Judecorp.

I went to church with the rest of my family, and then out to lunch. It was good to get out. Very very good. Except that EVERYBODY seemed to know. Aah well, the joys of Facebook. At least they mean well. :)

There was some sort of duet sung about being carried by prayer and lifted up and all of that spiritual good stuff, and it took a whole lot of effort to sit through it without bawling.

I am very thankful to and for everyone who has worked to pull us through this week. Going back to work tomorrow. A little nervous, but also eager for normalcy.

p.s. I love nap time. And the idea of having two kids.

It has snowed pretty much nonstop since Friday afternoon. It is sheer craziness! We got about a foot of snow on Friday and then it was all flurries and small showers through Saturday with very little accumulation. Now it is snowing harder again and seems to be wetter snow - the kind that packs and crunches under your feet. Bleh.

I cleaned off the car and packed Punk in so we could go to church this morning. I have a wicked sore throat but she is going really stir-crazy in the house and I thought the time in the church nursery would be good for her. She loves it there. I guess I should have called or checked or something because... it was closed. I am not used to things closing, I suppose. When I lived in Maine, it snowed all the time and the only thing that ever closed were the schools. *shrug* It never occurred to me that church would close! So we drove past and saw that there were no lights on and no people inside, and just drove back home. Whoops. We took her out to lunch at the diner just to get her out of the house. Mmm, greasy goodness.

She is starting to become a demanding little sprite and always wants "dip" or "chup" with everything. I guess she is becoming a real kid. She will also say "juice" if she doesn't want milk, and today just kept asking for "coffee." (Heck no, kid, that's mine!) I am embarrassed to say that she also has been asking for "tee-bee? tee-bee?" (TV) a lot lately, too. Whoops. At least she doesn't know that the "music choice" stations are not real television. ;)

Maybe my boss will cancel work tomorrow! She seems a lot more cautious about weather than I am. Then again, I think pretty much everyone is more cautious about weather driving than I am.

I'd like to know more about your religious leanings. I believe you've mentioned the UCC church, which (if I'm remembering correctly) is the one open to everyone from atheists to hardcore jesus-freaks. Where do you fall on the spectrum.

Are your beliefs and Jen's beliefs fairly well aligned? If not, how do you work around that?

I was raised Roman Catholic. All my life, with 13 years of Catholic school to boot. And you know what? I loved it. I was really into it. I sang in the children's choir. Did liturgical dances with other girls in my class. Played sports through CYO (Catholic Youth Organization). Taught religious education. Was the youth member of the parish council. Was a peer minister in high school. Did a bazillion service projects. I had big church love.

And there were a lot of things the Catholic Church and I didn't agree on. And while there are certainly a large number of Catholics who believe in a sort of "Catholic Buffet" where you pick and choose what things you want to believe in and follow, I had too much respect for the Catholic Church to do that. I really think that if you are going to be a member of a church or religion, you really should be able to stand by everything they say. So I left.

From there I spent a little time exploring my pagan side. I enjoyed writing and doing rituals and liked the philosophical stuff behind it all, but I had a heck of a time finding community, because I couldn't really find a group of pagans that wanted to be more pro-pagan than anti-christian. So I went to the Unitarian Universalists, because they'll take anyone. I belonged to a great UU church in Bangor, Maine and then an okay church in Columbus, Ohio. And when Jen and I moved back to Massachusetts I conned her into going to some services with me. But we didn't really find a congregation in the Boston area that we really clicked with. So we occasionally went to the church in Quincy, or sometimes to Arlington Street. I wasn't really feeling the UU stuff as much but I love their youth program.

When we came here to Western MA, we again looked for a UU church to join. And again we just didn't mesh with the people. Most of the congregations were older, not terribly approachable. We went to one church many times and people didn't really talk to us. I wanted to switch churches but as Jen always told me she wasn't Christian, I didn't really know where we could both go. But later she said that she felt like UU sermons were like sitting in a comparative religion or philosophy class instead of church and was amenable to looking around.

I was really interested in the United Church of Christ because they have a strong social justice component (which I love about the UUs) and they do the Jesus thing without using Jesus to put people down, or persecute people, or whatever. They really seem to get to the heart of what Jesus was (at least to me) and have a kind of Jesus I can really get into, the kind of Jesus I really loved when I was a child. And that's what I want for my child(ren), you know? That "Jesus loves me" feeling, that idea of Christianity that is all about helping others and lifting people up and promoting peace. So I finally convinced Jen that we should check out this one particular church, and she agreed.

And I went into labor the night before. Oops. So that got put on hold.

We eventually went when Punk was about 3 months old, and as soon as we walked in, people TALKED to us. One couple came right up to us when we weren't sure what to do (we had intended to bring Punk into the service but someone trying to be helpful told us to bring her to the child care area which we were sooo not cool with) and just started talking about what they did with their daughter when she was a baby, etc. Just really welcoming. And there were young couples there, and young families, and LOTS of kids. It was just a real "Aha" moment for me, and I knew right away that it was the place for me.

I was concerned that Jen wouldn't want to go again because of the Jesus factor, but I think she realized how much I really wanted the Jesus factor and she did agree that it felt more like church than the UUs, and she wanted a church family to raise our daughter in. So we joined, and Punk will be baptized this spring. I don't know if Jen is as into it as I am (she was raised Catholic; her mom is Catholic and her dad is Jewish) but I think she is as committed to bring faith to our kids.

Yay!

But as for the spectrum... I consider myself a big fan of Jesus and Christlike living. I don't mean being a fundamentalist Bible-thumper, or in any kind of hellfire and brimstone kind of way. I mean living like Christ. I think he was the ultimate social worker.

I was a little leery of taking the punk to church this morning. We have been trading off Sundays, alternating who goes to church and who stays home and punksits, because said punk had started going through a weird phase where she would only eat/sleep at home and thus would spend most of church screaming, which meant that one of us would miss the whole service walking her around outside. So it was easier if we just didn't bring her, but today was New Member Sunday and they like to introduce all of the new members to the congregation, so we figured we would chance it.

It actually could NOT have gone any better. Timing was right at home and she took her morning nap from 8 to 9, giving her enough time to get cleaned and dressed and car seated by 9:30 with no rushing, and also meaning she wasn't a trainwreck when we arrived. I've been working with her on spending more time in the Moby Wrap (because she previously HATED being worn and that was unacceptable to me), and I put her facing me in the Moby on the way to church and we rocked and bounced until the service was ready to start, and then when she got a little cranky, I turned her to face outward and she looked at Jen and other people for a while, just happy as a clam. When she started to fuss a little bit, I sat in the pew and started giving her a bottle, and we had to take a little break when we all had to go up to the front of the church for our introductions. She burped once with very minimal spit up and spent the rest of the time sucking her hand and making funny noises. Then we sat back down and finished the bottle.

She was content to stand on my lap and look around, and she did spit up twice but not terribly, and laughed and had a good time for a while. During one of the hymns, she got really into the singing and started cooing a lot, which was fun. Then she started to fuss again, so I went to the back of the church, put her back in the Moby and bounced. Didn't work, she was /tired/. So I stepped out of the church, walked through the building quickly with my pinkie in her mouth for about 5-7 minutes, she fell asleep in the Moby and I went back in. We had to stand at the back of the church at the end of the service with the reverend so that people could greet us (weird, it was like a wedding) and then there was a reception (with cake! yay cake!) and she slept through the WHOLE THING. I could shake people's hands, I had a cup of coffee, and I ate cake with TWO HANDS. She slept in there for probably 45-50 minutes, then woke up smiling and we left.

Seriously, it couldn't have gone any better at all. I'm so proud of my little punk!

(And of course everyone went on about how cute she is. Because umm, she IS.)

~//~

We're church members! How odd! I was a church member with my family when I was a kid, but now, umm, *I* am the parent creating a church family for my kid. WEIRD.