The church, the choice, the coincidences

Yesterday was just so jam-packed that even with two posts, I didn’t have a chance to reflect on everything worth saying. Consider this the spill-over post.

Thank you for your votes on how we should spend our summer vacation. Ya know, living my life according to Interweb plebiscite has a certain appeal. I’ll be consulting you for input on our life decisions much more frequently.

In the end, Beloved and I decided to skip the road trip to St Thomas and TtFTE in July. I am, quite frankly, hugely relieved. If anybody out there would like a deal on four great tickets to see the sold-out Thomas the Tank live in St Thomas (20 minutes from London) on July 22, drop me a note.

Yesterday was also a day of weird coincidences and convergences. Some funny, some profound, and some a little sad. For instance, you have to laugh that the calendar date for the first time I wandered back in to a church since (thoughtful pause, head scratching…) well, in at least a couple of years, was 6-6-6. Snicker.

Poor Tristan. In my ongoing crash course on God for preschoolers, I was explaining to him that we were going to the church, and the church is where you talk to God, and that we were going to talk to the priest about making Tristan and Simon a part of God’s family. Then we left him with my parents while we went to the ‘how to have your child baptized’ seminar. Poor Tristan wasted no time telling my mother that he liked his old family, and didn’t want a new one. Oops!

So then we’re driving to the church high school, and you know what song is on the radio? ‘Counting Blue Cars’ by Dishwalla, with this lyric:

And ask many questions
Like children often do
We said,tell me all your thoughts on god?
cause I would really like to meet her.
And ask her why were who we are.
Tell me all your thoughts on god,
Cause I am on my way to see her.

And you know what the strangest part is? By the end of the night, I was feeling pretty keen about the whole Catholic thing. I was relieved to see that for the boys’ baptism, we will be in the company of lots of other lazy and / or indecisive parents of toddlers, preschoolers and even a seven-year old – in fact, not a mewling newborn in the lot.

The priest, Father John, was one of those kindly, soft sorts of fellows to whom you really do want to entrust your spiritual upbringing. I got to thinking maybe we’d even go to church every now and then, and maybe I’d even (gasp!) sign up for one of their committees. I left the church high school feeling warm and fuzzy, but I just about fell out of my shoes when Beloved turned to me and said, ‘You know, maybe I’ll take my confirmation sacrament one of these days.’ You think I’m cynical about the church? I’m PollyAnna compared to him.

And then I wake up today and I hear that yesterday the Catholic Church issued yet another sweeping condemnation of abortion, birth control, same sex marriage and … reproductive technologies like artificial insemination and IVF. More weird convergences – day one of my frostie mock cycle happens the same day I think that maybe I will give the church another try or at least an open mind, and is also the day the Church issues this closed-minded, archaic and out-of-touch epistle.

All I can do is shake my head and shrug my shoulders.