Thanks for the kind thoughts. I'm hoping not to have to bail on the Church altogether, at least not just yet, because there's all kinds of mystic woo that's not quite like the mystic woo of the other denominations that is dear to my wooful heart and it would break me completely to separate myself from that for ever and aye.

There's a Newman Center parish near our apt that will be good - lots of neighborhood kids, involvement in neighborhood activities both religious and secular, and a strong pro-women's-ordination contingent. Other people are also peeling off to various Newman Centers -- since they're all associated with college campuses, they kind of have to be more flexible and community-engaged and non-dogmatic, or the college students are going to give them a quick fuck you and disappear forever.

But I think we owe it to the new lousy pastor and the retired excellent pastor, and the community in general, to not just drift away quietly but to formally resign and be very clear and explicit about why. Next month's parish council meeting should be a real laugh riot.

Sophia, I love that kitchen. We have an islandy thing (rounded edge) on the end of our counter.

Today is grad clearance day at school. Kids are irritating, "But I TURNED that book in!"

but to formally resign and be very clear and explicit about why. Next month's parish council meeting should be a real laugh riot.

Yeah, I kind of hope you give it to them with both barrels. Not really a prince-of-peace sentiment, I realize, but there should be some accountability for driving people away.

It's not like you're the only one. Indeed many long time parishioners have left over the last year for the increasingly conservative direction towards which your church has been pushed.

(For those of you who care for the backstory, the cardinal put in to oversee the East Bay was purposefully chosen because he's quite conservative. There's been a very strong and concerted effort on the part of the upper echelons of the church to break the liberal parishes in the East Bay. That's why JZ's relatively new parish priest is so much more conservative than the previous ones. The strategy has been the same for San Francisco, but it's been less successful in the City. Still, it was the SF Cardinal who reached out to Mormons to fund Prop 8.)

Not Always Right is gold today - I'm an atheist and even I think this is sad: [link]

Sneak preview of Glenn Beck's first novel. [link] I was going to say favorite part was the top-secret meeting with everybody's names on the catering order, but then I got to the end of the article and read the Star Wars part, and I cannot stop giggling.

Jessica, that's AWESOME.

I had a great overheard a few weeks ago but I can't remember. Nelson Mandela is on the cover of the World History textbook and a kid asked, "Why is Morgan Freeman on our book?"

Been asked, hmmm, four maybe five times. Which is a lot, since I never thought of myself as a marrying sort of person. I had a whole annoying "philosophical" rant about it (OMG-- the opinions I had in my 20s on How To Live, and how vehement I was about them. Yikes). Married the third one who asked--ended in lots of unhappiness, but made me who I am in lots of ways.

Then this one. I didn't ask him to marry me, but after 10 years together I did say that I would like to be married someday. A couple of years later, he asked and we eloped. That was a good idea and continues to be so.

Happy Birthday to Dylan and Javachik!!!

Just to clarify - the current bishop is kind of a nonentity, definitely conservative inasmuch as he has any discernible personality at all but mostly an automated platitudinous statement generator who puts most of his passion into fretting about the diocese deficit. The previous bishop was an active and fairly malignant conservabot, very definitely chosen just for his conservabotitude; he replaced the guy who had started out middle of the road as a youngish man and was a wild-eyed leftist by the time he retired.

Oh, how I wish the lefty firebrand hadn't gone and had a heart attack at his desk six years ago. I can guarantee that if the new guy had tried out those same lines in his homily when Father Bill was alive, the dinnertime conversation in the rectory that evening would have consisted entirely of:

Father Bill: So, I overheard you this morning.

New Guy: Uh...?

Father Bill: We're sending the entire planet down the shitter six ways from Sunday, the Gospel today was Mary Magdalene washing Christ's feet with her tears and wiping them with her hair, and you wasted everyone's time whining about dirty pictures and bad words? Are you fucking shitting me?

New Guy: ...

Father Bill: t shoots laserbeams from his eyes until New Guy is reduced to a pile of smoking ash, then picks up his fork and snarfs the rest of his TV dinner in contemptuous silence while everyone else tiptoes away to finish their dinners in another county

oh dear god What happened to Catherine Zeta Jones's face?