today i feel: sleepy
today i'm hearing: 'waiting for god' on pbs
today i'm thinking: it's been a long couple days
today i'm hearing: 'waiting for god' on pbs
today i'm thinking: it's been a long couple days
I am home. And it won't stop snowing. It started snowing around two-thirty/three this morning and it hasn't stopped since. This also means that I've been stuck inside with my mother, Sam the crazy dog and Lem (who still doesn't understand why those old cats don't like him and that giant cat won't leave him the hell alone). I'm really, really hoping the snow lets up tonight or early tomorrow so I can escape to those magical kingdoms of Borders or Bozarth's Basement. Either will do.
My parents showed me License to Wed this evening. It was a little more pro-Christian than I was hoping for. However, it has made me realise something that I think I need to start considering right away: I am terrified of getting married in a church, especially a Catholic one. This is particularly troubling to me at the moment for several reasons. As many of you know, I have A List. This List consists of the number of people I could spend the rest of my life with in a relatively small and confined living space (meaning marriage). Due to recent personal developments, realisations, etc., this List has downsized to two people. And as same-sex marriage is still illegal in this backwards country and she's straight anyhow, I am left with one prospect.
Who is Catholic.
Who, more importantly, has a Catholic mother.
Now, some of you may not have much experience with Catholic mothers. This is not entirely a bad thing. You see, Catholic mothers are like Jewish mothers, but better at it. If you don't know what Jewish mothers are like, you don't read this blog very often. And as much as I love this Catholic mother and her Catholic son, I know she will insist on his marrying in a Catholic church: the place of my nightmares.
I have been to Catholic weddings before; I went to one this summer. Being a non-Catholic at a Catholic wedding is about as terrifying as being a non-vegetarian at a PETA rally. I haven't felt that outnumbered since the third grade when Lauren Schifflett and Megan Hall chased me around the soccer field for saying something about Stacy that we would probably now both say was true. (Honestly, I have no recollection of what that statement might have been; I said a lot of untactful things in the third grade. This includes any comments I may have made about the intelligence, or lack thereof, of my third grade teacher. It's no wonder she liked my brother more.) Now, I have no doubt that my parents would be fine in this situation: Da works at the Catholic hospital and has the penguin jokes to prove it; Mum would think that her efforts to somehow re-convert me back into the fold had finally paid off. No, I have more concern for my friends. Not only would a Catholic wedding be extremely awkward for my large majority of agnostic and/or atheist friends, it would be BORING AS HELL. Now, for those of you who are Catholic, I mean no offense by this and I apologise if you are offended. Just trust me when I say that you gotta be Catholic to enjoy Catholic mass. That's kind of intentional.
Did you know that when you get married in a Catholic church and you're not Catholic, they want you to sign a contract, swearing that you'll raise your kids Catholic? You don't have to sign it, of course, but can you imagine the pressure? God, that's scary! I don't want to force my kids into that. Who would they go to for spiritual guidance? I'm not going to teach them how to be good Catholics; I don't know anything about it! I'd be like, 'Well, honey. The Church states that you should follow the teachings of the pope. But...the pope was a member of the Hitler Youth. Of course, every kid in Germany had to join the Hitler Youth during the reign of the Third Reich for fear of deportation, but I've got a feeling he kind of enjoyed it a little too much.' Regardless of anything, that's not good teaching. What if my kids actually liked being Catholic? Now I've gone and offended them! There's just no way to go about this.
I guess I could always raise one kid Catholic and another kid off-brand Jewish, but I think that would just make the sibling rivalry a hundred times worse. These are the things I think about at night.
According to the weather forecast, it might stop snowing by lunchtime tomorrow. Dear Lord, another uninterrupted day with my mother. I mean, I love her, but...she's kind of crazy
Don't freeze out there.
1 comment:
Well, I grew up catholic, went to mass every single day of grade school, and had a catholic ceremony first time down the aisle (Becky McGovern, Joel's mom, 1970). I know that you can have a ceremony in a catholic church without having a mass (Kimb's bro Randy married a sicilian catholic republican--yes hard to believe--three years ago. They had a ceremony but no mass. Still a little weird if you ask me.), but I think you do have to discuss how the children will be raised. I personally am against organized expressions of faith, particularly those coming from the Book, as they say. So your experiment strikes me as rather cruel, teaching one that the first part of the book is okay, and the other that the second part of the book is also okay. If you had a third you could raise that one Mormon, or maybe just give him a copy of the Q'uran to take to bed at night. None of my children were raised with any sort of organized religious fanfare; just my usual enormous number of details from across the map. My four year old speaks to me of Buddha quite often. My daughter in Chicago goes to a catholic school, but has her own version of the "story" which she can change when it becomes necessary. My third and final wedding, in New Hampshire in 1999, featured a prayer to the trees of the earth and an invocation of Arianrhod. My son read a poem about Cernunnos, the Great Stag of the Forest. The guests were mildly confused, but the vows were intense and mainly about "having your back" and they accepted it all as meaning something close to what they might think marriage is about. Only one relative used the P word, "pagan". The thing I discovered about Kimberly when we became romantically involved is that we actually shared the same suspicions about the true nature of this world and that we both had the Lady in our lives. Well, that's pretty rare I can tell you.
I have to say, catholic mothers are not going to give up wanting their sons to have catholic weddings. But you have the right to have the wedding you want to have. My mother and father were married by a justice of the peace in Mississippi. My mother was pregnant, it was 1942. In 1948 my parents were married in a catholic ceremony in Wichita. My father used to joke about my mother cutting him off for several years. My sisters were born in 43 and 45. I was born in 50. and my two bros after that. You do the math. My mother just wouldn't give up on the concept. And we were all raised catholic. Something I wouldn't do to my worst enemy.
Becky Bradway and myself were married by a judge at the courthouse in Springfield, one fine winter day while we were getting it together to move to New York City. We wanted to be sure to qualify for graduate student married housing. BB was such a romantic, dont you think? Her parents insisted on throwing us this weird little party. Bad champagne and poppers. I think they were relieved she got married at all. Well, now I'm just rambling.
You are too young to get married for five or ten years, anyway. There will be a nummber of men in your life and who knows about the ladies? Be open to new experiences. Remember the open heart is the heart that can learn. Be well. Oh, I posted some more Piper pics on my blog. And thanks for the nice comment. I read it to Paige this afternoon and we agreed that it was so very Kiri.
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