Little Pieces of Nothing

As you might know, my wife and I have been trying to decide which church we should join and raise our kids under. My wife was raised Catholic and I was raised Methodist. Since we’ve been together, we’ve been flopping back and forth between each family’s church but, since we have a baby on the way, we felt we needed to decide on a church for our family.

The Methodist Church and service isn’t structured in a way that we would really be happy going to every week, so that wasn’t an option. Both of us had our issues with the Catholic Church but felt that, with some guidance from a priest, it would be possible to put them aside. We had a meeting (actually he told my wife on the phone it would be dinner but we didn’t get any dinner) with a priest on Saturday evening.

When we arrived at the rectory, we were welcomed into his home and brought straight into his office. Immediately after sitting down he pulled out a baptism application and asked what date we had in mind. We told him again why we were there to speak with him. I’ll be honest; his answers in the beginning to some of our issues were more than satisfactory, to the point we were thinking that baptizing our baby in his church would be fine. Then it happened.

The priest made a comment that the Methodist church had some virtues. My wife agreed with him and said she liked the fact that my parents’ church did community service and outreach projects. Now, keep in mind we’ve already ruled out the Methodist Church for us and she was just agreeing with the priest. Out of nowhere, the priest pulled out the local diocese directory, and started listing all the “service organizations” the Catholic church was involved in. Not only was he listing them, but the conversation went something like this:

Priest: In this diocese, we have 1, 2, 3… 5 hospitals. How many hospitals does the Methodist church have? *pointed look at me*
Me: Um, none?
Priest: I could make a call to a drug rehab clinic and have you in there tonight if you were addicted to heroin. (What is it with priests and heroin?) And it would be free for you, all sponsored by the Catholic Church. Does the Methodist church have that? *glares at me*
Me: No?

He read to us every institution that the money from the Catholic church sponsors, and after each one glared at me and asked if the Methodist church had anything like that. At one point I even answered him with “I don’t know” to which I got a stern response of “NONE.” After he was finished with that directory, he asked us if we wanted to see a directory of another nearby diocese. We didn’t say anything but he pulled it out anyway. Then he pulled out a huge dictionary-sized book and banged it down on the desk and said, “And this is the directory of the whole church.”

At this point my wife and I were shooting each other looks like “oh my God” and we really didn’t know what to do. Like I said earlier, going the Methodist route wasn’t an option and he completely misunderstood the comment and basically attacked me and the religion in which I was raised. (Good thing I didn’t mention that my middle name was taken from the founder of the Methodist Church.) He told us not to over think things and then gave us quite a bit of reading material to help us with our decision, including “The Catechism of the Catholic Church” which isn’t really a book you can sit down and read cover to cover. We left there feeling even more confused than when we walked in, not to mention completely disappointed in him.

We decided to attend an Episcopal Church on Sunday morning, both of us worrying this just wasn’t going to work out either, but were pleasantly surprised. In the end, we feel that this church has the openness and attitude of the protestant churches that we really love and need, as well as the structure of the mass that my wife and I were looking for. The beliefs in the Episcopal Church really fall in line with what we believe and want to teach our children, so we think we might have found our match. Let’s just say that I felt like yesterday was a breath of fresh air and felt really happy with our findings, even if Saturday night was something we had to go through in order to get there.
 

Uber

Yes, I know, I disappeared again. Life has just been busy lately. My wife’s baby shower is next weekend so I have been busy trying to get the nursery painted and the closet organizer in so we can be ready for anything we get at her shower. Before you say anything, she already knows her shower is next weekend. The last thing you want to do is to surprise a pregnant woman!! We’ve also been busy with our baby classes at the hospital where she will be giving birth. The classes are going well and I learned a lot at the “Pets and Babies” class we took. Everything is coming together and Terri’s due date is 8 weeks from tomorrow (Sunday).

In the past few weeks I have been to the doctor for a physical, the eye doctor for a checkup and to get new contacts and glasses and today, the dentist. I guess you can say expecting a baby makes you want to get everything checked out about yourself. Funny story, kind of pathetic actually, about the dentist today. They had a sign hanging from the receptionist window that read “We do not except credit cards as payment, cash and checks only.” See anything wrong with that ??

Work has been occupying my time lately. I feel like I have enough on my plate to feed 3 people but that’s good - makes the time go by. Also found time to redesign this place a little. Yes, I do get bored easily, why do you ask? Anyway, I am working on this little thing over there -> that is a one word post where I consider the answer and hopefully people will give me the question…should be interesting to see what people come up with.

So that’s it for now. Tomorrow we are planning on getting up and trying out a church in the area to see if we like it, then it’s off to pick up our crib. Have a good rest of the weekend.

One of the numerous questions that has come up over the last 7 months is that of religion. My wife was baptised and raised Catholic while I myself was baptised and raised a Methodist. When Terri and I got married, religion didn’t really mean anything to me but seemed to mean something to her so naturally we were married in the Catholic Church. At the time I had every intention of going through the steps to become Catholic as well.

In the beginning of our marriage, Terri had certain questions about religion and things afterwards and reached out to the priest for answers / guidance. She reached out many times only to have her phone calls ignored. This was problem number one. Then came the scandals of the Catholic Church that we are all aware of. Follow that up with a blatant disregard for human kind and certain teachings I wouldn’t want my children to learn and you can see why we are at where we are.

After my Father In Laws funeral in December we were having second thoughts. The priest that presided over the services seemed like a generally nice guy and thought maybe if we talked to him, he might have answers for our dislikes in the church. We never made it there because of an article I read about something that came from the Vatican, that was passed around the church about homosexuality which makes me want no part of this religion. Like I said, a blatant disregard towards human kind.

So we are supposed to start shopping for a new religion since we will need to baptise our baby once he/she arrives. Wish us luck!!

Terri and I started our baby classes last night. The class was pretty informative and made the whole thing a little more real for me. With that said I thought we were a little far along to be in the class. The class was really focused more on what to eat during the pregnancy and what to expect during the pregnancy but we kind of knew that going into the class. Terri was further along in her pregnancy than anyone else there. In fact the couple who was sitting in front of us were due in September.

Next week we start classes which I think prepare us for labor, delivery and life after that day. Should be interesting. We are also taking a “Pets and Babies” class which will help give us ideas on how to get Brandy acclimated to someone new stealing a lot of her attention.

After the class we both watched The Amazing Race premier. Pretty funny show but the show is once again lacking a couple with the appeal that Rob and Amber had. Anyone, I sure wasn’t upset with the last place finishers and have my list of people I hope are next. If I were in charge of naming the episode, I would have named it “Oh my gawwwwwd I pee’d my pants” wihtout a doubt!!

• OK, show of hands, who is sick of cold weather and ready for some spring? I know I sure as hell am. Walking the 4 blocks to work this morning was just brutal.
• Tonight Terri and I start our baby classes. We are taking a series of classes at the local hospital to help us learn about being parents and how to take care of a little one. Should be fun and hopefully very helpful.
• Best thing to come out of the Olympics…. “My fast has a problem!!” Now if I could only get my hands on one.
• There is no such thing as “Paternal Leave” in my company. I either have to use vacation or take unpaid leave. I know Dad’s don’t go through labor but we should at least get 1 week off not counting against our vacation. My 2 cents anyway.
• Did I mention I want my own fast??

Yes I know, I haven’t updated in ages…sorry!! I have actually been under the weather for the last week or so. It started with what appeared to be strep throat but the test I had done came back negative so the doctors think it was some other kind of throat infection. After the major sore throat went away I got hit with a pretty wicked head cold which I am still suffering from. Yesterday I was starting to feel better but I think I stayed up too late watching Grey’s Anatomy and today I am suffering from this cold again. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Olympics are over……yay!! I did actually watch a majority of them but they honestly weren’t that interesting. Plus I hated the fact that everything was edited to the point of getting each event in pieces. Star of the games has to go to The Flying Tomato….that kid just oozes cool but it doesn’t sound like he’ll be getting a piece of Sasha Cohen anytime soon!!

Congrats to Erika and Jay on the birth of their son. He has to have a pretty major operation in the next few days so say a little prayer for her their new family!! Speaking of babies, my wife is chugging along in her pregnancy. I’m pretty sure she is ready to be done with the whole thing but we aren’t there yet. Once I get over this cold I can get back to painting the nursery….hopefully this weekend!!