Go Fish

This topic has come to me. It's bugging me. I've decided to address it. It is controversial and will likely label me as a heretic (which isn't a title I necessarily reject).

I have a lot of Christian friends. Not just Catholic, but Christian friends. Some of them born again and some that belong to other religious faiths. Really, it is near impossible not to have Christian friends here in the US. I'm writing today to talk about 2 of my pet peeves with modern Christians:  1. Asking me if I "prayed about it," and 2. Quoting scripture.

The thing is, I think both of those things really shut communication down.

Let's examine the first.

Say I'm talking to a friend about some annoying habit my kids have. So many to pick from...hmmm...  How about fighting with their siblings? That's common and a constant noise in my house. The boy picks on his sisters and his sisters antagonize him. It is a constant drone of sibling rivalry here in the Haddon home. So I might be sharing the latest play by ridiculous play with a friend of mine when out of the blue she says, "So have you prayed on it?"

That one sentence is a show stopper. Why? Because if it is a real question, it is as if something on my face or my demeanor says that I have not spoken to my God about it. What if I have? What if I haven't? What business is it of yours? And plus, what kind of response is exactly being elicited here?

"Yes, in fact, I spoke to God about it yesterday and He went on and on about spare the rod and spoil the child. Also that I might want to consider selling my son into slavery. Might decrease some of the conflict at home."

Really?

Or maybe, "No, why don't we have a prayer session right now? Because clearly, since I'm still having these lingering problems I am probably not praying right. Never had complaints from God before, but maybe with your guidance, my point can get across to our creator."

Does that sound too snarky?

Maybe it is only meant as a reminder to talk to God about it. But even then, who are you to give me such a reminder? Have you looked into my brain or heart and discovered me lacking? Have you yourself talked to our Lord was told, "Wow, that's the first I've heard Tess talk about that!" I'm thinking probably not.

I don't know what to say to the question, although I'm tempted in giving my most honest and non-snarky response.

"Sorry, I don't talk about my conversations with my God with other people. Your question suggests to me that you don't want to hear about my problems. Sorry to have bothered you. "

While the place where the question comes from is likely sincere and truly, truly meant to be loving, it isn't. At least not to me. It is a way to say, "Hey, you need to talk to God because talking to me does no good at all. Even if all you want is a sympathetic ear. Even if all you want is validation that you're not the only parent who feels like this. You need to bring that up with God and not me."

Now on to the second:  quoting scripture.

For me, it feels like nails on a chalk board. It brings back vivid memories of a debate I took part in during the 5th grade. I loved debate during class. I loved making arguments and felt pretty dominant. I remember leading the discussion on legalizing marijuana on one of those occasions. That was a great day. Then I was picked to lead a debate about women's rights. It was a total no brainer, I thought. I went into the debate armed with facts about how women were being paid 40% less than men for the exact same job if he made the argument that there was no discrimination. That women were people afforded the same rights and liberties as their male counterparts under the Constitution. My rival, a boy whose initials were J.C. (take that as you will), only had his bible. He likely got a hold of a concordance and just looked up where in the bible the subjugation of women to men appeared. I remember standing there completely disarmed. I was in Catholic school. I am a cradle Catholic. And there I was in the unenviable position of trying to argue against the bible. Now, with some knowledge under my belt, I might have argued how God chose a woman to bear His only begotten son, how Jesus first appeared to women when He rose from the dead, etc. but that day, in front of my class, my words were silenced. I couldn't think of how to argue against that.

In using quotations, the speaker is doing 2 things at the same time. They are bolstering and boasting. They bolster their statements by drawing from the words of other people of note. There is the implicit challenge that you might disagree with me, but can you disagree with Matt, Mark, Luke or John, and thereby disagree with the big boss Himself? Then there is the boasting, which may or may not be intentional. People who quote scripture show the single minded focus to memorize the bible. They become a walking concordance by memorizing where in the bible the verse is from, telling you exactly which bible verse it is, but stopping short of telling you why that particular verse is relevant. Should be completely obvious to you since you profess to love God and Jesus. See how much better they can walk the path because they have read it and recite it?

Oh man. That bugs the heck out of me.

I don't have that fever to memorize scripture. Sure, like most people, I've got my favorite verses, but you won't find me quoting them to anybody else. Maybe that makes me a bad Christian. I have my bible. I read it, probably not up to the standards of most evangelical Christians.

I'm Catholic. We have priests to read it for us.

I blow you up ... BOOM

This past Saturday was Princess's First Communion. Pictures to follow provided that Hubby gets back from his business trip and remembers to offload his camera. I don't have a card reader for the behemoth memory cards on his SLR. Anyway, Princess was dressed in a sleeveless Cinderella pick up skirt tea length white satin gown. Her hair was up in a big pouffy bun (ala Carrie Bradshaw in Sex In the City) and she wore my handmade veil under it and a rhinestone/pearl tiara in the front. Around her neck she wore my mother's gold cross which Lola gave to her that morning. She wore brand new white shoes with 1.5 inch heels. By the end of mass, I was holding those heels while Princess ran around shoeless. To complete her ensemble, Princess wore white gloves that went up to her elbows. She looked like a real princess. She just needed a scepter and cape.

The kids were asked to be there at 3pm so that they could have their formal portraits taken. I took advantage of my early arrival to reserve seating for the 18 people who were going to be coming to witness Princess's First Communion. We had Lola, Uncle Dwight, who came from Hawaii, Uncle Norm, Aunty Bridget, Cousin Katie, who came over on the ferry, Uncle Davey, Aunty Jan, their kids Alex & Ashley 4 y.o. and Aidan 18 mos., Grams, Gramps, and Aunty Di who came from California. I went to my car and got out every piece of clothing I could find. Came out with a raincoat, hat, bandana, umbrella, paperback, and a bunch of Monopoly money that the now defunct dollar store used to give out as coupons. So I laid out said items and sprinkled a bunch of reserved signs made with the play money all over the pews. Then I waited.

Aside from a couple of snarky comments from people who came later and I told that I had reserved the 2.5 pews, people were pretty receptive to me having reserved the spots. To the one lady who exclaimed in disbelief, "3 pews!" I say, 'Chick, I was here for over 2 hours before you moseyed your way to get a seat so shut it. And peace be with you.' In my head of course.

Grandparents and our family took the front pew and the uncles, aunts and cousins took the 2nd. We had a couple of friends in the 3rd. It all worked out pretty well. Except for when the homily started.

The way the church is situated, the main lectern is on the left side of the altar (stage right). We happened to be seated in the first 3 rows of pews directly to the left of the lectern. We were pretty much spitting distance from our priest. So when the homily started, Fr. Emmett (who is a very sweet man) started talking about Pentecost -- a pretty big day in our faith -- celebrating the Holy Spirit's coming to the apostles and giving them the gift of tongues. One might argue that the Spirit was moving my 2 nephews and my niece. After all, are we not instructed to make a joyful NOISE unto the Lord?

So all during the homily, there were some gender clarifications: "Mommy, Alexander called me a boy. I'm not a boy. I'm a girl." There were also some threats of violence: "I blow you up. BOOM!" And general discontent voiced by the youngest of the 3: your basic baby cry. All this peppered by my brother and sister-in-law's desperate whispers of shush, put that down, don't touch that, quiet, etc. It gave me a major case of the church giggles. You know the kind where you can't laugh out loud but your body can't help but laugh so your shoulders start shaking up and down.

Hubby's sister Diane waited to see the famous church pinch that my mother used to deliver to us on a weekly basis. You know the kind right at the back of the arm on a nerve apparently connected to your voice box. One well placed pinch and you are effectively silenced for the remainder of the service. My mother wasn't sitting in the same row as the kids so only could give a stern look which was miserably ineffective. When asked why the pinches weren't delivered, she said simply, "I couldn't reach." She also hoped that nobody would notice the family resemblance and that she could pretend that those grand babies were not hers.

For his part, Fr. Emmett made every effort not to look in our direction. He truly is a soft touch. One can only hope that he didn't hear the ruckus, that he may have left his hearing aid out... but I suspect that everybody heard them. My friend Steve had arrived late to the service and was sitting clear across the church away from us. When we talked about what the kids were saying, Steve said, "That was you? I heard that."

For the rest of the visit with my brother and his family, our catch phrase was, "I blow you up ... BOOM!"

I can't wait to see them again. Even if I get blown up several times a day.

Liar, liar, pants on fire

Let me just say that this was a long grift. If you don't know what I mean, to grift is to con somebody. Sometimes this can be a short term lie or sometimes it can be a long term lie. Some lies you have to set up, prepare a mark (a.k.a. victim) with a couple of believable lies -- commiserate with them, make them feel like you're a victim of the same circumstances. A grifter is a con artist. I never knew I had skills like these. But I do. I have the gift of grift.

About 5 weeks before my husband's 40th birthday, I told Hubby that the church auction was coming up. The real auction was taking place a week before my husband's birthday, but I figured that he had heard some buzz about an auction coming up and that was enough to validate my story. When there are church events, our director of religious education, Sister Anna, will often pluck me out of the parking lot or even church, and ask me to help out. I told my husband (who rarely attends mass with me)that after mass, Sr. Anna had asked me if I would help out with the auction. I told him the auction was scheduled for his birthday so I wanted to clear it with him before I got back to her. He, being the good soul that he is, assured me that it was fine. I could help out if I wanted.

The following Thursday, I complained again to my husband. When I picked up the kids from CCD, Sister Anna saw me again and asked if I would be able to prepare some food for the auction. See, it is a money making endeavor, so to cut costs, they were asking parishioners to bring food. I said, "Can you believe that they're asking people to bring food? I mean, they're charging $75 per ticket in the first place." So he told me that it was a fund raiser. That I can't blame them for trying to raise money. He really defended the actions of Sr. Anna, even though she was being absolutely ridiculous.

Some time during the following week, I asked my mother (in front of Hubby) what she would like to prepare for the auction. We came up with lumpia and pancit. It is traditional to have noodles on your birthday for long life. And everybody loves my mom's lumpia. My husband likes having potatoes in lumpia (I know, it is totally unacceptable according to Mom) so as a birthday treat, I told him that I'd reserve some that didn't have shrimp in it (he doesn't eat bugs -- his words, not mine) and put potatoes in that batch.

About 2 weeeks before the auction I started telling my husband that people weren't buying auction tickets as well as they had hoped. "At $75 a peice, how can you blame them? I might be helping out but there is no way that I'm going to pay for tickets."

Here's the scary part. My whole plan may have fallen apart because my son's soccer team won their division championship. If they progressed through regionals, then the state championship game would be on my husband's birthday -- the day of the party. It is a very strange feeling -- the definition of conflicted -- because I wanted my son's team to succeed. Of course I did. But on the other hand, part of me wanted them to fail because my plan for the party was going so well. I had even thought to mention to another parent from our church whose kid plays with That not to talk about missing the church auction which happened on the day of the regionals. She was awesome and didn't say a word about it.

Sadly for my son, his team didn't win the regionals. Yay for me, but I didn't cheer. He took it in stride and actually had nothing but good things about playing soccer in the snow. "Mom, it was so cool because when you kicked the ball, it would grow into this huge snow ball, and when you kicked it again, snow would explode everywhere. COOL!"

We were still on for our party. Here was the clincher. I had come up with an excuse for me to be making mass quantities of food. I had come up with an excuse for my mother to come with me. But the whole deal was to get my husband to drive to our friends Steve & Sharon's house for the actual party. My mother was the weakest link of the whole thing.

Having already told my husband that tickets weren't selling well and that they were massively expensive, I had laid the groundwork. Now in for the kill. I waited until the Thursday before the party. That is the day the kids have CCD. My mom picked them up from church that day. So she had opportunity to do this act.

"Honey," I conspiratorially told my husband, "don't get upset but for your birthday, my mom bought the three of us tickets to the auction."

"She what?"

"I know. I know. I'm sorry. She didn't ask me but she thought it would be good because there will be entertainment and lots of food. She thought it would be fun for us to do."

"Oh man, I get to spend my fortieth birthday at a church auction. Are you kidding me?"

"I'm so sorry."

"Why don't you guys just go, you and your mom?"

"She bought 3 tickets."

"Well, who is going to watch the kids?"

"I talked to Sharon, and she said that she's having a holiday party for the kids from their church. She said 3 more kids wouldn't be a problem and there will be lots of fun things for them to do."

Defeated, my husband resigned himself to feign gratitude and excitement when my mother told him about the auction tickets.

I practiced with my mother over and over again. She said that maybe she should add that I'd take him out to dinner another day too. She also was trying to come up with what kind of entertainment would be at the auction. She was suggesting menus and coming up with the guest list of who would be at our table.

My mother doesn't lie. It doesn't come easy to her. In fact, I think it may cause her physical pain. But we went over it again and again, and finally she streamlined it down to, "For your birthday, I bought us tickets to the auction."

When it came time for her performance, it turned into this. Nervously, while my husband was in the other room, my mother said, "Oh, for your birthday, I bought us auction tickets. Is that alright? Maybe Tess can take you out for dinner another time. Is it okay?" I may have pushed her too far. It was really hard for her.

And delivering the best performance of his lifetime, my sweet husband walked back into the room where my mom was sitting and said, "You mean the church auction? That will be great. Thanks." He actually seemed to be happy. Later he asked me for his Oscar. It was maybe an Emmy. Not an Oscar.

The morning of his party, my husband woke up with a bad cough. I thought I was sunk. But instead, I quietly pressured him into going to the auction by saying, "Honey, I'll go to the church and Mom should stay home and watch the kids while you rest, and then when it is time for the auction, she can go to Sharon's and drop the kids off so you can sleep."

"But what about the tickets? Your mom paid so much money for them."

"Don't worry about that. It is your health, okay?"

"No, I'll go. It'll make your mom feel bad if I don't."

Everybody was in place, the cars were parked in the driveway, but that was explained away by the party Sharon was throwing. The guests and I were crouched behind sofas and the kitchen island waiting for Hubby to make an appearance. I was keeping a lookout. Sharon answered the door and chatted for what seemed to be at least 10 minutes in the entryway. My husband wouldn't come into the house! She finally coaxed him in with promises of bacon wrapped Ritz crackers as appetizers for the party. I saw him enter the living room and I turned to the rest of the guests, counted three, and popped up to yell, "Surprise!"

That was immediately followed by, "Where did he go?"

Turns out that my husband got to the living room and realized that he had forgotten the diaper bag. He was just about to the front door when he heard us yell, "Surprise!...Where did he go?" Bummer. But Sharon says that she could tell he was surprised because he stopped in his tracks. He came back into the living room and we all had suddenly appeared.

It was a great success. Our friend Marisa, stage name Samira, made an appearance belly dancing. That was great fun. My husband admitted to me later that he didn't know where he should look. Marisa is smoking hot and here she was dressed in a belly dancing outfit.He didn't want to look like a jerk and stare especially with me standing right there next to him, but he took it in great stride and Marisa got a few of us to try belly dancing too.

I had mistakenly ordered a carrot cake which has walnuts in it. I had forgotten to check. My husband has a sensitivity to walnuts so that was a big boo boo. But luckily, I had arranged for our friend Julia to make a Chocolate Torte Royale -- a dessert that my mother-in-law made for hubby for all of his childhood birthdays. You also should know that when I brought out the carrot cake and realized it had walnuts, the first words out of my husband's mouth were, "Well, you better make me a Chocolate Torte Royale."

It was a great party. We have awesome friends. I hope I did his 40th birthday justice.

Buahahahahaha

I'm Catholic. To be more specific, I'm a cradle Catholic. This means that I was born and raised in the faith. This has brought with it a bunch of bummers. I remember thinking when I was a kid that it was unfair because some people don't become Catholic until they're really old, like 20 or 30. And those people get to live all that time not worrying about sinning or going to confession or worst of all, sitting in mass every Sunday -- for all those years! And then they still get to go to heaven. Where is the justice in that? But the upside of having gone to mass all those years is that you know all the words by heart -- somethings change every week, like announcements, homily and the readings of course -- but knowing what comes next allows you the freedom to notice other little things.

Kids are always sources of amusement, easy targets that way. There have been a lot of Altar Server trainings recently, so every week there are at least 4 (if not more) novice Altar Servers. They're always sitting right up front behind the altar behaving like little kids behave. Yes, I enjoy watching them fidget, make faces, and pick their noses then wipe the mess on their robes. I enjoy watching them bicker over who gets to ring the bells. I especially enjoy watching Father Emmett trying to discretely cue them on what they're supposed to do next. Sometimes he makes a movement with his hands to direct them and sometimes he whispers instructions to the kids. (That would work a little better if he remembered to turn off his microphone when he did it.) He's a sweet and patient man -- and let me tell you, those kids need it. I am particularly thankful, every time I watch these antics, that my son has no interest in taking the Altar Server training. I just don't want to sit there, staring at my kid picking his nose, sleeping or bickering behind the altar. It's bad enough that he does that in the pew.

Even better than watching kids are watching adults. You think you know what you're supposed to do because you've been to mass a gazillion times during your life. But then, when they ask you to bring up the offertory or maybe read the announcements before and after, you are all of a sudden on center stage. You realize that you've not been paying attention very well and you don't know where you're supposed to walk. Or are you supposed to bow? Or are you supposed to walk away the way you came or by a different route? Details, details. Those are the moments I treasure, when the adults, with all the eyes of the congregation on them, desperately try to recall what they've seen performed countless times, and come up blank. Priceless.

Today I witnessed, quite possibly, the most hysterical moment in church of my entire life. And sadly, I'm the only one who laughed.

Before mass started, the lector (reader) went to the podium to make announcements. People rarely start listening then but I perked up. He thanked people in advance for getting Giving Tree Christmas presents for those less fortunate. He thanked people for all the help with the auction and that the tickets were almost all sold. And lastly he thanked us for participation in the recent blood drive.

"Thank you to those who gave blood in our blood drive as our need for blood continues to grow." And then he added, "Uh... in our community."

After he said the word "grow," there were a couple of ways he could have gone with it. Like he could have just walked away and not have noticed the fairly macabre sentence he had just uttered. "Our need for blood continues to grow..." Because he added, "in our community," it suggests his brain heard what he said and realized that it came off oddly. If he hadn't noticed it himself, it wouldn't have been funny. But part of me wishes, deep down, that instead of adding "in our community," he would have just ended with, "BUAHAHAHAHAHA..." Now that would have been funny.

Peace be with you. Buahahahahaha....

***Update: I drove by the church today. There is a sign up that they're having ANOTHER blood drive this Wednesday. (12/12) Our NEED for BLOOD continues to grow...