Current Mood: Playful

Story in USA today:

Touched by an angel? Most say they’ve been protected

“A new survey of the USA’s religious beliefs and practices finds 55% of all adults — including one in five of those who say they have no religion — believe they have been protected from harm by a guardian angel.”

What I found particularly interesting was this little tidbit right here:
“Members of almost every major religious group sensed angels running heavenly interference: evangelical Protestant, 66%; black Protestant, 81%; mainline Protestant, 55%; Catholic, 57%; Jewish, 10%; other religions, 49%; no religion, 20%.”

I think we must be running our Guardian Angels ragged these days

RCIA class went great tonight! It was on creation and original sin. Learned two important lessons: 1)It wasn’t Eve’s fault it was ALL ADAM’S FAULT for letting the serpent in to begin with and 2)Eve was intimidated into eating the fruit by a great big ol mean 7 headed dragon type critter, not some talking serpent from Dr. Doolittle. That always bugged me.

Current Mood: Sickly

You know, women who get all into this “menstration as female empowerment” crap, scare me.

I can’t say that I’ve ever felt “more mystical” “more powerful” more “anything” other than “more cranky,” in the 35 years that I’ve had a period, period. It’s a period dammit, a sign that most of the time means you’re not pregnant, and no longer need all this fertile bedding stuff anymore. It’s not empowerment, it’s em-bed-iment, a perfect time to sit in bed and do nothing other than eat chocolate, watch George Clooney movies and give yourself pedicures.

It’s my down time, dagnabit, I get precious little of that as it is, why any woman would want to do anything else besides collapse and assume a fetal position, is beyond me.

My anamcara, who is blood-brother Lakota, told me once that in the Lakota tradition, the women have their own special “Moon Lodge” where the women who are on the rag go and do nothing. It’s a very special place of ritual, where they bleed in reparations for the sins of their husbands and brothers and warrior men from the previous month. Apparently, there’s lots of sinning to be had in warrior Lakota men.

And here’s what I have to say about that:
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So the class tonight was on the holy trinity. The buzzwords for the day were “It’s a mystery” which kept reminding me of the movie “Shakespear in Love.”

“It’ll all work out.”

“How do you KNOW??”

“I DON’T know. It’s a mystery!”

…but, I figured it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to bring up a movie about a Catholic man having an adulterous affair, in my RCIA class, so I shut mah mouth.

I kept my mouth shut about a lot of things, actually. Like how some theologians (including Pope John Paul I) envision the third person of the trinity as feminine, but fortunately I didn’t have to say anything - he brought it up. He also admitted to having issues with that theory, which it is helpfull to know what one’s teacher’s issues, are. I suspect discussion of the Divine Feminine will be kept to a minimum in this class.

I really don’t have much difficulty with the concept of the trinity; I never did stop dealing with a triune god figure, even in paganism - after all. And even though it’s been proven that the whole shamrock-as-a-symbol-of-the-trinity thing can NOT be attributed to St. Patrick (the story is only traceable back 100 years or so; St. Patrick lived around 500 A.D.) - it’s still a good representation, I think.

A few more people showed up tonight, all with that wild-eyed deer-caught-in-the-car-headlights look. Catholics should take a cue from the Methodists and FEED new people.

It’s harder to bolt out the door when you’re busy digesting.

Yesterday, as I was getting ready to go to my very first RCIA class, I was nervous as all get-out. Not so much in what I was doing, but in the fact that it’s a new place, with people I’ve never met before, etc etc. The fact that I couldn’t get the church’s webpage to load filled me with a kind of superstitious dread - “maybe it’s a BAD OMEN that I’m not supposed to go.”

So I said a quick prayer. Not so much demanding that I BE GIVEN A SIGN, as much as a “Hey God, can you kinda let me know that I’m doing the right thing??” - kinda thing.

None was forthcoming. But I got in the car to go, anyway.

Guess what was on the car radio. Go on, guess!
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