On Faith and Biscuits

Is it wrong to select your church based on its proximity to Biscuitville and its faith formation schedule?

Because I'm pretty sure those were the two main criteria that landed us at our new spiritual home.

I'm not proud of this. But sometimes I think we, as parents, make decisions based on what will cause us the least amount of angst. And right now in my life, I'm realizing that choosing anything that takes me more than 10 miles from home or adds evening activities into an already overfilled week causes me much stress. That stress then makes it harder for me to pray, to focus, to actually listen while I'm at church.

So we've signed on at a Catholic church that's less than three miles from our house (and even closer to Biscuitville) and offers faith formation classes* for BOTH kids right after mass on Sunday mornings. Did I mention they have BOTH a 2nd grade AND a pre-K class? And we get to drop off BOTH kids for an hour on Sunday morning?

You see my point, right?

Now the real test will be if we can actually get ourselves up, dressed and out the door in time for mass. Send prayers, y'all.

* If you're not Catholic, "faith formation" is the same thing as Sunday school. It's just not always on Sundays. And it used to be called CCD or the "Confraternity of Christian Doctrine." Now you know.

** And also? That picture is more than a year old and yes, she's chewing with her mouth open. But look how cute and happy she is at Biscuitville!

Click here to read more posts about why I gave up Catholicism for Lent and how I keep finding myself Catholic after all these years.

Finding Francis

My Lenten sacrifice was useful, but it didn't stick.

After Easter, as my husband and I talked about our impressions of the Episcopal church (based on our visits during Lent), we had plenty of good reasons to join -- and yet somehow neither of us seemed quite ready to let go of being Catholic.

So we decided to try a different Catholic church -- a Franciscan one this time, father from our house but closer to our personal philosophy. Still Catholic but somewhat separate from the hierarchy of the diocese, Franciscan priests tend to be less politically and socially conservative (and I just made a wildly sweeping generalization, so apologies to those more knowledgeable).

Anyway, on our first Sunday at this new Catholic church, the priest began the mass by welcoming everyone to the service. As he continued, welcoming visitors from other faiths, I braced myself for what I expected to be a polite churchy way of saying that those visitors would not be welcome at the altar during communion. It's a practice that I understand (because only Catholics believe in transubstantiation, so other faiths cannot receive communion), but one that always makes me cringe.

Instead, this is what he said: "If you are visiting us today from another faith, you enrich our service with your presence."

What?

"You enrich our service with your presence." 

Wow -- didn't see that one coming. That one phrase, spoken so simply, set a completely different tone for the mass for me. Maybe it's because my grandmother never converted to my grandfather's Catholic faith -- through more than 50 years of marriage -- or maybe just because I have so many wonderful, spiritual friends who aren't Christian, much less Catholic. Whatever the reason, it was enough to open my clenched fist just enough to accept the sign of peace.

And so the search continues...

My Lenten Sacrifice

I’m giving up Catholicism for Lent.

In past years, I’ve been on and off with my success in Lenten sacrifice. I’ve done the usual sweets or drinks or that sort of thing. I tried giving up fear one year – but when I went to donate blood (one of the many things I’m afraid of), it turned out I was ineligible.

Probably my best year was one in high school when I gave up an hour each week before school to go to communion service with my dad.

Last month, I started thinking about what behaviors were blocking me from being closer to God -- those things that were obstacles on my journey toward Easter. And I realized, suddenly, it was all the complaining I do about my church. Or, more specifically, my Church.

So I decided it was time to give it up -- the complaining, at least.

Being Catholic is something I was born into. Then it was the religion I chose for myself, following on from my father and grandfather and back to Germany. Catholic churches consecrated my wedding and the baptisms of my two children. In Catholicism, I feel the power of history along with the power of God.

But in the words of Father Frank, I've been a Catholic clutching "the fringe of the carpet of faith" for a long time. When the language changes in the mass took effect in December, it was enough to further weaken my already tenuous grip.

This month we've gone to Sunday services at an Episcopal church for the first time. In some ways it's a lot like Catholic church -- the basic structure of the service is the same, including Communion, the readings, and all the kneeling and standing. In other ways, it's completely different -- like the fact that all four ministers are married and two of them are (gasp!) women.

It's too soon to tell yet if we've found a new church home -- but I will say that the reserved parking space for first-time visitors got us off to a good start. For now, I'm saying prayers, asking questions and forgiving myself for not knowing the answers.

Earlier posts from my religious wrestling:
- Mere Churchianity
- Still Catholic After All These Years

Guest Post: Love, an Apology, and the End of the World

The world didn't end over the weekend. Thankfully, as I'd hate to be raptured with all this unfolded laundry sitting around.

But on Friday, before we survived the "prophesy," my dear friend wrote a note and posted it to her Facebook page. She's one of the kindest, most beautiful people I know -- and she has a way of talking about God and faith that makes me want to be a better person.

As you might already know, I've wrestled a lot with my religion, my church, my faith. I still don't have any answers -- and I get uncomfortable sometimes about the "Christian" label and all its baggage. So for now, I'll share with you her beautiful words -- when you read it, I suspect you'll wish she were your friend, too.

* * *

From Telling a Good Story

I’m trying to wrap my brain around my feelings about the hub-bub around the idea that the rapture will occur tomorrow (5/21).  Admittedly, I’m kind of a news snob and tend to get my news from NPR, which hasn’t been giving the whole thing a lot of airtime.  I am also (admittedly) a Facebook junkie and all of the sudden, I’m seeing this whole notion all over my newsfeed.  And it makes me sad.

Sad, not because people are making jokes about the second coming of Jesus.  Rather, I’m sad because of what our culture thinks of Christians.  Hear me loud & clear, I’m NOT blaming the culture.  I’m blaming the Christians, of which I am one.

Let me clarify again...  I’m not blaming individual Christians, or ALL Christians, but I can’t help but look at this little circus around “May 21st” and feel like something is horribly amiss.

I find myself wanting to apologize to people who are not Christians.  I want to apologize for the ways that Christianity has let our culture down.  I want to apologize that the idea of Jesus coming again gets translated into billboards and condemning speeches, instead of an opportunity to show people God’s love.  I want to apologize that so many people who are “Christians” have done such a poor job of following Jesus’ two most important directives: to love God with everything they are and to love other people.

I find myself wondering if tomorrow really WAS to be the rapture, why aren’t people running around trying to love each other like crazy?  (And since Jesus says He doesn’t actually even know when then end of the world will be (Matt 24:36), I just don’t buy that some preacher-man has the inside scoop).  Shouldn’t we, as followers of Christ, be loving people *every day* with an intensity as though tomorrow was the end?  Shouldn’t we be loving people with everything we’ve got every day, like it is our opportunity to show how much we (and God) love them?  Isn’t loving people the very root of what Jesus came to do and called us to follow Him into?

I know some really wonderful Christians who show the love of Christ to the people around them.  I know people who take the call to follow Jesus with a sincerity of heart that brings me to tears.  I’ve experienced the love of a community of Christ-followers in the darkest days of my life.  I believe with everything that I am that there are pockets where people are living out love in every way God intends for it to work.

I also know that there are so many people out there for whom the word “Christian” brings an instant sense of nausea.  And I concede that, for many reasons, that reaction can be so well deserved.  I also freely acknowledge that I used to be a person who rolled their eyes and was disgusted when I heard that someone was a Christian.  Because here’s what I thought that would mean: I felt it would mean that person thought they were better than me, that they would judge me for my behavior, that they would not approve of who I was, that they were closed-minded, elitist, and conservative, that they were a hypocrite, and frankly, that they were no.fun.at.all.  

Never in my assessment did I think that this person was in my world to show me, in practical, tangible ways, that God loved me.

Maybe you are reading this and you are thinking, “yep, that is what I think about Christians.”  Maybe you have other icky qualities you’d like to add to the list.  And, in so many cases, you’d be absolutely right.

What I’d like to think is that you are reading this and thinking, “Wait a minute, I have Christian friends/family, and nobody in the world loves me better than them!”  How I pray that is the case.

And that is why I’m sad about this end-of-the-world business.  Because I’m seeing anew that Christians, as a whole, have done a pretty poor job of representing the main point of Jesus, that point being LOVE.

I don’t sit here pretending, at all, that I represent Jesus well, every day, all the time.  I don’t always love you like I wish I did.  I don’t always make loving choices.  I don’t always engage with other people’s needs.  But what I can tell you, is that because of the way that I’ve encountered the love of Jesus and people who love Him, I am a different person than I used to be.  And that change drives me to WANT to be more loving to the people in my world, whether they follow Jesus or not.  It is because I’ve received great love that I’m learning to share great love.

And so, friends, I just want to say I’m sorry.  I’m sorry for the ways that the whole of Christianity has failed and I am sorry for the ways that I, personally, have failed in love.  But I do hope you will continue to give me the opportunity to show you what I believe Jesus is really all about--a deep, deep love for YOU.

Still Catholic After All These Years

After spending the summer attending a very welcoming Christian bible study with friends, my family and I went back to Sunday mass at our own church. It's the same church we've attended since we moved here, but it felt different to be back after our summer experience.

I think the break was good for me -- good to wrestle with some of my questions, listen to other voices, explore a little something new. It was the right place to be, but not the place for me to stay. In the end, I think I missed the traditions and rituals of Catholicism, missed the sense of "home" at church -- the religious equivalent of what one of my friends calls "comfort food for the soul."

That doesn't mean there aren't still sticking points for me with The Church. They're all still there -- but I've recognized that some of those questions are as much a part of religion as Jesus and the bible. I'm not the first person to wrestle with this -- if anything, I'm in great company with religious people throughout the ages.

Then Sunday night, my husband played the audio recording of this sermon from Father Frank Cancro at Queen of the Apostle Church in Belmont, NC. Father Frank is a long-time friend of my husband's, although I've only had the good fortune to see him a few times. If you can carve out 17 minutes from your day, I encourage you to listen for yourself -- pay special attention around 7:38.

If you don't have 17 minutes, here's a peek: "We are members of the same body....We are all co-heirs to the promise." If the path to God is open to me, then it is open to everyone.

"Let's be honest," Father Frank told his parishioners on Sunday. "We go through a lot of aspects of our life where it's easy for us to put someone... a little below us... [It] becomes an easy step for us to be able to make judgments and to be prejudiced... And so the gift that we receive at the Feast of Epiphany is the gift of being challenged to... reshape our hearts."

He goes on to beautifully and eloquently list inequalities past and present that resulted from human prejudices. These groups that some have judged to be outside God's love -- the American slave, women in ministry in the church, illegal immigrants, gay people, African-Americans, criminals, the poor -- are co-heirs to God's promise along with all the rest. 

I was already entranced, amazed to finally hear a priest say these things I needed to hear, when he added this one: "Catholics who identify strictness and narrowness as holiness are co-heirs with Catholics who are holding onto the fringe of the carpet of faith." That would be me there, with a fistful of carpet fringe clutched in my hand.

The key to our inheritance, says Father Frank, is forgiveness. We have to forgive ourselves for believing that we alone own the path to God, forgive ourselves for making judgments that are not ours to make.

So for now, I've decided that as long as there are priests who make silly, happy, smiley faces at the baby they just baptized (yes, that's a freshly-blessed Pipppi at age 5 months)...

...and as long as there are priests who make homilies like Father Frank, then I can be Catholic for at least one more year.
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Friday's Five: Loose Ends

Today's Friday's Five is a little random -- but there are a lot of loose ends I need to tie up this week and I don't have time for a post for each one. Consider this the grab bag of Friday posts -- you just don't know what you might get.

So, in no particular order and with no real unifying theme, here are five completely unrelated things I learned online this week:

1. Y'all love some minivans: I got one "like" and 13 comments on my post about considering a new, larger vehicle, plus another 10 comments on Facebook when I linked to the post. Nearly everyone said the minivan is the way to go. The problem for me is not so much the cool factor (or lack thereof), it's that I still feel like the Accord is kind of a big car after driving the Celica -- just not sure I can navigate a vehicle that large. Will keep you posted.
2. Ten words for things you didn't know have names: I've already confessed that I'm a super geek (particularly about things language and journalism related), so you won't be surprised to know that I love learning funky new words. This list from Merriam-Webster online includes philtrum (see photo), tittle, glabella and a couple of words I'd actually heard before. Because yes, I really am that much of a geek. And if you need more proof about my geekiness, check out my love note to the em dash in the comments on this post about punctuation.
3. People are speaking up about their experiences with Wake County's diversity policy: These two posts, from a former WCPSS student (who works in NY) and a former WCPSS teacher, were prompted by Tuesday's protest march in Raleigh regarding the Wake Board of Education's elimination of the former diversity policy. I hope you'll take a moment to click the links and read what they have to say -- both posts reminded me of the sentiments I tried to share about my experiences in Charlotte.
4. Religion is never easy: After my post about struggling with my church, I got some encouraging comments and nice emails. One friend (who is a Presbyterian minister, so she has extra credibility on these matters) called religious practice "comfort food for the soul" and suggested that many people (understandably) overlook concerns about their Church in order to enjoy the services at their church. I was just starting to feel better about my Catholic church, when I see this article about a new document from the Vatican suggesting that ordaining women as priests is as grave an offense as pedophilia. Really? Seriously? Oy vey.
5. Readers like being asked for advice: See item #1 above. In fact, I think the only thing you people like more than your minivans is sharing your opinions about them. So here's another opportunity -- now I need advice on a firm-but-still-comfortable-not-outrageously-pricey mattress set. Discuss amongst yourselves, then share in the comments. Please. I'm tired (literally) of sleeping on a mushy bed.

Mere Churchianity

Warning: I'm about to write about religion. I figure I've already written about politics, so I might as well hit the other big, hairy topic, too. If you're not interested in church or easily offended by anything outside of your personal beliefs, please skip on over and wait until I post about funny kid tales or recipes or something. That said, this post really isn't as dangerous as I've made it out to be.

As a Catholic kid in the South in the 1970s, I grew up in mission territory. Literally.

The daughter of a born-and-raised Catholic father and a convert mother, I'm one of a relatively small group of people who grew up Catholic in North Carolina back then and still consider themselves Catholic today. Even now, Catholics make up only about 4 percent of the state's residents, with much of the growth coming from the influx of Northern transplants and an increasing Hispanic population.

When I met my husband, one of the things that was most surprising was that he, too, grew up Catholic in North Carolina -- attending K-12 Catholic schools, no less. We were married in the Church and have baptized both of our children as well. While I haven't always agreed with everything in the capital "C" Church (particularly when it comes to the Pope's politics), I've managed to find some small "c" church congregations that fit my spiritual needs.

But now that Junius is old enough to start faith formation classes (known to Protestants as "Sunday School" and called "CCD" in my day), I'm looking at both my Church and my church in a different way. I find myself wrestling more with the practices and beliefs that I've simply ignored in the past when I couldn't believe in them -- as a mom, how do I answer my children when they ask about those things?

So this summer we accepted an invitation from some friends to attend their church's summertime bible study -- sort of a low-key, low-commitment way to explore Christianity from another perspective. From the first session, I knew I'd stepped out of my religious comfort zone -- I didn't know the songs we sang, all the familiar rituals were gone, and participants were talking openly about the day they were saved. I was surprised to discover how much I missed the patterns and practices of a Catholic service.

What I also realized that evening and during later sessions was that I'm willing to wrestle with this. I don't ascribe to what the minister called "churchianity" -- just going through the motions of attending church without actually thinking about or believing in anything. At the moment, I'm not ready to leave my church. I have more questions than answers -- and I'm afraid that balance might get worse before it gets better. But maybe it's more important for my children to see me searching for answers than it is for me to always have the right thing to say.