More proof I'm old

As I may have mentioned earlier, I'm fairly new to this whole blogging thing. And there has been a learning curve for me. For example, it was only a few weeks ago that finally figured out how to post videos from YouTube on here. And as you can see, the layout is a little on the plain side.

Well, this weekend, after several weeks of begging, I agreed to let my 11 year old set up a blog. (Side note to my wife or any other panic stricken relatives of mine: She has to show me what she posts in advance and she doesn't use the computer without her mother or I present. And we check her e-mail.) Anyway, within an hour of setting it up, she had figured out how to post videos, she had a poll, and it was generally much more visually interesting than mine. Of course, her blog is mostly about pokemon and other video games, so we're not exactly appealing to the same demographic. Anyway, it made me feel old to find that she surpassed me in techno savvy in just a couple of hours. This must be what my parents felt like when they discovered my brother and I could program the VCR and they couldn't.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to Everyone!!

I was right, my mood did improve a lot today. The service at church was wonderful. We had lunch at my wife's parents and the food was fantastic. The kids behaved and I even got a nap when we got home.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. My thoughts and prayers are especially with those joining the Church this weekend. Congratulations and may God bless you.

He is Risen!

Spring is almost here

My seven year old signed up for baseball last week. The season hasn't started yet, but we've been practicing. There isn't anything much better as a Dad than playing catch with your little boy. I know that in a few years other things will interest him and when he gets to be a teenager he probably won't want to take advice from his Dad very often. But right now, teaching him to play baseball is one of my favorite things in the world.

I honor of the approaching spring and baseball season, I give you one of my favorite baseball songs by the late, great Steve Goodman.



Go Cubs!

Some Practical Concerns

Enough of the "Deep Thoughts" type issues, there are some more practical concerns about becoming Catholic. First of all, I live in a very small town and attend my church almost every service. It's hard to visit another church anonymously. It would be kind of a big deal if I showed up one Sunday at the local Catholic Church. OK, I know it's not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but these are my petty problems I'm listing. :) Additionally, our church is currently undergoing a controversy over our current pastor. (The short version is that he's a really nice guy, but it was probably a bad match from the start.) We've lost some members over the last year or so and he's gotten the blame for it. If I start publicly looking around, people will assume I'm mad at him and I don't want to undermine him any right now. I like living in a small town, but it's times like these I wish we lived in a big city and were members of a really big church.

But the biggest issue involves my immediate family. My wife and kids are very happy at our current church. As I mentioned in an earlier post, this is the church my wife grew up in. Other than when she was off in college and a couple of years after when she worked out of town, she has never been a member at another church. I was told numerous times by my in-laws (who are great people, I am very lucky in that department) that our children were the seventh generation to be baptized in our church. Yes, my wife's family was one of the founding families way back when. So I hope you see how leaving this church is not really simple. And this is the only church my children have ever known. They are both active in Sunday School and other activities. Who am I to disrupt that?

There is one possibility that occurs to me, but I would appreciate any feedback from others who've tried something like this. Because the Catholic Church in our town shares a Priest with another larger Church in a nearby town, their only service on Sunday is at 9:00 AM. I guess I could attend Mass at 9 and still go to our service at 11:00. But I don't know how that would really work out. Has anyone ever tried something like this and did it work?

Thanks for the advice everyone.

A Christmas Miracle

Proof of the existence of God. My six year old son and his five year old cousin made it through all of Silent Night while holding candles without setting fire to anything. I think it took ten years off my life.

I'll continue navel gazing in a couple of days. Until then, Merry Christmas!

My religious background, part two

First, an editorial comment about my wife. She is smarter than me, much nicer than me, and much, much beter looking than me. To this day (almost 14 years later) I can't understand why she married me. Thank God for miracles.

My wife is a life long Presbyterian. Other than her time in college and a couple of years right after college when she worked in another town, she has attended the same church her entire life. It is a member of the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) which is the largest and most liberal of several denominations of Presbyterians in the United States. We were married in her church. For the first couple of years of our marriage, we sort of alternated between my her church and mine. But then we had our first child.

Having children changes your perspective on many things. (One day maybe I'll write a post on all the things it changes.) But one thing it made me do was to think seriously about my faith and how we were going to raise our children. To begin with, we decided we should both belong to the same church. It seemed logical to me that I should join my wife's church. It didn't make sense to me to ask her to leave a church she grew up in to join one that I had only been a member of a few years, so about 11 or 12 years ago, I became a Presbyterian.

There were a lot of things I liked about this church. The people were very nice to me. They were also (and, in fact, still are) very good to our kids. The first two ministers we had after I joined (we're on our 3rd now) gave good, thought provoking sermons. But there were things that bothered me.

I hated the way we celebrated communion. I grew up in the Methodist church going up to the communion rail to receive the elements. In this church, we kept our seats and the bread and juice were passed out like the collection plates. I hated it. My wife tried to explain the theology behind us serving each other, but I still didn't like it. It's hard to articulate a logical reason behind my dislike, but it just didn't feel right. And I didn't think it evoked a proper sense of decorum about the whole process. I'd be receiving the bread and I would hear the couple on the pew behind us discussing where they were going to eat lunch. Ugh.

I also thought we needed more "worship" during the worship service. The sermon was clearly the focal point of the service. Sometimes this made the whole thing feel like a glorified bible study. I know that this characterization is probably unfair, but I'm trying to give a feel for some of the reasons I felt dissatisfied.

More later.