and their teeny-tiny toes

[kleenexwoman]

Ended up going to midnight mass at the Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak. It's been a while since I was in church on Christmas, or even at any time at all. Mom used to drag us to various churches when we were younger, but that's stopped in the past few years, so I went with josephwaldman after the Christmas festivities had wound down and I was still too full of cookies to sleep.

The Shrine is gorgeous. Mom has dragged me to a lot of churches in the past, and I always find it kind of annoying that the trend in these churches seems to be lots of bare wood and minimalist design. It's dull and makes the place look like a therapist's office. But oh, god, the marble and stained glass and gold and velvet paintings, and all the ornate little symbols worked into the ornate little designs...oh, and they had these alcoves with marble statues of saints and carvings depicting their symbolism and life, and little places to put offerings. The one of Mary was lovely--she had a crown, and people had put roses and little cards on her altar. I can see how it would be really comforting praying to someone like that, or to the saints they had scattered across the room. Lots of options.

The Mass was interesting, too. It started out very pagan--big altar with white and blood-red set up in the middle of the room, lots of greenery, guys in white robes doing cleansing things with a big metal incense ball...lots of ritual and pomp and circumstance and things that I wasn't quite sure of the meaning of, but that I could guess. It really did look like they were about to sacrifice someone or something. I guess they were symbolically, but it was a huge altar. Not even just man-sized. Cow-sized. Elephant-sized.

Then the priest gave a sermon about how Catholics and Protestants and Jews and Muslims all pray to the same god, but the Catholic god was better because they had God in a little piece of bread that they could eat. I kid you not, that was the gist of the whole thing, and he even held up the Host to prove it. Oh, and there was a tangent on anti-abortion that included the phrase "Every embryo is sacred, every embryo is great." josephwaldman can verify all of this. It was very impassioned, and I guess I wouldn't have been surprised at if if I'd just randomly gone to Mass, but it seemed like a weird topic for a Christmas sermon, particularly for a church that's kind of a tourist spot anyway. Even in the other Catholic churches I've been in, the Christmas sermons tend to be very inclusive--less about Catholicism specifically, and more about God's love in general. (My favorite was a guest priest who brought in pictures of nebulae and talked about awe at the beauty of nature. I can get behind that.)

The blessing over the Host seemed like actual magic. The lights went down low, the organ got into some serious subsonic ranges, and the priests and altar boys gathered around the incense-wreathed altar to hear the monsignor chant in Latin...I loved it. I wish there were still big pagan temples like that, huge courtyards and altars of marble and gold and painted wood, where you could go watch and take part in rituals to all sorts of gods. Why don't we have those? Are there any? There are so many neopagans in the U.S., there's got to be at least one somewhere.

I loved the ritual and drama and symbolism, and I love it when I go to Temple. Rituals and symbols are immensely satisfying for me, and I'm half-tempted to become religious just for that. The problem is that most religions with any sense of style seem to require literal belief, or at least the pretense thereof, and I know from experience that that's not going to work for me.

Are there any religions that don't require literal belief? Like, an acknowledgment of narrative and symbol and ritual for its own sake without having to believe literally in what they stand for? ...maybe the Unitarians? I might need to make up my own thing.

We did go out for hamburgers afterward, which was also satisfying and reminded me of an excellent book I'd read the week before which posited that one of the important functions of religion, ritual, and religious law was regulating and ensuring the distribution of food, particularly animal proteins, to the populace. The author concluded that the Aztecs had a reasonably efficient system for this considering their scanty resources.

On that thought, Happy Hogswatch to all and to all a good night.

Comments

[drworm.livejournal.com]

Hard to have a sense of humor when things aren't funny.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

Waldman's Rule of Comedy Number Something-or-Other: Anything that goes into or comes out of the human body is or can be made funny.

[drworm.livejournal.com]

Waldman's Rule is flawed.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

Not at all. Think it through.

[drworm.livejournal.com]

I don't need to think it through, because I already know the answer: it may be made funny

but not by you.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

I don't follow.

[drworm.livejournal.com]

That's just my oh-so-subtle way of saying you aren't funny enough to exercise your own rule.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

Ooh, you're hilarious . . .

Humor is subjective. To each his own. But jesus, herr doktor, why in such a rotten mood?

[drworm.livejournal.com]

Because you keep bringing up my girlfriend's periods when she's asked you to stop.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

Okay, but said girlfriend is also my friend, and I crack wise with her. This is what writers with wit do.

[drworm.livejournal.com]

And she has asked you, repeatedly, to stop. I don't see what's so hard about this.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Joe, remember when I told you that sometimes I just really didn't want to argue about things and I wanted you to shut up and listen instead of cracking jokes? This is one of those times. drworm is being very blunt about it where I wasn't so blunt, and quite frankly he and I are on the same side about this matter.

I understand that you find period humor funny, but I don't any longer, and I don't appreciate it on my journal, particularly not out of nowhere. And I understand that you deal with social tension by trying to argue or crack a joke or say something you think is funny, but it's not always appropriate, and it's not appropriate right now.

If you aren't willing to recognize that, then maybe it's time for you to take a break from commenting in my LJ for a while, okay?

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

Okay . . . but to be blunt (or rather honest, which I am nothing if not) in return, you're making a mountain out of a molehill, it seems to me. Chill out a little bit, okay? You remember the other night how you said I seemed a lot cooler/calmer/happier/whatever? Yeah. That's kind of how one needs to be if one is to remain sane and not get bogged down with minutiae. Took me damn near twenty-eight years to figure this out. Word to the wise (which you are).

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Yes, I have already gathered that you think doing something that offends and upsets me when I've asked you repeatedly to stop is no big deal. I'm not sure why you think this, and I don't expect to understand. And I don't expect you to understand completely why this is a big deal to me, but I do expect you to respect it and not tell me to "chill out," okay?

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

All right, well, as I am, as ever, the eternal diplomat (I sold my soul to Nick Machiavelli, Hank the K., and Model UN a long time ago) I proclaim a whiteflag ceasefire, herewith contained and self-engaged.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Is that an apology or are you just shutting up?

Either way, you are still on warning.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

See above. Q.E.D. (And no warnings, please. Civility must rule the day.)

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

That doesn't answer my question, and at this point I'm upset and paranoid enough that I would like to know whether you honestly understand what's wrong with what's been going on here or whether you're just humoring me.

You can e-mail me with your response.