Tuesday, November 01, 2005

A quick post

shoot, i just did this great word verif on bb's blog and i can't remember what it was, something with touching daisies. It's almost poetry--it *is* poetry. Should be showering and getting ready for Women's Bible Study, but I had to blog--my heart is heavy and this is a place to unload. On my walk I took a wrong turn (yes--the sun woke me up and I took a walk--November is already great!!--haven't taken a morning walk almost the whole month of October.) Oh, yes, a wrong turn on the walk and I was climbing a real hill (like grabbing onto branches type) and I ended up on a street I'd never been on and there was a really cute house. So I'll look it up, but I really would rather wait until after X-mas to "start" the house-hunt. For one, my finances are in a squirrel's nest and you really need to be together to buy a house--the amount of paperwork I had just looking at the one!

My heart is heavy...and I've a feeling there is no shower in my near future. Oh well. My hair looks decent enough, and I'm doing laundry...This is short b/c I need to get to WBS, but in two weeks I have dinner with a dear friend who is very concerned that I'm no longer Catholic. Granted, I was "officially" Catholic for about one calendar year, but she met me early on in that year and is now convinced that I'm lost or something. Ironically, she was raised Catholic and in college became Protestant for awhile and then returned to the Church at the insistence of friends and through prayer. And I think that's great...there are things I adore about the Catholic church. But I did the opposite--I was raised Protestant, dated too many lapsed Catholics to find it coincidental (although that's about all there is in Pittsburgh...), went to daily mass and loved it. I still went to a Baptist church on Sunday, but when I moved back to Pittsburgh, Bellefield had a new pastor and I decided to go to mass at CMU Sunday evenings. It only made sense to convert, since then I'd be able to take communion. So I finished RCIA (which I had started in Virginia--a woman at daily mass said oh it's a class to find out more about the Church) and was brought into the fold at Easter Vigil. The new fire, everything, it was very dramatic. But then I started going to Sunday mass at a church near me, because the CMU masses dissolved. And no one talked to me, which as Protestants know, is a foreign concept at church. At daily mass I had my entourage of little old ladies who loved me and at CMU I had the guy I had a crush on and besides, students are friendly. But at the neighborhood church, they had no real reason to talk to me, so they didn't. And then the priest that I liked retired. And I didn't so much like the new one. By that time (I'm going to be late) (oh well) I was having lunch with my friends from my (Protestant/Bellefield) Bible Study every Sunday--I'd call Matt's cell when Mass got out to find out where they were lunching, and meet them there. I started going to the OD*, and fell in love. I had always liked BJ before and found this to be a home. I went through another spat of depression and started going to Bellefield in the morning too. One day I just stopped thinking that I'd go back to Mass.

(During this time of depression I went to Yoga at the Nuin Center and met BB!!)

So that's my testimony. And now I have to go flip my laundry. Please comment--I started an email to her yesterday and didn't send it...

*the OD meets in the evening.

5 comments:

Joke said...

As long as you are seeking God's will, and as long as you seek that assiduously and sincerely and open-mindedly, then He will rest His hand on your shoulder.

For the record, I spent, um, 16 years as a VERRRRRY lapsed Catholic-bordering-on-agnostic, and then I slowly came back to the extent I am now teaching CCD for students (8th graders, on average) about to receive the sacrament of Confirmation.

So there!

-J.

Sarah Louise said...

Thanks, Joke. John had an idea that I could blog on why I'm not Catholic, but I think I'll blog on why I'm Presbyterian.

pgzhy: pigs have you?

Joke said...

FWIW, I don't think it's ever a good idea to blog on "why I'm not..." Such a thing is screaming with negativity and just begs to be misinterpreted. To state why you are not what you are not is likely not an affirming thing.

There have been times when people from other Christian faiths have wanted to, um, let's just say "engage me in spirited (rather than spiritual) discussion." My response is invariably "We have SO MUCH in common. Why do you wish to dwell in our differences?"

Whatever gets you to see His face, well, then that works.

-Joke

Sarah Louise said...

Agreed. Maybe I'll just do a better blog on why I go to the OD. Because the more personal, the more universal. (Who said that?) I heard yesterday a quote from Mark Twain, history doesn't make sense, but it rhymes.

Ta!

(Oh, I just visited your blog and I totally agree with you on black tie affairs.)

Joke said...

I'm glad you agree! I've always held the sincere hope Heaven is a black tie affair (I mean, it IS exclusive enough), but I realize it's a long shot.

And yes, I am very curious about your experience with the OD (which took me a while to realize was not an abbreviation for "Over Dose" DUH) and in it you can explain the whole emergent thing to the likes of me. (My church is one of THREE in Florida that still has Mass in Latin.)

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam,

-J.