STAN.

HO THERE!

Because it's been a million years since I last wrote and I have a whole hodgepodge of theological notions farting around in my head, this post will probably be all over the place and rather disjointed. I will try to temper it by means of a numbered list, but no guarantees can be made as I am functioning on a severely un-snazzy 5 hours of sleep. Be forewarned, and carry on if you so choose. Tally ho!

1) My husband calls Satan* "Stan". While funny on its face, I find this also very appropriate on a deeper level. Here's why:

Horror movies, black metal songs, and flaky occultists have it wrong. The devil is not a grand, bombastic, ferocious otherworldly beast. Are you kidding? He'd have absolutely no power over good-hearted people that way. "Say, who is that eldritch, flappy bat-winged, sharp-toothed stranger with a curly black handlebar mustache on the corner?" "Oh HIM? That's my accountant." "I see! Does he do state taxes too? Do you have his card?"
It just doesn't work.

We in the Egg household both believe that the Prince of Lies is more accurately portrayed as a sleazy used-car salesman type: likely to worm his way into your spiritual wallet if you're not on your game, and quite gross to behold if you are on your game. While appearing hip, sexy-sharp, and very elegantly edgy at first, a closer look at the fellow reveals threadbare corners on his suit-jacket, spinach 'tween his teeth (which are actually dentures), and a crusty switchblade tucked neatly in his inner pocket.

When you really need a car, it's easy to make the deal. But you're actually better off walking until your feet fall off. Not named the exotic and flashy "SATAN"::cue castanets::, but instead....Stan. Just Stan. Real as the day is long, but nobody you'd want to meet at the deli for a sammich.

2) I had things to say here: a wild story about recent grace and some squee-age over St.Martin dePorres (feast day today)...but I'm too tired and require a cup of tea.

In any case, I hope God sneaks up on you with a bear hug soon.

+Peace+,

Mrs. Egg

* we will take it quite for granted here that he exists. See: evil, existence of.**
**Evil, existence of: please reference Rwanda, recent history of.

CATHOLIC GUILT AND ECSTASY

--> Turns out, part of me is still quite shocked when I don't burst into flames/turn into a pile of moldy fish carcasses/get chawed alive by a locust horde at church.  

I felt this way all the time during RCIA - like somehow, my fellow explorers and the priests and nuns could just have NO idea what kind of sin-slathered, Gomorrahan libertine they were about to admit to their ranks.  I looked around the room at the ex-Younglife-ers, Young Republicans, economists, rich kids, and other squeaky clean types, and felt certain that at some point before my first communion, a pissed-off apparition of Christ, Mary, or Peter would appear and announce "I'M SORRY, THERE HAS BEEN A TERRIBLE MISTAKE.  YOU!  WITH THE BIG STANK-HOLE WHERE YOUR SOUL SHOULD BE!  RAUS!*"  

I was irrationally afraid that any day now, Someone** would mail to the parish an envelope containing Certain Documents, Photos, Videos, Letters, and other Evidence***.  I was haunted by the conviction that if the Church found out who I really was - what my life had been like, and the things I had done - I'd be sent packing.

Then I experienced the sacrament of Reconciliation for the first time, cried like a wee bairn, and was over it right quick.  

Mostly.

It still pops back up here and there, like this past Sunday when the Mister and I were asked to bring the Gifts to the altar during Mass.  As we blessed ourselves at the font after entering and the deacon-guy summoned us over, the first thought that flew through my head was "SHIT!  BUSTED!"

When he asked us to do the deed, I was tempted to say "NO!  ARE YOU KIDDING?  THESE THINGS'LL VAPORIZE INTO SUCCUBUS FARTS IF I TOUCH THEM."

Lo and behold, they did not.  Because I am not nearly as uniquely sinful as I tend to believe.  Because in actuality, I am a garden variety pud, just like every other Tom, Dick, and Mary in the pews with me.  We've all done outrageous things.  We've all been places that would make Good Old Therese of Liseux cash in her rose-petals.  This is not news.  

What is news: God's forgiveness is ferocious. He has called nothing "wrong" without the promise that you and He can make it Right again on a Saturday afternoon.  All it takes is a little pride-swallowing and a five-minute drive.

In other news, I will likely be spying on attending a Quaker meeting this September!  

+Love+

Mrs. Egg

* I am well aware that none of the three were German.  However, in the land of Imagination, we are all multilingual.

** You-Know-Who.

*** Which I'm pretty sure I burned, but one never knows, does one?

Your Neighborhood Pharisee

I ask you: who is that hard-hearted, pride-chuffed, Pharisaical butthead that wrote the last post?

Why, It's ME!  

SRSLY...I should just set up a tent outside the confessional down the street.  Me and the stray cat that lives there could share scavenged lunchmeat; it'd be great.  And save gasoline. 

*******

I am going to write a short letter to myself about this.  Here it goes:

Precious,

It was just a letter in the mail.  Does a piece of paper really challenge your faith that much?  I would gently suggest you've got some bigtime reflecting to do.  Also, please be as kind to Protestants and aberrant Catholics (in thought, word, and deed) as you would be to Muslims, Buddhists or Jews.  Put away those nasty factionalist thoughts.  We all love God, we just do it in different ways - and more than policing other people's theological rectitude, I would like to remind you that your job is to love them - ALL OF THEM - unreservedly, with gusto, and with abandon.  There is one judge in this universe, and it is God.  Step off.

Get over yourself,

Precious.

PRANKETY PRANK?

I thought it was weird when I got an invitation from the Legionnaires of Christ.  

But I figured: hey, when you donate to religious orders, they forward your name to all sorts of other orders, who do the same, and so on.  Much like small businesses, only with Nunners, Friars, Priests, and the like...and with good works instead of merchandise.  Some mis-recommendations are bound to happen, I assumed, like the time I got an invitation from some kind of Protestant shpiel over in the Congo.  Whooops; no biggie.  

But now, an invitation to a Call to Action seminar.  

W

T

HOLY

F?

My first reaction upon pulling it out of my mailbox was irrational panic: WHAT IF POPE BENEDICT SEES ME WITH THIS?  SHIT!  I felt the need to foist it somewhere, but the only available foistel* was my son's stroller.  So he held it for me until we got to a place where I could sit down and examine the thing (after scanning the area carefully for priests, bishops, Jesuits or any other Vatican-approved creatures).  

As I flipped through it and my heresy-zazzed brain calmed down, I began to wonder how it got in my mailbox.  I tend to flop rather predictably toward the conservative end of the Catholic ideological spectrum, though I try to practice tolerance and love with those I disagree with.  To "understand rather than be understood", if you will.  

I've got buddies and family who are seven shades of athiest, agnostic, Protestant, Unitarian, Quaker, (Oh heavens forfend) Pagan, and Miscellaneous.  Whatever.  While I've engaged in some mighty heavy ecumenical discussions with most people I'm close with, I can say with 99% certainty that I've never, EVER (evereverever) advocated women in the priesthood, married (Western Catholic) priests, same-sex marriage in the Church, trashing the Church's pro-life teachings, democracy as Church-governing principle, or any of that other Episcopalian crap.  I'm Catholic.  If I wanted those things, I'd happily join the UCC and be done with it.  End of cognitive dissonance.

Are there some of those things I'd like to see changed in one way or another?  Absolutely.  But I believe it's important to wait for the Magisterium to do it.

So how did my name get on the mailing list?  Did someone sign me up as a joke?  As a reprimand?  A suggestion?  Does one of the religious orders we donate to have a shady underbelly that I need to know about?  Did that silly-goose maverick priest in our parish mistake my courtesy (when he championed women's ordination) for agreement and put my name down?  Did a pudding-crazed Dischordian slide it in there under the light of the silver moon? Cripe!  

I can't help but wonder if somehow, some way, I have given someone a horribly warped misrepresentation of my faith.** 

So, from whence did the invitation to Excommunicat-ey Badness come from?  I don't have the kind of free time required to find out, unfortunately.  But one more of those in my box, and Call to Action is getting a Phone Call.

+peace+

Mrs. Egg

* a place to foist things, of course.

** I have begun to wonder, asamatterofact, if I am too often conciliatory at the expense of my own integrity.  But that's another bag o' spuds for another feast.

Monstrosities

I'm pretty burned out on this whole Dr.Tiller thing, but I just have to whisper my two cents into the abyss.

Murder is always absolutely wrong, and absolutely a sin.  Which is why it was wrong and sinful (and horrible and many other adjectives) that Dr. Tiller was murdered.  Just so the many murders that he committed.  The only question that I have is: where is the outrage over the latter?

It's a shonde all around.

PEACE!

"I'll give ya $300 if you promise to have no more kids."

Re: Project Prevention

How is this not eugenics, again? I mean, I think crack babies are as tragic as the next guy...but if we're throwin' money at women, why not aim it at their substance abuse problems and not their fertility? Just sayin'.

And to the whole "we tried to fix their addictions and it didn't work", I say: try something different. Try again. And again. Don't give up and pretend you're the gene pool lifeguard.

Broken Things

"Broken things are precious.  We eat broken bread because we share in the death of our Lord and his broken life.  Broken flowers give perfume.  Broken incense is used in adoration.  A broken ship saved Paul and many other passengers on the way to Rome.  Sometimes the only way the good Lord can get into some hearts is to break them."  - Fulton J. Sheen