Martha Who?

or...who really has it all, while keeping it all together?

Name:
Location: New England, United States

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Catholics Anonymous

On Easter Sunday, Mr. MarthaWho and I made our annual trip to church -- something we do to please and appease our parents -- all four of whom were staying at our place this weekend for a visit I was certain that our daughter would not make it through a 1-plus hour Mass -- I mean she is two now after all. It's her God-given right to be the holiest of terrors.

But wouldn't you know the little pooper was absolutely riveted for the entire service. She loved the music and danced in the pews. She thought the word "Alleluia" was some magical and amazing word and kept singing it over and over long after it was appropriate to do so. When the priest said "Christ has Risen" during the eucharist liturgy, my daughter started wildly clapping and said loud enough for the risen Saviour himself to hear, "Hooray! Yay, Mommy!!!"

That morning, she carried one half of a plastic Easter egg, that had four miniature M&M's rattling around at the bottom of it. She could not be parted from this most prized possession when we were leaving the house, and the tribunal of grandparents made a unanimous decision that it was OK to bring M&M's into the house of the Lord. That little cup of M&M's stayed in her little hand for the entire Mass, and only spilled a few times.

There's nothing like witnessing the complete joy of a young child. It's hard to imagine a time when I could sit in a church pew and be so taken in by the whole thing. Or when half of a plastic Easter egg and four dusty M&M's were worth guarding with my life. When was anything so important that I would hold onto it with two hands for over an hour?

But remember I do -- those early Catholic years are just a warm and incense-soaked whirlwind of candles and stained glass and pretty songs and lilies all seen from under the gauze of a white communion veil. It's hard to determine the exact moment when that innocence was lost -- but it feels like it may never be retrieved again.

Mr. MarthaWho remembers , too. And has the same struggle (guilt-laced?). Without having to ask him anything or discuss it at all, he summed it up as we walked the little tyke back to the car after church.

"Honey - it's not that it's the church, you know.... it's just that it's the church."

Sounds like Greek, but it made perfect sense to me.

ANYWAY, the heathens known as Mr. and Mrs. MarthaWho somehow managed to get through the whole service without spontaneously combusting, and I think we might have been baptized again in the process. I don't know for sure as I was under a pew trying to retrieve the little pink candies that had fallen on the floor.

Friday, April 14, 2006

An Easter Haiku

Gosh darn, that Target!
With racist cards on their shelves.
Can't we get along?



Hoppy Easter.