random thoughts
Sometimes I think I have such a boring life! I read these posts from friends ... and action and the weirdest things are happening to my friends. and me. nothing is happening to me, unless you count the black hole that keeps taking my money!
You ever wonder why things happen to certain people in more dosages than other people? There has been so much bad luck that I've been stricken with -- I feel like the A's in their losing streak. And then you wonder, maybe I'm being punished. Maybe it's 'cause I stopped going to Church. But God isn't supposed to punish right? We punish ourselves?
My grandma had a copy of my old high school cd. I was in church choir since about the 7th grade. It was the only way I found I could pray -- by singing in church. And in high school, my senior year (2000), my choir recorded a cd. We were directed by the famous Augostino Castagnola ... in his spare time, he records for the movies, records tapes for Pavoratti ('cause the famous man can't read music), and sings for the Los Angeles Metropolitan Opera, among other things. And he recorded our choir. And I heard the songs again. I can hear myself in all the songs. And it brought up so many memories. What do I miss? The unity - the connected-ness, the joy of singing and bringing smiles to peoples faces because I was singing well that day and the words were their prayer, and it was my way of praying and saying thank you for giving me a voice to sing with.
And then my sophomore year, I stopped. Not because I didn't like singing. But because 1) i had to work during the times church services were and 2) i was becoming disillusioned with the dogma and probably the most important, 3) I didn't feel connected. For all USF's "Catholic" atmosphere, I might as well have gone to UCLA. At mary star, my teachers, their loved ones, my classmates and their family -- we went to school together, but we also went to some of the same churches, restaurants, and such. And maybe that's why I haven't gone. I don't feel a part of the community anymore.
And then there's the whole, I don't know what I believe and I don't want to go and be a huge hypocrite. I believe in God. And there's a part of me that still believes Jesus Christ was his son and our savior. And there's that logical part of me that says I don't believe in Religion. So much is done in the name of "God" -- Allah, Jehovah, call Him/Her what you will. I believe there is a higher being that created us -- though there is the science of it all that also conflicts.... but I think I have to believe there is something out there, something more than I am, something I can aspire to ascend to (not a God, but in the image, in the likeness of). So how does one reconcile that?
I told my grandma I missed singing, and she immediately said, then why don't you go back to Church? And I didn't answer, and she immediately assumed that I wasn't going because I'm on the pill and thought that I couldn't go. And that's not it. She thinks I'm going through a phase, and she said that we all go through it, but I'm taking it to an extreme and taking a while to come back to the Church. I don't think she understands I can't right now.
But here's the dicotomy. If I get married, I will probably want to be married in a Church, or at least by a priest. And I will probably baptize my kids and send them to Catholic school. Because in spite of it all, it helped shape me. It gave me something to lean on, a place to find peace in a world of chaos and pain. So am I a hypocrite? maybe. don't know.
OK .. enough of my rant. have no idea where i was going with that -- kind of just stream of consciousness of thoughts spewing out of my mind.
As much as I love being home, I can't wait to return to my real home now -- northern california. I'll always be a SoCal girl at heart, but I left my heart in the Bay Area (not just San Francisco). So now, it's just a question of when the house sells, and how much money I'll have to get back up there.
You ever wonder why things happen to certain people in more dosages than other people? There has been so much bad luck that I've been stricken with -- I feel like the A's in their losing streak. And then you wonder, maybe I'm being punished. Maybe it's 'cause I stopped going to Church. But God isn't supposed to punish right? We punish ourselves?
My grandma had a copy of my old high school cd. I was in church choir since about the 7th grade. It was the only way I found I could pray -- by singing in church. And in high school, my senior year (2000), my choir recorded a cd. We were directed by the famous Augostino Castagnola ... in his spare time, he records for the movies, records tapes for Pavoratti ('cause the famous man can't read music), and sings for the Los Angeles Metropolitan Opera, among other things. And he recorded our choir. And I heard the songs again. I can hear myself in all the songs. And it brought up so many memories. What do I miss? The unity - the connected-ness, the joy of singing and bringing smiles to peoples faces because I was singing well that day and the words were their prayer, and it was my way of praying and saying thank you for giving me a voice to sing with.
And then my sophomore year, I stopped. Not because I didn't like singing. But because 1) i had to work during the times church services were and 2) i was becoming disillusioned with the dogma and probably the most important, 3) I didn't feel connected. For all USF's "Catholic" atmosphere, I might as well have gone to UCLA. At mary star, my teachers, their loved ones, my classmates and their family -- we went to school together, but we also went to some of the same churches, restaurants, and such. And maybe that's why I haven't gone. I don't feel a part of the community anymore.
And then there's the whole, I don't know what I believe and I don't want to go and be a huge hypocrite. I believe in God. And there's a part of me that still believes Jesus Christ was his son and our savior. And there's that logical part of me that says I don't believe in Religion. So much is done in the name of "God" -- Allah, Jehovah, call Him/Her what you will. I believe there is a higher being that created us -- though there is the science of it all that also conflicts.... but I think I have to believe there is something out there, something more than I am, something I can aspire to ascend to (not a God, but in the image, in the likeness of). So how does one reconcile that?
I told my grandma I missed singing, and she immediately said, then why don't you go back to Church? And I didn't answer, and she immediately assumed that I wasn't going because I'm on the pill and thought that I couldn't go. And that's not it. She thinks I'm going through a phase, and she said that we all go through it, but I'm taking it to an extreme and taking a while to come back to the Church. I don't think she understands I can't right now.
But here's the dicotomy. If I get married, I will probably want to be married in a Church, or at least by a priest. And I will probably baptize my kids and send them to Catholic school. Because in spite of it all, it helped shape me. It gave me something to lean on, a place to find peace in a world of chaos and pain. So am I a hypocrite? maybe. don't know.
OK .. enough of my rant. have no idea where i was going with that -- kind of just stream of consciousness of thoughts spewing out of my mind.
As much as I love being home, I can't wait to return to my real home now -- northern california. I'll always be a SoCal girl at heart, but I left my heart in the Bay Area (not just San Francisco). So now, it's just a question of when the house sells, and how much money I'll have to get back up there.