"We are Orange & Blue and God Loves Tebow More Than You!"

I am probably about to piss off a large portion of readers but I just have to say it.  I hate Tebowmania!  Like the guy.  Think he's a great football player.  Am sickened by the bandwagon that is praising him for his praising the Lord.  Calling an NFL win a miracle is an insult.  They didn't win because he prayed for them to win.  They won because the overtime rules were not sufficiently changed to minimize a single posession win.  Simple enough.  There was no miracle.  They won the coin toss.  They had first chance.  They won the game.  End of story.  I did not see the hand of God come down and complete the pass.  I'm sure there were players on both teams who were silently praying up a storm for the win but do you really think God has time to manipulate the outcome of a football game.  Forget the wars and famines, we got a game here boys. Why would he choose to listen to Tebow over say a child asking to be cured of cancer?  And it wasn't until after Denver won the game that I saw Tebow on one knee thanking God.  Tell me.  Would he have been down on one knee thanking God for the opportunity he had to play if his team hadn't won?  I can't but help think not.  While I think he is indeed grateful and thankful, I also think he exploits his spirituality in front of the cameras.  We never heard about the blatently praying quarterback when he was playing college football - at least I never did.  Did he not pray then or did the news media just not care about it then?  Either way, I hate to see spirituality used in that way.  If you want to pray, don't make a spectacle of yourself.  Its not a show. Its a personal relationship with God.  But then again, I'm not exactly the evangelical type.  Maybe I'll go to hell for speaking bad of Tebow.  I just hate seeing people praise a person instead of God and that seems to be what is happening.  Besides, I thought God was a Steeler fan?

It Doesn't Matter if He Can Tap Dance or Not, Jesus is Still an Awesome Guy

I was at our work Christmas party the other day having a good old time.  The party planning committee (me and my stuffed pig) had accomplished another brilliant feat of festive activities and I was thoroughly enjoying them.  In discussing the holiday with my co-worker, (yes I only have one and the party consists of me and him) I said how I was behind on my Christmas to-do list.  I stated that I didn't even have my stable and nativity up yet and how there just isn't room for it this year.  I thought for a second.  I have room for the six and a half foot tall Christmas tree (barely).  I have room for the snowmen and the penguins, the cute birds with the santa hats who are ice skating and the Mickey and Minnie Mouse in the sleigh.  I even have room for the tap dancing santa, reindeer and elves, but the Christ child - heck no.  No room for him in my inn.  I had to chuckle at myself.  I try so hard to respect the religious beliefs of others that I often forget and turn my back completely on the religious roots to which I will forever be tethered even with all my doubting and questioning.  Whether I believe Jesus was the son of God or not, he was a great man.  We celebrate Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and many other great men and women.  But I happened to overlook the celebrating of possibly the most influential and inspiring person in all of history just because he is claimed to be supernatural and I don't know if I agree with that.  Either way, his life should be celebrated and what better way to celebrate it than by celebrating his birth (even if the date was chosen based on numerous other outside influences rather than actual chronology).  Even though I prefer to focus on his life and teachings rather than his birth and death, without a birthday there would be no Jesus.  So Chuy, I will move the parrot's playgym and get out my nativity - complete with santa, reindeer, snowmen, winnie the pooh, squirrels, unicorn, panda bears, rooster and six kings - and make room in my heart as well.  Remember, peace, hope and love is what he proclaimed and it is what I wish you this holiday season!  Happy Whatever-You-Celebrate to You!

Blessed Be the Tithe that Binds

We got a letter some time ago from the catholic church of which we are official registered non-attending members.  Basically, it said this:  Their campaign to increase their members' giving has been successful and their incoming finances are better than expected so please, give more.  Yup, that's right they have extra money and they still want even more.  I just don't get it.  Yesterday, we got two phone calls solicating money for police forces.  Two in one day!  One was for the local sheriff and the other for the state police.  I'm sorry but I thought that was what I paid taxes for but now you want to call my house asking for more?  Then there are the weekly calls we get from the vietnam veterans, the lupus foundation and many other organizations asking if we have anything to donate to their cause.  They of course take items as donation but don't they think calling every week is a bit obsessive.  Oh, and my favorite, the college that my husband attended calls about once a week to ask for "alumni support".  Are you kidding?  First off, he went to school on-line so he didn't really experience your campus which coincidentally could use many new, improved buildings and lots of other expensive crap.  Second, we had to pay the huge price tag for his education.  Why would we continue to fork over more cash?  Shortly after receiving our well worded begging from St. Down the Street's, we got yet another request in the mail.  This time from the regional catholic diocese asking for money for their fundraising campaign.  It seems to me that when it comes to these organizations the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing because both hands are open and asking for cash.  Working at a church, I type the hymn titles into the weekly bulletin for the parishoners.  I always chuckle when I type the hymn "Blessed Be The Tie that Binds".  I can't help but think to myself the more appropriate title would be "Blessed Be the Tithe that Binds".  Hee hee!

Bibbidee-bobbidee-boo!

Well, after a very tiring weekend, we are finally home safe and sound.  This weekend included two emergency shopping trips, an emergency hair consultation, a meeting with the guardian ad lidem for Frontrunner, a college graduation party that made us feel really old, preparations for prom including nails, hair and make-up, prom pictures, dinner, prom, after prom, a trip to Pennsylvania, a baby baptism and reception, two . . . wait no . . . three runs through a deluge of rain, a campus tour, a hotel stay, and dinner with the parents.  When you spell it all out like that its no wonder I'm so tired.  I have never been so busy, tired, and wet in my life.  But I am happy.  I am an official, unofficial Fairy Godmummy.  My brother Uncle Fabulous (formerly Uncle Crazy) and his wife Aunt Fabulous asked me to be a Godmother to Baby Fabulous.  After much strife involving the Catholic church and their disappointment that neither I nor Aunt Fab's sister had a penis, it was decided that I would be a Godmummy - just not on the official Catholic books.  Which is fine by me.  I'm not exactly a facebook friend of the Catholic church or anything although technically I am still a registered parishoner at St. Up-the-street's.  I was included in the ceremony just like the Godparents who are on the up and up.  But the important thing is that Baby Fab will know me as Fairy Godmummy.  And after all, isn't the child the important thing here.  Isn't it her soul that is the focus and not what we had to do to humor the Catholic church.  And what more could I want.  I held her, kissed her, fed her, burped her and when she poohed, I gave her back.  Ah, there is nothing sweeter than getting all the perks without the work.  God bless you Baby Fab!  I'll make sure you know to get home before midnight!

Would You Like Fries With That?

It is Good Friday and I am starving.  Why am I fasting if I consider myself agnostic?  Because some bad habits are hard to break.  There is still that little tiny bit of catholic fear in me that makes me fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.  I also give up something for lent and don't eat meat on Fridays in lent as well.  I have no idea why the catholic church has such a stranglehold on me.  I guess years of guilt and fear can have that kind of effect on a person.  I really need to do some research on these religious traditions and find out why we do these crazy things.  Why is there no meat eating on Fridays in lent but seafood can be indulged in in mass quantities?  I can go out and have lobster but a burger is off limits.  I don't remember any burning bush recommending that one.  I understand the sacrifice of giving something up for lent.  That's why I do it.  However, I don't think Jesus is going to unfriend me if I dare to have the forbidden candy, gum, chocolate or whatever weakness you are supposed to be standing firmly against.  It was the church that made up these rules.  I'm sure they had their reasons, but are their reasons really relevant?  If anything, their reasons are to get butts in pews and dollars in the collection plate.  I've said it before and I'll say it again.  Religion as an institution is a man-driven force.  While my faith in God is unwavering, my faith in a mortal to be responsible for directing my soul to heaven is.  Ok.  I just saw on the news that there is a church offering drive-thru communion for Easter.  That's right people.  Punch your time card so you can get into heaven.  Smile big as you drive away knowing that the wafer in your mouth is your ticket to paradise.  Who cares if you live your life your way the other six days of the week?  You got your communion and you didn't even have to leave the car.  Instead of sitting in a man-made building with man-made decorations on Easter morning, we go out into God's creation, nature, and watch the sunrise, another one of God's creations.  There is just something about what we do that makes me feel closer to God than any sermon ever will.  I put in my face time with God, not the other parishoners.  Look out hell.  Here I come.

Happy Christmahanukwanzukah To You!

Today I have taken a break from all the wrapping and baking and planning and preparing to say Happy Whatever-It-Is-You-Celebrate to you!  I'm not sure with all of the excitement of the next few days that I will be able to get to blogging.  So I want to wish you, well, to be honest, a Merry Christmas.  Christmas is what I celebrate and I don't really understand what is so bad about saying Merry Christmas.  If I say Merry Christmas to someone who is Jewish are they going to slug me?  I doubt it.  If someone who is Jewish were to wish me a Happy Hanukkah, I would feel honored that they were sharing their celebration with me.  Same goes for Kwanzaa.  Same for the Winter Solstice.  Whatever you celebrate, you should be able to wish a friendly greeting to people in that time of year.  Its too hard to remember who to say what greeting to so as not to offend anyone.  Sharing your feelings of happiness shouldn't have to be politically correct.  Its all gotten way too out of hand.  My daughter came to me the other day confused.  She was wondering if Chanukah was a politically correct way to combine Christmas and Hanukkah.  After I set her straight (and had a quick chuckle), I really got to thinking about the term Happy Holidays.  I went from thinking of it as a polite way to encompass everyone's beliefs in one salutation to thinking of it as a forced means of regulating society into being too generic.  I think we've all just gotten a little too sensitive on the topic.  What's wrong with being proud of who you are and what you celebrate.  So to all of my peeps out there - Merry Christmas!  I send you a warm greeting inviting you to share in my celebration of the joy of the season.  Be proud.  Don't wimp out with Happy Holidays.  Share your feelings and if someone says "I don't celebrate that" then ask them what they do celebrate.  You may just learn something new about them and allow them to show their pride in their beliefs and celebrations.

Guilt Blogging

Ok.  Today's blog is out of guilt.  I haven't blogged in a few days and I'm feeling guilty about it.  But when I stopped and thought about it, I really didn't have anything creative, pertinent, or even witty to say.  Its been a pretty normal past few days.  I had my Christmas party at work.  It was fun.  My boss, who is the only other person in the office, worked through half . . . well . . . most of the party.  So I sat and read a lot.  I've heard from some of the caseworkers but nothing more than "Please send us a copy of your homestudy".  I have to wait until next Monday to submit any more names to my case worker.  I didn't go to work today because I have a sinus headache that could bring down a bear.  I've been thinking a lot about my purpose in life again, but still haven't come up with any lightbulb moments.  I've been up to . . . well . . . not much.  I'm not quite sure why I'm telling y'all this but I am just blogging out of guilt.  Guilt.  There's one thing I'm good at.  I'm Catholic.  It's something we're taught from a very young age.  It is an amazing thing.  Not only do we know how to experience it, but we know how to inflict it as well.  We're masters at the art.  We use it to get what we want and then feel guilty for using it.  It amazes me how participants of other religions don't get the full experience of guilt that Catholics do.  My husband is perfectly capable of having no guilt.  I don't know how he does it.  He also has the ability to not place blame.  Something I have had to work hard to not do.  I think guilt and blame go hand in hand.  My family loved playing the blame game and for some reason, I always seemed to be get the brunt of it.  But I won't bother you with that right now.  I'm just babbling.  Today's blog is just not up to par and, Lord help me,  I feel guilty.

He's the Reason for the Season

With Christmas quickly approaching, my theological thoughts have turned once again to the one, the only - Jesus.  Today I had a great conversation with a friend of mine on the divinity of Christ.  See, call me the doubting Thomas but the one sticking point I have with Christianity is the whole "Jesus as divine" thing.  I have trouble getting from Point A, the place where I am in my belief system, to Point B, the place where one believes Jesus to be the son of God, without touching on the weak link that I consider the Bible.  I believe the Bible is a great tool and must be something amazing seeing as how it has survived throughout time.  The problem I have with the Bible is that I view it as fiction.  It was written by numerous different people with numerous different agendas over the course of many, many years.  It contradicts itself in places and has been cut and pasted and cut again.  It came from man not from God him(or her)self.  They may have been inspired by God but there is that little thing called free will that gets in the way.  It was not dictated as the events happened.  So my dilemma is how to get from Point A to Point B without touching on anything biblical.  I was asked by my friend to look at it from another point of view - how to get from Point B to Point A without the Bible.  To think that God as an all-powerful entity who is capable and if he is indeed all-loving (which I believe) why would he not want to grant that magnificent occurence.  If instead of looking at the glass as half empty and trying to figure out where the other water went, view it as half full and enjoy what is there.  See Jesus as divine and find the reasons to support that instead of saying "prove it to me".  This thought has brought me to a place of new found peace.  Who cares if it was a virgin birth?  Who cares if the miracles were legit?  I guess your initial viewpoint is where your faith actually comes into play - acceptance of the glass as half full in the first place.       Now if I could just have faith that my Christmas shopping will get done!

Highway To Heaven?

Driving down Interstate 75 today to Cincinnati, I had a few thoughts like "Why is there a toaster lying on the side of the road?"  But that was put out of my mind when we passed the place where Touchdown Jesus used to live.  See, he was an icon around here.  A huge statue of the upper half of Jesus that stood many stories high with his arms outstretched to the sky (hence the name Touchdown Jesus).  He also went by Big Butter Jesus due to his creamy yellow color.  He was struck downin his prime, much like the real Jesus, when one night during a thunderstorm, he was hit by lightening.  Can you get more dramatic?  Jesus struck down by his father in his own front yard.  It made the local (and some national) news and was a temporary youtube sensation.  Touchdown Jesus got his fifteen minutes of fame.  The church where he resided says he will be resurrected.  There is much controversy surrounding this.  Often the comment is made that the money spent to restore Touchdown Jesus could do so much toward feeding the hungry or healing the sick.  I think their money is well spent for their cause.  Yes, it took him burning to the ground but Touchdown Jesus put Jesus back in the news.  People would pull off the interstate to take pictures of Touchdown Jesus.  People talked about it.  Whether they were for or against it, everyone had an opinion and was talking about Jesus and God and religion.  Great!  This is exactly what these people are trying to accomplish with their monument.  Goal achieved.  I hope they rebuild it.  I hope he brings about more controvery and more conversations.  I hope someday he will enlighten me on where that toaster came from.

I'm Dressing Up as a Christian for Halloween This Year

I am not a huge fan of Halloween but since when did Halloween become a bad word as far as the school system is concerned.  When I went to school, we had Halloween parties, we dressed up in Halloween costumes and we ate Halloween treats.  And guess what, most of us didn't grow up to become heathens.  I went to a catholic school and one year we even had a haunted house.  Now, I can't vouch for how frightening the entire thing was because I didn't get any further than the first room, but I do remember our priest at the time, dressed in a dracula costume lying in what appeared to my first grade eyes to be a coffin.  He didn't burst into flames and he wasn't struck down by lightening.  He scared the crap out of me but that was about it.  The thing that gets to me is they still have the parties.  Sometimes they even let the kids dress up in costumes.  The only difference is they call it an Autumn Party or something equally idiotic.  Apparently, Halloween is a pagan celebration and thus can't be celebrated in school.  But what about Easter and for that matter Christmas.  They are christian holidays that public school's happily give up their academic time for without hesitation or a ridiculous name change.  Maybe its because there is no Halloween icon.  Easter has the bunny.  Christmas has the big guy in the red suit.  Maybe Halloween just needs a representative to speak up on its behalf.  Or is it just that the christian religion has that much of a stronghold on the world today that any beliefs that differ from theirs need to be stifled.  Isn't this unfair to the pagans?  Why don't we celebrate jewish or islamic or hindu holidays as well?  Or maybe we should just have quarterly parties to celebrate - well to be politically correct - nothing.  I say either call them what they are or don't celebrate them at all.  Your child isn't going to turn evil because she wears a Dora the Explorer costume for an hour or eats a cookie with Happy Halloween iced on the top.  Lighten up.  I don't like the holiday but at least I call it what it is.  I can't decide if its the power christians have in society today or Halloween itself that scares me more.

Listen To Your Heart But It May Mean No More Red Bull

My sister-in-law recently announced that she and her family are thinking of becoming Mormon.  My initial reaction to this was "Um . . . yeah . . . whatever . . . "  But upon talking to her more, I have realized that this is not a just a whim.  I am glad to see that they are considering this change by looking at it from many angles and not rushing into it.  I actually admire their search for the right religion. So often people just accept what they were raised with without truly looking at their religion and themselves to see if it is a match. I love theology and wrestle with my own theological views on a daily basis.  Its refreshing to see someone trying to sort out what they believe and what they want in their spiritual life as well.  Me being me, I asked a few questions and was happy to hear her answers.  They were well founded and well grounded.  If they do decide to change, they will be following the church's ways completely.  Kudos to them for jumping in fully if they choose that route. I say whatever religion someone wants to be is awesome as long as they're aware of what their religion is all about and what it stands for. Personally unsure of how I feel about a la carte religion, I don't classify myself as catholic any more. For years I've called myself a psuedo-catholic-neuvo-jew.  Go ahead.  Laugh.  Everyone does.  I seriously leaned for some time towards gnosticism and came closest with being an agnostic (not to be confused with atheist.)  Now I prefer the terms spiritual and enlightened over a slot in any standard religion.  There are so many religions out there but they all have one influence that doesn't jive with me - man.  Because of man's free will, his greatest gift from God, anything he has influence over can be contaminated in some way.  Its a risk I don't want to mess with.  My faith is in God not in what man has to say about God.  My belief is simple.  I don't need the middleman.  I go straight to the big guy (or gal) directly.  So take a look at your religion.  Does it fit your beliefs?  Do you agree with their mission, rules, and purpose?  Whatever your religion:  believe in it, practice it, adhere to it and if there is no flavor for you at the religious buffet, that's ok too.  Just remember to search your soul and search it often and when in doubt, use your own personal hotline to God.  We all have one ya know.  It's called your heart.

One Ticket to Heaven Please

I have something to admit.  I don't go to church.  I work in one, but I don't go there.  On Sunday mornings I lie in bed or drink coffee while reading or watching TV.  And guess what . . . I don't think I'm going to hell because of it.  I was raised to think that way.  I went to church at least weekly and went to Catholic school for seven years.  If you total it all up, I have spent more than 1000 hours in church services.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it had no effect on me, but the most influential thing it has taught me is that you don't need to go to mass to get into heaven.  I have seen too many people who simply - go to mass.  Once there, they chat or sleep or file their nails.  They are simply putting in their time.  Making an appearance.  For those of you who are truly getting something out of it - kudos to you.  I do think there are some people who really benefit from a weekly injection of faith.  What I'm saying though is that I don't subscribe to a one size fits all religion.  Spirituality is not a meeting to be attended or a form to fill out.  It is a state of mind and a state of being.  I think that when I die God will be more concerned with what type of person I was and what type of life I led rather than where I was on Sunday mornings.