7 Quick Takes, vol 3

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I have been remiss on this blog. Life has been so busy lately (with what I'm not sure) and it seems that I haven't had time to give this the attention I feel it deserves. I'm sure that says something about me, but that's deeper than I want to get into in a Quick Take.

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One of the things we did recently to stay busy was go out of town. I was invited on a work trip with my husband and my beautiful sister-in-law (the best Catholic I know) volunteered to keep my kids for four days so I could go. My sister-in-law does not have children of her own.

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The first thing she did, on the first day she was here, was take them to church. It did not go well.

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We did not go to church this week.  I typically work every Saturday night until 11pm or later. Then my husband usually works the next morning, which leaves us with 8am mass. And it's not a good excuse, but it's just so hard to get us all up and out the door for that. *insert whine*

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Did you read this absolutely terrific post on motherhood at Mama Needs Coffee? I'm sure you did, but I have to share it. I saved it to read again.

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And contrast that with this post at Dooce about living with a three year old. For us, three has been a million times harder than two, with both boys. The girl isn't yet two, but we'll see how that shakes out. (If you don't read Dooce, there is a lot of Language. You've been warned.)

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Last, this weekend is Mother's Day. I hope all the Mothers out there get treated like royalty. May you be as happy as a girl with a yard full of butterflies. And a Popsicle.

Quick Takes is being hosted here this week, stop by to join the fun.

The difficulty of going to Mass

As a family we've been to Mass three Sundays in a row now. It's become important to both my husband and myself that we make the effort to go every week. I see him embracing the church in ways he hasn't since in 14 years, since before I met him. We've talked about calling to see if there is a welcome wagon (if you will), and to find out about Baptism for our two younger kids. He is planning to go to confession before Lent. 

Since I'm not Catholic I feel a bit weird adapting some of the ritual and practices that he does, but I also feel weird abstaining. If he wants to say grace at dinner, and I think we should, shouldn't I be learning it as well? If he gives something up for Lent, I'd like to do it as well. Do I cross myself in church or is that reserved for those who are full Catholics? Do I genuflect as I enter the pew? I dug my copy of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Catholicism out of the garage (a process that led me to take a nap afterwards, true story) and will be looking through it for answers, but would welcome input from the peanut gallery.

The other hard part of Mass for us are the kids.  Understandably, this is all new and hard for them. They aren't used to sitting quietly for any length of time. My 6 year old is mostly ok, but the two younger ones (3 and 18 months) are unimpressed.  I feel like we're spending the whole hour herding cats.  There's no sense of sitting there gaining anything spiritual from the process, and since we haven't managed to find out about other services we aren't yet gaining community from the process.  Because of our work schedules, we've been at three different services (10am, 7pm, 8am).  It seems likely that the 8am Sunday service is the one we'll settle on, as it will rarely cause a work conflict.  I took a couple little soft toys in a bag for the baby today, and pens and paper for the boys, but I don't know if that's acceptable or not.*

Regardless of all this, the bloom has not worn off the rose and I still believe that going to church is the right thing to do. I want the routine and the weekly touchpoint of going. I'd love to feel a sense of renewal and fresh beginnings every week, and I suspect that going to church would come to do that for me. I'm not ready to proclaim myself Born Again, or even a true Believer, but I am comforted by the idea of becoming one.

*Another true story, once when I was about 12 and my brothers were maybe 4 and 6, they slithered up from our pew (3/4 of the way back) alllll the way to the front of the church, on their bellies. They removed a few shoes on their way through. They popped up at the front of the church, laughed at their victory, and proudly marched back down the center aisle to our family's pew. My kids aren't that obvious. Yet.

Quick Takes on Prayer, Mass, Bible Study and Stillness

Mass yesterday was a disaster. Due to work schedules we had to attend the Sunday evening service and it was just too much to ask of the kid's at the end of the weekend. It was only our second attempt, so we're not discouraged. (Grace, if you're reading, I wore pants, but not jeans. )

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Thanks for your suggestions on my post about learning to pray. For the first time ever in my life, yesterday someone asked me to "say a quick prayer that I handle this right" and I actually did.  With the idea that it might be more than empty words.   Also, I was looking for a nice repetitive daily prayer, and Cari suggested something simple. I thought about what I wanted (needed) most, and settled on peace from anxiety and stress and everything that drove me here, calm and patience in dealing with others, and joy and love to and from my friends and family. (And a pony.) (And world peace.) I settled on repeating "Peace, calm, joy," and then if I'm awake enough to need to think harder, to expound on just those things. I thought maybe I could look for scripture that supported those ideas as well.

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I really liked this post on Psalm 46:10. Seems to go well with my prayer for peace.

I believe that this is a call to quiet our hearts when they are trembling with fear. It’s a call to quiet our spirits when the pressure of the busy schedules, and the kids and spouses, and the career responsibilities, all become more than we can bear. When the noises of our lives are drowning out our calm, peace, even our joy, don’t forget to quiet your mind and spirit and look to the Lord. Remember that He is in control, He’s got you taken care of.

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I'd kind of like to find some kind of one on one study partner. I'm not up for what I see advertised (Learn the Book of This Guy! Women in the Bible!) yet, but something much more basic might be nice. Bonus points if it involved a cup of coffee away from home on a regular basis.

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If you know anyone else whose blog I should be following, or who would be interested in reading here, please feel free to share the link.

If Today You Hear His Voice, Harden Not Your Hearts

Today we went to church. I haven't been to a non-holiday church service since college. We'll be attending a local Catholic church, because my husband identifies as Catholic. While we were both raised to go to church, his experience was much more about faith than mine, which was more about what my parents wanted. This is not to say he wanted to get up and go as a child, but the God part was more of a factor than for me.  Since I'm not dedicated to a denomination, and he can't imagine being anything but Catholic, this is our choice.  So today we loaded up the kids and went to church.

There are a lot of parts to the Catholic Mass that I just don't understand. I find ritual very comforting and love the responsive readings and the formality of the sit, stand, kneel. I love the robes and the kissing and the part where the Priest does some things that are for God and not for the congregation. I don't know what half of it means. I don't know what comes next. I don't know which words I should capitalize! I'm learning. One of the things I learned today is that every Catholic church has the same readings as each other every week. The Priest creates his own sermon based on one of them, but everyone hears the same words and songs. I love that.  I love that if I had a friend in Alabama or California who was also Catholic that we could compare notes.

In a no-longer-surprising turn of events, today's Responsorial Psalm (another new term!) was the following from Psalms 95: 1-11:

R. (8) If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD;
let us acclaim the rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us joyfully sing psalms to him.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us bow down in worship;
let us kneel before the LORD who made us.
For he is our God,
and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Oh, that today you would hear his voice:
"Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tempted me;
they tested me though they had seen my works."
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

This happens very near the beginning of the service, with the bold lines being the respsonse. Really? My first day back at church in 13 years (not counting baptisms and holidays) and it hits my exact situation? Does that really happen? As this week has progressed I've been feeling uncertain. I'm still planning to follow through, but it really started to feel like I made the whole thing up. I was starting to think that we were going to church for everyone else's sake, and for the community. I didn't know that I was going to be able to get anything out of this. So WHAM, first thing, harden not your heart. Also, there was a cello.  This was the best intro I could have had to the rest of the service. After we left my husband and I both commented on how appropriate this was, for our new beginning.

The rest of the service was a bit harder to pay attention to, as my children have been to church even less than myself.  We knew going in that we'd likely leave early (at Communion, for those of you following along at home, since none of us could take it anyway We were very happy that the kids were able to (mostly) sit and bear it that long.) but I don't mind, it's a start. When I first met my husband, I bought a couple books about Catholicism ( What Catholics Really Believe--Setting the Record Straight: 52 Answers to Common Misconceptions about the Catholic Faith and Catholicism For Dummies ). I think I should dig them out and add them to my Recommended Reading List.