Dirty Catholic

Liturgical Nightmares, Real and Imagined

Not only did you, the music minister, move right into the Gospel Alleluia after the Responsorial Psalm, you did so on Ash Wednesday, when there is both a second reading and no "Alleluia."

You are holding hands with the priest by the altar during the Our Father and you notice that not only is your fly down, but your shirt is sticking out of the zipper.

For the Prayers of the Faithful at your fancy multicultural liturgy, the Portugese speaker did not translate his prayer not from the English one in the worship aide, "Let us pray for Peace among all peoples" but created his own. The rest of the Portugese speakers said it roughly translated to "That the hippies stop running the churches."

You taught all the Christmas pageant kids to begin their pageant when they hear people singing "Alleluia", only to discover during Mass that the choir director chose Psalm 118 for the Responsorial.

The naked baby peed in the baptismal font, and then the priest used that water for the sprinkling rite.

You had placed ashes on the foreheads of most of the community before realizing that you were saying "Turn away from the Gospel and be faithful to sin."

The Big Maybe

A week ago today I had the procedure. The procedure which could have told us "there's a problem" or possibly boost my fertility in the next few months. Other than a few interesting points of anatomy, it didn't tell us much. My husband and I are quickly being sorted into the "That's funny- every thing seems fine" area of mystery infertility.

Which, you know, is exactly the last place I wanted to be. A definate "yes" or "no" is what I was looking for, not this middling area of ongoing "maybe."

"Maybe" seems to be a big theme in my life these days. We can it the "limal" or "inbetween" place in fancy theology speak. I'm not quite here or there- not fully employed, but not out of work, not able to get pregnant, but not exactly infertile, not disappointing myself but not quite living up to my own expectations, either.

I'm waiting and not sure what I am waiting for. You can imagine that this liminal space is oh, my least favorite way to be. And because of that if seems the Big Guy (or Gal) really likes to let me wallow in it. You know, for my own good or whatever.

In the meantime I nurse dreams of dramatic overtures. Moving to Africa. Opening a halfway house. Adopting lots of foster children. Some seem more realistic than others, but the reality of my marriage, that I can't just make these decisions alone, always brings me back to earth. But still I dream of something else than what my life is right now...something other than Maybe.

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Thanks for Your Donation

Another benefit of working for the church is that you are privy to information that you may not otherwise hear. Information like how my diocese and the diocese across the bay contributed money to the Yes on Prop. 8 campaign.

I understand the Church's position on homosexuality. Hell, I've even explained the position to other people. (I can also explain to you many other things I do not personally believe.) I will even go so far as to almost compliment the California bishop conference for writing a letter that was about as tolerant as it could be and still tow the party line.

But I am pissed off that money that I contributed to the church (a portion of which goes to the diocese) was used to fund a proposition that I find fundamentally and embarrassingly unjust.

So last night we made a big fat donation to No on Prop. 8, and in the "Donation in Honor of" line wrote, "The Roman Catholic Church."

Things Grown-Ups Do

As a child there was a vast wonderland of mysterious things that only grown-ups could do.  Most of them turned out to be worth the wait (like drinking and sex), while others I never really thought about until I got here, like paying the mortgage. The ones that really stood out in my mind were the things that grown-ups had to do because no one else would.

My father was always doing these mandatory grown-up things, the ones that made being a grown up look a lot less fun than being a child. Things like fixing the sinks, working at not-the-dream-job to support the family, making the hard decisions about sick pets.

I particularly remember when he buried our pets. It couldn't have been helpful, hearing a chorus of four  little girls crying as he set out to his task.  I remember once watching from the window as he dug a hole in the far corner of the back yard. It was dusk and and hard to make out what he was doing, the mystery of it slowly covered in darkness.

Today I thought about this as I dug a hole for one of our chickens. Our Buff Orpington had been acting out of sorts for a while and this morning she died. As I dug, I wondered how many times I might do this again, how different it would be to explain it to kids, how burying a pet was always something I thought someone else did.

It's a funny rite of passage, burying a pet yourself. It's different than flushing a fish or giving an animal away. The consideration I needed to give to very physicality of it all --like where to bury the animal, the detail of how to keep other animals from digging it up, struggling with a stiff body while trying to put it neatly in the ground-- reminded me of the wonder of life, how changed, somehow less real, an animal is once it is dead. To some degree I laughed at the irony of burying this particular animal, when in most other circumstances I happily eat other members of its species. But mostly I realized how I'd always taken for granted that someone else would do this.

But now I am strangely grateful. Grateful to the vet who made it seem normal, grateful to my dad for the many, many times he did this same thing, and grateful for the realization that even though I am a grown-up, I still have a lot of growing up yet to do.

Public Embarrassment, One Post at a Time

Seriously, friends. This is why I will never be a copy editor. I returned to my blog this morning after a marathon weekend of social rites of passage and a houseful of guests only to notice that my brain ceased to function at the beginning of the last post.

What is abnoxious? Doing abdominal crunches when you have gas? I don't know. But I can tell you this: misspelling obnoxious is very much like misspelling my middle name (or rather Mr. Man's middle name). I am flabbergasted and frankly surprised that the grammatically anal among you did not so much as mutter an "Ahem."

In a moment of silliness this weekend I thought about how I might want to learn French in all my newfound free time. I think I should probably just try to master English instead.

Why Am I Surprised?

So I've spent the past month doing all the preliminary work for a big fertility brouhaha with my doctors.  After a series exams (ahem), and numerous well-timed blood tests (I've filled 10 vials of blood, people) I was finally able to schedule the appointment.

The lovely nurse on the other end said, "Oh wait....you are not covered for any fertility treatment."

"Well, I know I'm not covered for In-Vitro and stuff like that because I work for the Catholics. But I am sure that I'm covered for diagnostic testing and treatments."

"Nope. Doesn't look like it."

Whaaaaaat? The people who are always asking why I'm not knocked up yet will not fund the testing for me to find out what the eff is wrong with me?

Bastards.

It must be economics. Why would they cover a workforce of largely celibate men for fertility treatments if it costs so much extra to cover everyone? But Seriously. Occasionally the diocese has an employee (or two!) with a uterus that she would like to use. We count for something, don't we? 

I'm suddenly very grateful that I'm going part time and switching to my husband's insurance at the end of this month.

Good riddance.

Just a Dash of...

I'm not sure if it came from the cutting board where I chopped up the fruit or from the wooden spoon that I used to stir while cooking it, but my meticulously prepared breakfast of strawberries and oatmeal tastes ever-so-slightly of...garlic.

Bleh.

Do Over

Today my wonderful husband turns 30-something.

We have a yummy Indian dinner planned with our friends but....

This morning his biking partner got a flat tire then he came home to discover his favorite chicken is very, very sick (most likely she has Marek's disease).

Can we have a birthday do-over?

Yo' Momma

I was at the local Trader Joe's yesterday buying some stuff for dinner. My husband had taken my car, so I had his keys to the Miata. Mr. Man may present himself as a reckless, motorcycle-driving-fast-car-buying kind of guy, but he is a geek at heart. (I am frankly surprised that he doesn't wear his safety vest more often.) So naturally, he has a pair of acoustical earplugs on his key chain to protect his hearing while driving long distances in the convertible.

As I was making small talk with the 20-year-old checker, he noticed the earplugs.

"Are those yours?"

"Uhm, they're for the convertible- to protect hearing on long trips."

"Oh. I thought maybe you had a son who was in a band."

That was the end of the small talk.

I realize that technically, if I had a child at 15, I could have a son who was in a band by now.

But seriously?

I think I need to head over to Cèsar for a drink. The waiters there always card me.

Everyone's Asking

I suppose most Catholics would start to wonder why their young, married, good-with-children DRE doesn't have any kids of her own. I always assumed they would keep that curiosity to themselves.  But apparently, my contract was recently changed to add "answers personal questions about her uterus,"  and I'm a little astounded at how freely my parishioners approach me on this subject.

Some have be alarmingly direct in their inquiry. "Why aren't you pregnant yet? Our DRE should be setting a good example of Catholic Teaching."

Others have taken the approach of the leading question: "You're so good with kids...I imagine that you want some of your own?"

Another popular method has been the question-in-a-compliment: "You're so good at this! You're not going to get pregnant and leave us, are you?"

Even my boss, who is legally not allowed to ask me about this, remarked, while holding another staff member's grand-daughter, "And when are you going to work on one of these?"

And of course, the recent upset with my job and hours has left more than one person remarking, "Well, maybe this will give you time to start a family."

Indeed.

My response of choice has been evasion. To my boss I said, "Is that in my job description?"

To the complimenters, I suggest, "I wouldn't worry about it."

To the leading questioners I suggest, "Who doesn't want kids?"

But the fact of the matter is that wanting them is sometimes easier than having them, and that point was driven home most clearly when I opened my mail this Friday to find this:

I'm thinking that I'll just make a button out of the center part that says "Infertility Group,"  just to stop the questions before they start. That, or one that says, "NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS."