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Posted by Kate on 11/20/2008, 7:18 am
Out of love and concern for the truth, and with the object of eliciting it... -- Martin Luther
Pope, thank you for a forum to rant. Everyone, please feel free to shut me up, throw cabbages, ignore me, or make any comments you choose -- insightful or insipid.
Okay...here's some background info...a preface...let's call it, "The Rocky Road From Former Fundy to Christopagan Seeker".
I have all these half finished essays on my hard drive and in my head, with titles like, "Why Christians Piss Everyone Off" and "Your Wife Isn't Submissive Enough -- Would You Like Us To Pray Over Her?" and "We Think She Might Be Demon Possessed -- Don't Worry, We Brought The Annointing Oil!"
Here is more about Kate than you probably know, or care to know:
I was not raised in the church, any church. My mother took us to the Catholic church to try to please her Anglican (Church of England) father. I was very little, and this is what I remember about the Catholic church: Mass was in Latin; there were a lot of candles; Mom had to wear a little handkerchief on her head; we did a lot of stand up, sit down, kneel stuff; we were supposed to say "and also with you" a lot; we got donuts and fruit punch after church.
I wore a tiny green enameled medal of St. Christopher around my neck. I thought it was really cool that he carried a little kid across a river, and the kid turned out to be Jesus. I don't think he's a saint anymore, but I still have that medal in my jewelry box.
My father, a life long smoker, got lung cancer when I was five. I saw him packing his suitcase, and asked where he was going; they told me he had to go to the hospital, just like when I had my tonsils out. Oh, I could understand that. I thought Daddy was getting his tonsils out, and would get to eat a lot of ice cream, like I did.
That was the last time I saw my father. Except once when he managed to get out of his hospital bed and wave to me from the window. I was in the parking lot with my big sister -- they didn't let children into the oncology ward to visit.
My mother said that a chaplain at the hospital, a Catholic priest, came to talk to her. He told her if my father wasn't a Catholic, then he wouldn't go to heaven. My mother was livid...she said that if there really was a God, then my father was a good man, and when he died, he was going to heaven to be with God.
Mom left the Catholic church. She didn't go back to any church after that.
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