My grandpa wrote his memoirs about ten years ago. It's part autobiography, part him voicing his opinion on everything from Elvis to Science Fiction. He had a whole chapter on religion. He wasn't a big fan of organized religion, but was a firm believer that the church did good things for the community, and for that he'd support it. Plus, it was important to my grandma, so he supported her in that as well. I always thought this was kind of strange. Then I got married. Suddenly, it made sense. Rachel is Catholic, and so we go to mass every now and then. As Jonah gets a little older, I imagine we'll start going a lot more, but for now we're kind of part of that group of people that go to church when there's nothing else going on, or on Easter and Christmas. We're THOSE people. The people that non-church goers think are posers and dedicated church goers hate for taking up all the seats on holidays and forcing them to park seventeen blocks away.
We made the decision to go to church for Easter on Saturday night for a vigil. This was my first Easter Vigil, so I was interested to see how it went down. Growing up, our families Easter tradition was (and still is) to go to a sunrise service in a cemetery and hear this jolly guy sing a couple new age sounding songs and give generally the same sermon every year. It's great when the weather cooperates, awful when it doesn't, but brunch afterwards at the Eastmoreland Golf Club was always fantastic.
Say what you will about Catholics, but I love traditions. I love the feeling of doing something in much the same manner it's been done for centuries. It doesn't matter if it some of it doesn't really make sense in today's society, that's just how it's done. On Saturday night, Jonah seemed determined to challenge these traditions.
Jonah knows one thing about church at this stage of his life: That's where we go to see Jesus. He also knows one thing about Jesus: Jesus is the baby in our Willow Tree Nativity Set. Ok, he knows two things. The other is that eleven months out of the year, Baby Jesus lives in our closet, except for those times we go to church. Jonah spent roughly the first half hour of church asking rather loudly where Baby Jesus was, and why he couldn't go see him right now. I'm trying to explain this to Jonah, but this quickly turned into the first of what I can only imagine will be eight million conversations where I have to explain something that either Jonah or I (or both of us) will not understand. As I'm trying to explain this, a baby cried in a pew a few ahead of ours. Rachel immediately goes "Did you hear that? That was Baby Jesus!" I'm not sure if she did this to be funny or to attempt to prove to Jonah that Jesus was in fact there, but I think our son now thinks that any child younger than him in a church is in fact Jesus.
At this point they dimmed all the lights and started lighting candles. Jonah is not a fan of lit candles. Actually, that's not true. He's just a fan of blowing candles out. He's trying his best to blow out Rachel's candle, but he had no luck, so he went after mine. Again striking out, he tried to get the guy behind us. Fortunately, the guy was far enough back that his candle wasn't extinguished. About this time, the priest comes back into the church swinging the incense smoker thingy. Rachel thought that this would interest Jonah, so she says "Jonah look!" Jonah, being the curious kid he is, swings his head around, looks, and yells "BABY JESUS!!!!!"
Why do I get the feeling that my son is going to grow up to be Ricky Bobby?
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Weight Loss Journal - Day 14
Weight Per Wii: Unknown. Apparently nobody turned the Wii off last night, so the batteries were dead on the Wii-mote this morning. I've been staying right around my original weight though....249 lbs.
The Good: Went for a good jog yesterday at lunch. I'm not sure if it was the Sir Mix-a-Lot playlist I had going on the iPod or what, but I had a little extra bounce in my step.
The Bad: Fell off the wagon a bit eating wise this weekend. Too many eggs in too many varieties, solid chocolate, hard boiled and Cadbury Creme. Also, I think I ate half of a family sized Papa Murphy's BBQ Chicken Pizza on Saturday night.
The Ugly: All the eating made my stomach feel not so good Sunday morning when we went for a walk. My apologies to the Starbucks in North Albany for using their facilities without purchasing anything. In fairness, they did talk me into a $5 polar bear cookie in December. I'd say we're even.
That Easter story is sooo funny!
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