she knew better than to ask the banal “Are we there yet?” Instead, she inquired as to the length of the journey, and number of miles currently covered, the speed with which they were traveling, the amount of gas in the tank, and the hunger of everyone else in the car. About twice every hour. For hours. And hours. Upon being informed that there had been no significant change in status since the last time she had posed her queries, the ornery little girl began to feel put upon. No one, she felt, was taking her seriously. Least of all her ornery little brothers, who seemed more concerned with reaching the last verse of “This is the Song that Never Ends.” The air was tense, and an explosion seemed imminent. Fortunately, the not-quite-as-amused grandfather, with remarkable presticogitation, bethought himself of a simple solution. He asked all of the ornery children and annoyed parents to listen up, as he had something that would make everyone much more comfortable, and then he produced the Happy Pill. Taking this pill would, he told them, make them happy. He immediately popped one in his mouth and began to beam a glorious smile. The ornery little children were, as i said before, rather clever. They knew something was up, and gazed at their grandfather with suspicion shining in their eyes. However, the grandfather had already raised four children, and so informed the children that unfortunately, there weren’t very many pills, and perhaps they would be willing to sacrifice their share for the good of their poor parents, who were, after all, the ones doing all the work. The parents and the grandmother thanked the children for their generousity, and they, too, began to smile, and laugh, and sing, and generally have a very good time. That did it. The children clamoured for their fair share. After that, the ornery little girl and her two ornery little brothers were never ornery for very long. They knew that all they had to do was take a Happy Pill, and eventually everything would turn out all right. Waits seemed shorter. The offense of skipping or not skipping 67, 66, and 65 bottles of beer by going straight to 64 seemed completely unimportant. Stomaches were less empty, and bladders less full. Everyone agreed on what music to listen to, and that the orange punch-buggy was seen first by the littlest brother made no impact. And all were happy, because they believed they were.

stories...

I don't know why, but people tell me the randomest things, sometimes... Like the fact that "He was a chaplain for 30 years, and when he retired he became a part-time (paid, but full-time work) pastor at a church, and now he's thinking about retiring from that, only he's worried about having to move back here and he'll lose his network of people. I think that he'll be fine - there are still lots of people here that he knows and that care about him." Still, i understand the nervousness - we moved away from a city for just one year, and it was still an awfully uncomfortable fit returning. You can't go back. Or "she lived less than one block from the house she was born into, until she was over eighty. Then she felt like she'd rather be closer to at least one or two of her children, so she moved here." That has to be pretty strange. People talk about "finding themselves" as if there is only one answer; as if you can discover one way to define yourself for the rest of your life. Some people use geography, others relationships, but in the end, we all discover that nothing in this life is stable enough to attach us permanently. Still, to leave your place of birth after 80 years - to break all those ties and associations and memories - that's an awfully brave thing to do, i think. Or "she had a beau who absolutely adored her - she could do no wrong in his eyes. This annoyed her, and besides, he wasn't popular. So on prom night she threw him over for the popular kid, only to find out that the popular kid had a midnight curfew and so they couldn't go to the unofficial parties. Later, she hooked up the popular boy with one of her best girlfriends. They ended up getting married, he became a pastor, and they moved to California." How many hundreds of chickflicks are not based on stories just like this one? This is actually a story about my great-aunt, and my great-grandmother can't understand why she wouldn't stick with the boy who worshipped her. Personally, i sympathize with my aunt - anybody who thinks that way about me has to be pretty stupid. Or "my grandfather immigrated to the states because he was closely associated with Queen Wilhelmina, and had to escape the Nazi regime." I know WWII happened very recently. But at least here in the states, we seem to have escaped the worst of it and hence have escaped the memories. Our nightmares are of Korea and Vietnam. Or "he needed a chair with arms, so he could get up out of it - he was nearly 100, after all. Of course, a chair could not officially be provided, as the whole circle of sages (a.k.a elderly men meeting for coffee and gossip) was completely unofficial anyway. So a tattered green chair was pulled out of a dank storage room somewhere, and unofficially commandeered. Less than a year later, he died. His fellow philosophers viewed the chair mournfully, and decided the best thing to do was drape a black scarf acrost it. Of course, it gets awfully crowded in that tiny break room and there weren't enough chairs before. But no one wants to sit in his chair, so a replacement must be found. However, no one would want to sit in the chair that replaced his chair, either, so it has to be exactly the same as his chair, only not." I can understand that this would be annoying if you were the one that had to deal with the chair. But i also wonder how i would feel, if a good friend - who was also greatly revered within our circle - passed away, and i knew i wouldn't be far behind. Actually, i've always kind of liked the idea of public mourning - that you wear something to publicly acknowledge your grief for a proscribed amount of time, and then you can put it away and get on with your life. Of course, i know you can't just pack up your emotions and forget about it. But to, as a society, recognize that there is both joy and grief in life - a time for mourning and a time for dancing - seems to me important. In my experience we tend toward existential nihilism or utopian pollyanna-ism, both of which strike me as dangerously impractical. Or "i know it says budget, but actually, it's where we keep all of the coffee supplies." Is this not brilliant? There's some deep irony in here i haven't discovered yet, but i do know it's brilliant. Or "oh yes, they can! In fact, i used to own a dog that could climb trees. Only, he couldn't get back down. So he would bark up there until we came and got him." ... okay ...

RJN

“The entirety of our prayer is “Your will be done”—not as a note of resignation but of desire beyond expression.”

My Christmas Holidays…

So… My brother and i go to school a few hundred miles from my parents home – in clear weather and on good roads, this trip takes 12 hours to drive. Of course, this was the first time my brother and i had driven our new vehicle for any length of time. It is also my first winter driving up North, and was his first time driving at all in some months (and i know my tense changed, but i think it makes more sense that way. I’ve never understood why people freak out about tense changes). If you live in the states, and have been paying any attention whatsoever to the national weather… It took us 45 minutes just to get out of the neighborhood. We had to shovel approximately 10 inches of snow out of the driveway, and then i drove while my brother followed me with a shovel. If the postman hadn’t been stuck and willing to help us, i think we would have stayed there until the thaw. It took us another 45 minutes to get out of the city proper, and on the highway (or expressway? There’s a difference, i think…). About 3.5 hours later, my brother expectorates – or explodes, take your pick. While driving. On icy roads. In heavy traffic. Of course, it could have been worse – he might have eaten more than an orange for breakfast. Guess who got to drive the entire rest of the way? Oh, and guess who couldn’t eat because someone else couldn’t stand the smell of food? On the drive back, some poor transportationless sucker was talked into coming along and assisting with money for gasoline. She didn’t realize at the time that the way my brother and i stay awake is to sing. We spared her our jazzy/operatic/harmonized/rap/just-plain-weird version of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall (which kills about 1.5 hours, if you’re curious), but she was forced to listen to us “singing” along with Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Julie Andrews, Nickle Creek, and the Beatles. I think she must have decided it was best to simply humour us, as she joined in our impromptu (and improvised) hymnsing, and even attempted to harmonize with our attempts at the melody. In fact, if my dearly beloved brother had not driven 50 miles off course before noticing… I just realized i haven’t written about my actual holidays at all. So i guess my title line kind of mislead you. I’ll imagine you are all absolutely panting to read about my Christmas vacation, and you imagine i’m desperately apologetic, and we’ll get along fine. Or not.

Did you know that the two most terrifying words in the English language are “what” and “if?”

People think that i don’t care, but the truth is: i do. People think that, because i am somewhat eccentric, i am free from the fear of popular opinion. The truth is: i am not beautiful or smart, and i am afraid fitting in too much. People think that, because i don’t mind losing i am a good sport. The truth is i am so afraid of trying and not winning that i decided not to try unless no one knows i am actually attempting anything. People tell me i can write, but the truth is: what if i can’t? People tell me i am too cynical, but the truth is: i am afraid to hope for uncertainties. In fact, i am afraid to hope for certainties – what if they are wrong? People think i am their friend, but the truth? You terrify me. What if i say something stupid? Or don’t say something kind? Or eat too much? Or see the wrong movies, or listen to the wrong music? What if? The truth is: i am afraid to care, because what if i’m wrong? What if it hurts me? What if i hurt you? I know what i deserve, and it is less than nothing. What if you know that, too? Do you know that i agonize over every email? Tremble after every conversation? Feel sick to my stomache every time i click publish, even though i know that no more than three people will actually ever read it? People think that i have a clue about my life, but the truth? I am a blind, crawling worm, afraid to move lest i make a mistake, and afraid to stay still lest the sky fall on my head.