The Experience

Went to church twice with kids today -- this morning, as a whole family to our Catholic Church (which ended up meaning first Dave spending most of the time at Children's Liturgy trying to keep Larry from running amok while I went to the "Crying Room" with Audrey, and then my trying to keep Larry in the "Crying Room" as well so he didn't disrupt the rest of church.  I did get to meet and have a conversation with a mother of a three year old boy and 16-month-old boy.  Meeting another mom -- a former teacher (like me!) yet was really nice -- it terms of church, it was mostly about survival.  I'm hoping it can get better.

After some ambivalence, we have signed Ia up for religious classes so that she can have first communion in 2nd grade.  I still have difficulties with some specifics, but I -- we -- want to to be about to join the community in that way.

In the afternoon, I took Ia and Larry to The Experience, where several people I knew were singing.  Larry decided it would be fun to run away from me, so we went back to the car, and ultimately crouched on the carpeted stairs in the back, listening to the music and later reading children's books from the church.  We made it through, and I got to greet two people that I really wanted to see at the end and introduce my kids to then,

I really like the philosophy of The Experience, and the readings and the music and the people, but there are not children or the history or a sense of carrying on my family history, or even the role that I feel I can have at the church.  I converted to Catholicism, found the Catholic Church and mass to be a constant as I moved to different cities across the country.  I met my husband and married at the church, and all three of our kids have been baptized in the Catholic Church.  When I entered the church, I knew that it was not perfect (for one small example, my priest stood me up for my first confession, because he had forgotten about me) -- it still is a different thing to have my daughter taught it.  But when I joined I also felt the concept of the "informed conscience" helped make it possible for me -- the idea that you should learn "the wisdom of the church" and "her teachings," but that ultimately you are still responsible to your conscience -- going along isn't enough.  Plenty of priests saluted the Nazi flag back in WWII, partly because there was a comfort level brought between the similarly hierarchical societies.

I worry that, while our priest sees "our secular society" as the deaf man who needs to be plugged into correct teachings, that sometimes it is our church that is deaf and that needs to be witness of the experience of the people to truly be able to apply Jesus' teaching of love, and what love means.

The Pope apparently wants a "smaller, more faithful" church.  I don't want to lose my spiritual inheritance because I have a different interpretation of the the underlying principles than the current regime in power.  And I have come to the conclusion that I can learn from people even if I don't agree with everything they say -- I just happen to believe that they can learn from me, and from others, as well.

And time to get rest.