I need another old square to sit with.

I'm pretty squarish. You can sit with me. I like sitting with you.

And, yes, that was a good conversation. I learned some things I hadn't known.

Somewhat related...my cousin's family is part Catholic/part Protestant. My cousin is protestant, and she married a Catholic. They are raising the kids in both environments. They are all involved in both churches, and they're going to let the kids choose when they get older. I think it's a very interesting way to deal with the situation. They're wedding was most interesting. It was part mass, part service. What was even more interesting to me was that they got the Priest to agree to it.

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Somewhat related...my cousin's family is part Catholic/part Protestant. My cousin is protestant, and she married a Catholic. They are raising the kids in both environments. They are all involved in both churches, and they're going to let the kids choose when they get older. I think it's a very interesting way to deal with the situation. They're wedding was most interesting. It was part mass, part service. What was even more interesting to me was that they got the Priest to agree to it.

This is me, and my family--well, not raising the kids in both churches part, but the family identifications. My parents (and their parents) are/were all Protestant. I don't think either side of the family has the nature to be Roman Catholic. We have authority...shall we say issues. But of my dad and his three brothers, two married Catholics, and converted. I don't think the conversions were too heartfelt, particularly in the case of dad's twin. I only have one cousin on dad's side (daughter of the oldest son), and she was raised Catholic. My impression is that my uncles converted to satisfy the parents of their wives, as anything else. In both cases, neither couple ended up being regulars at church, but they weren't regulars in their Protestant churches either, before their conversions.

In my mother's family, four of the six married Catholics, but only one converted. The children in all four families were raised Catholic, although in the case of my aunt's children, they have some big issues with the church, because for about four decades, their parents' marriage wasn't recognized.

Scott is Catholic. Well, Scott was Catholic. We've been attending a Protestant church for almost two years, and joined a year ago. Our church, however, does not rebaptize, and there's no sort of renouncing of your old church required, in order to join, although if you were an active member, they do strongly suggest you notify your old church. At any rate, I've been calling Scott Catholic, when the topic has come up, because when we were first thinking about entering into membership, he was fairly clear about not converting. However, the last couple of times the subject has come up, he has either identified as Protestant, or corrected me if I've called him Catholic, so it seems he's converted himself, somewhere along the way. He was a lapsed Catholic to begin with, though. I'd suggested we have an ecumenical wedding ceremony like your cousins did vw, but he wasn't interested in doing the legwork.

JZ, Jen, Maria, I've been writing up my response to the earlier conversation, and both quoted and paraphrased some of your questions and answers. I hope that's okay. As it stands now, you are simply anonymous friends, so it seemed to me to be okay to include the gist of your conversation here as the foundation for what I wanted to say. I hope none of this is a problem. If you'd prefer to be cited (I know Maria has an LJ; I don't think JZ does; I don't know about Jen), by name, please let me know. I am not yet finished. Once I do finish, I'll link here. If I've misrepresented your views, or if you have an issue with how I refer to them, please let me know. I don't think you'll have a problem with what I'm going to say, but just in case...

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I need another old square to sit with.

It's pretty comfy over here in the old square corner. Cashmere's hair looks great on her, though. On me, I fear it would look like mutton dressed as lamb.

Let's hope I accomplish something today, before I break the world's record for useless weeks.

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Where's AmyLiz? I need another old square to sit with.

I'm sitting here with my square mug of tea, pretending my hair is another color.

I was raised Presbyterian, and Stephen is Catholic -- I don't know about the "lapsed", because although he hasn't been to a Catholic church in years aside from a funeral or a wedding, he still doesn't want to eat meat on Fridays during Lent and most of his personal theology (such as it is) is Catholic.

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One branch of my family, all the people in my generation who've married have married Catholics. Some of them are raising the kids Catholic, others are raising them Jewish, and some are celebrating the holidays of both religions with the grandparents but not really bring the kids to church or synogogue or Hebrew school or CCD. I'm not sure what they did for their weddings, though -- I only went to one, and it was a pretty typical Jewish wedding, except for the bagpipe player outside.

Crap. I just noticed the time. I've got 8 minutes before I have to leave, and I'm still in my pajamas.

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Hil, there seems to be a good fit between Catholics and Jews. At least that's how it always seemed to me. But then again, my mom was Catholic, my dad was Jewish.

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I had dinner with an old friend the other night who is a fairly devout Catholic. Her husband, I hadn't realized, is emphatically non-religious. This came up when we were talking about what they told their two young kids about Santa Claus.

J. has a stong aversion to lying to the kids, so according to A. his compromise answer was "some people believe he's real, some people don't." Then she paused and said "I think that's the same thing he told them about God."

[I don't know if the funny is coming across, because it really was. And yet another of those RL conversations picking up where the board left off.]

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Oh, Hecubus, if you wanted to talk about something heathenish, I'm always here for you. Just like I don't know nothin' bout birthing babies.

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Uber-gronk.

Cindy, I indeed have no LJ (too much time spent online already for the entirely robust health of my job, no self-control or discipline, muttergrumblecakes) and I totally trust your ability to interpret anything I said.

Though now I perversely kinda want to see an LJ from you saying stuff like

OMGWTF JZ sez when JPII sez JUMP she sez SIR YES SIR HOW HIGH SIR POPE SIR? OMG can u beleve it???1?

I feel like utter shit this morning -- it's rainy and gloomy and I got four hours of sleep after an incredibly disturbing phone conversation with a close friend, who has just separated from her husband. Completely out of the blue, and they are both distraught and still love each other and want to work things out but can't be together right now and fuck, it was awful.

Long, long weary talk, followed by the making of a dinner and sympathy date and promises of no-sides-taking and sympathy for both of them no matter what happens in the long run, then followed by many tears wept into David's back in bed and mumbly reassurances by him, followed by several hours of brainless websurfing and, by special one-time-only super-crisis dispensation, cat-stacking. And now it's seven and I feel like I am encased in amber swimming in molasses, and still utterly fretful for my friend, and GNYAGH.

Stoopid world, fucking up people I love.

t kicks world

t hops around clutching throbbing toes and choking down cusswords because Emmett is in the next room

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So, because my boss isn't in today, I agreed to come in a half-hour earlier (normally we stagger -- he's here early, I'm here late). It is now the time I would normally arrive at work, and so far all I've done is eat a bagel and drink half a latte. Which I could have done at home.

Also, I think I need to find someone I can give this clock to.

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