Series at church...."Life's too short."
We started a cool series at church. Last week is was; "Life's too short to worry." We heard the different gospels where God tells us not to worry....and why. Yesterday we heard; "Life's too short not to love." We heard all the scriptures on how God loves us, and we have to do nothing to earn that love....it's just given to us.
This is a far cry from the Catholic point of view....or at least the Catholic point of view that my ex-father-in-law used to preach. There are levels, ya see. There is the Trinity, Mother Mary, all the Saints, really good people, sinners and then people like me, who have really screwed up! He told me that when I do something wrong I got an X by my name....in the big book of "You have no hope for redemption, sucker." So you have to try to be really, really good, and then, also work hard for extra credit so you can get all the X's off your name.
I spent fifteen years of my life trying to prove to myself, all my in-laws, and God that I was worthy of being loved. Every day felt like a chore to scrub X's off my slate so that it would be clean. All this scrubbing was on top of raising five children, doing all the household managing, managing kids soccer teams, President of St.Jude Women's Circle, room-mother, etc!
Of course, being Catholic, I could convert all suffering into instant scrubbing-bubbles. But what exactly is suffering? Does cleaning a bathroom on hands and knees classify as suffering? One moment, let me check the list....hummm, yes, I see, cleaning a bathroom does not classify as suffering unless your hands end up red and swollen from using strong cleaning products. Cleaning with pure bleach, which causes your skin to flake and peel three days later is classified as "suffering level four". Yep, I can erase three X's off my slate. Only 5,923 X's to go.
You will be happy to know that if you leave the Catholic church you get
X-communicated.....which means all my X's are null and void.....right?
So.....at my new church....I walk in on Sunday morning and the band starts to play; "All You Need is Love" by the Beatles. Have I told you how much I love my church?
This is a far cry from the Catholic point of view....or at least the Catholic point of view that my ex-father-in-law used to preach. There are levels, ya see. There is the Trinity, Mother Mary, all the Saints, really good people, sinners and then people like me, who have really screwed up! He told me that when I do something wrong I got an X by my name....in the big book of "You have no hope for redemption, sucker." So you have to try to be really, really good, and then, also work hard for extra credit so you can get all the X's off your name.
I spent fifteen years of my life trying to prove to myself, all my in-laws, and God that I was worthy of being loved. Every day felt like a chore to scrub X's off my slate so that it would be clean. All this scrubbing was on top of raising five children, doing all the household managing, managing kids soccer teams, President of St.Jude Women's Circle, room-mother, etc!
Of course, being Catholic, I could convert all suffering into instant scrubbing-bubbles. But what exactly is suffering? Does cleaning a bathroom on hands and knees classify as suffering? One moment, let me check the list....hummm, yes, I see, cleaning a bathroom does not classify as suffering unless your hands end up red and swollen from using strong cleaning products. Cleaning with pure bleach, which causes your skin to flake and peel three days later is classified as "suffering level four". Yep, I can erase three X's off my slate. Only 5,923 X's to go.
You will be happy to know that if you leave the Catholic church you get
X-communicated.....which means all my X's are null and void.....right?
So.....at my new church....I walk in on Sunday morning and the band starts to play; "All You Need is Love" by the Beatles. Have I told you how much I love my church?