My Semenary story
I know Liz and Jon know this about me- but some of the others who read these may not. I used to be a Catholic Semenarian. For five years of my life I was training to be a Brother in the Congregation of Holy Cross. It actually started in college, my family's never been overly religious, but I have always enjoyed going to church. I like the ceremony, and ritual, and the message of love and acceptance that Church provided me with growing up. So when I went to college I continued going. My freshmen year I became friends with the two boys who were studying to be Semenarians, they happened to live in my dorm and since there was only two of them both stuck as Sophmores in the Freshmen dorm they were welcoming to new students and friends. Now some of you may ask- since it was MA in 2000 when the whole sex scandal broke out if anything shady was going down, but I swear nothing like that happened, well nothing sexually shaddy. We did drink and joke arround together breaking the rules that way, but certain lines we never crossed. Anyways the more I started hanging arround with them the more I started joining all their extra activities, the ministry, prayer, and social work that made them semenarians. By Sophmore year I was over at there dorm room every day and night, and by Junior year I passed through the admissions process and joined. I had to move back into the freshman dorm for my last two years but that was offset by being given a three room suite to live in. Once in Holy Cross I became expossed to amazing experiences in travel, and meeting people. I spent summers on a lake camp down in Maryland, road trips to Notre Dame (I hate football on tv but I love it live), Canada, Mexico, I got to live in Austin Texas, Pheonix Arizona, and Colorado Springs Colorado. I also met people from Nigeria, Ghana, Bangladesh, Chilli, Peru and all over the country. I learned about cooking, psychology, social justice and so many other things. Anyways it was March, just a few days after my birthday last year when my program directors up in Colorado decided I wasn't ready to take vows. Two months later I left and came to Florida to persue my current path. I had stopped going to Church and with the election of Pope Bennedict I felt like I wasn't exactly welcomed back either. Well the reason why I am telling this story today is because for the first time in months I went back to Church. Only this time it wasn't Catholic. I started looking today at an Episcopalian Church downtown. I've decided I'm going to look into converting. I miss the ritual and community of Sunday Church, which the Episcopals have but not the overbearing dogmaticness which they donn't have. So wish me luck- maybe now I can have that big Church wedding, lol.