I want the Witnesses to leave me alone!

I can’t stand it anymore! I came home from the store the other day and found my husband standing at the back door talking to a young lady. In the driveway, blocking my way into the garage is a minivan being driven by a young man dressed in a suit. Great, I thought, another one. My husband and I have lived in our new home for less than a month and this is the third time we have had a Witness on our door step. The first thing that I wanted to do was whip the door open and apologize to the girl, maybe tell her that he was visiting for Easter from his group home or something…anything to save her from all of his questions. The poor girl had no idea what she had gotten herself into when she knocked on our door. None of them ever do. She finally left after stuttering a little about Easter and her beliefs. I don’t know if she cried. Maybe she got into the van and they all prayed for our family. Maybe (please please PLEASE) they crossed us off the list of places to stop. Either way, we got noticed, for you see, I am married to a special man. My husband is TJM admin, and the Witnesses will never leave me alone. First I was invited to the memorial service for Jesus, and then they had a meeting of some sort to talk about who was qualified to rule the world. I would have LOVED to go to that one. I can’t remember why this poor girl was here this time. She told him that she had talked to me before, so I guess I am in her precinct. I should go back and read the “Porch Monkeys” article again. When we were first married we lived literally right next to a meeting hall. We would watch those little 6 year olds run into the building carrying their little brief cases. We were there for 4 years and were only visited once. I miss those days. My hubby told me that those “No soliciting” signs don’t work either. Did you know that? They aren’t solicitors. I guess I will just have to let TJM admin keep answering the door! Poor little Witnesses…

AskMeHelpDesk.com

Yippee! This is yet another forum where we can let our voices be heard. There are many other cool things on there as well, but I joined a couple of days ago and if nothing else it’s driving traffic to our site, just like some of the people on that site say. A lot of the talk about Luci’s issue is whether or not it’s legit, and I can understand their concern. However, I, as well as Luce and Rival, are trying to impress upon the readers there that this isn’t a ploy for Luci to get money nor is it something that we are using to get people to our site. Let’s get over there and give all the information that we have. The more the merrier!!

Charlie Brown Christmas

This is a very simple post. Go to Newsday.com and look under the title of “Bah humbug to puny Christmas tree”. I am sure that I don’t even have to comment on this one, really. I have always heard that it isn’t the size that matters.

Parenting Beyond Belief (the book)

First of all I would like to thank Ute for recommending this book to me. I have to admit that I was surprised to find this book in the local library. Not only there, but it was checked out at the time I looked for it and I had to reserve it! It is edited by Dale McGowan. I can’t say it is written by him because it is a book that has many authors. All of these people have opinions and/or stories about their lives and their views on atheism, how to raise children with ethics and morals, and even some funny and some sad stories that they have experienced. Read more

The Prayer Diet

Well, as I was wandering the aisles of my local library, not looking for anything in particular, something caught my eye. It was the word diet, and then my jaw dropped. This book is called “The Prayer Diet” and it is written by Matthew Anderson, D.Min. He is also a contributor on Ediets.com. I read the back of the book to see if it was really about a diet built around prayer, and it is. Jackie Van Nuys from California says this: “A miracle occurred in my life. I lost fifteen pounds by praying! Now I will be praying about everything. Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

After I had checked the book out of the library I couldn’t wait to get home and read it. For some reason I kept thinking that it was a hoax. Then I got to page 29. The author encourages the reader to recite the following prayer: “I realize that I cannot control my weight and my life. I let go and surrender to your love and care. Thy will be done.” After that he says “Then relax and let God do the rest. You were never in control anyway.” This reminds me of an acquaintance that my husband and I had many years ago. She prayed about everything, even what pies to serve us when we came over for dinner. That makes me sad. Why is it so hard for people to take responsibility? People who think that they are mature enough to have kids, own a home, and make financial decisions can’t think for themselves. Her husband had to come over to our house to play games on our computer because his wife thought that a computer was a waste of time…it should be spent in prayer instead. Wow. I find myself feeling sad for these people. They believe so firmly in God yet they don’t use the brain that God gave them to think for themselves. Ironic, isn’t it? So, if you want a good book to read, don’t read this one. Just my opinion.

Why I no longer practice…

My name is Melanie and I am known on here as Recovering Catholic. I know that some people reading this site will understand what it is that I will try to say in this post. Please bear with me as I find it hard to explain what it is that has gotten me to this point. I would first like to point out that I am still in constant conflict within myself, as you will see from my previous posts. I was raised in a Roman Catholic family and even went to a Catholic elementary school. I was taught by nuns wearing those silly black and white habits, and I was taught about the church. I never questioned it. When I was a little older I became involved in my church. I was in the choir, spent my school holidays at retreats (which I begged to go to) and even read at Mass. It was, however, at that point, that I found myself questioning some of the teachings that the Church had. I had a struggle inside of me because I didn’t agree with them, and when it came time for me to be confirmed I was told to just “follow the beliefs that I want to and leave the rest by the wayside” (quote from my mom). I was confirmed and later chose to attend an all girls Catholic college. I even voiced my regret that I couldn’t attend a Catholic high school. Again I was involved with my faith. I taught confirmation classes through the local diocese and interned at the local Catholic junior high school. Throughout these years there were personal things happening to me that were making me more and more uncomfortable with the Church teachings. I couldn’t understand why the God that I was teaching about would let me experience infertility and subsequent sicknesses if He loved me. The last straw was when I was cheated on. My mom and I each asked a priest what he thought I should do. We each got a different answer. All I could think about was the fact that even the people in the Church couldn’t agree so no wonder it was confusing to me. Ultimately, I found myself disagreeing with the Church and its teachings more than I was agreeing, and this has led me to where I am today. I know that there are other people out there, maybe even reading this right now, who are questioning who they are and what they have been taught, but are too afraid to say anything. Comment on here about it! I know that I am not the only one.

Pray for gas prices…

The site is sctimes.com. The newspaper is out of St. Cloud, MN and the article is in the Opinion section of today’s paper. The article is called “What Should Christians Do About High Gas Prices?” I thought is was a joke. Nope. This man goes into detail and gives examples of what Christians should do, and then, at the end of the example, gives a Bible quote to support it! Now, for those of you who were interested enough to look at the website as well as read this, you will see this man’s six points. I think my favorite ones are #1 and #6. #1 states: Remember-God is your supplier. Yhea, tell that to your boss when you don’t have enough gas to get to work because it costs so much. #6 simply states “Pray”. We are supposed to pray for the people making the decisions about the prices and production. This is yet another one of my pet peeves about the Christian belief system: give it all up to God. Pray about it and let Him deal with it. That way you don’t have to do anything for yourself and make your own decisions. We have brains, let’s use them!

Another lawsuit

I was on AOL today and there was an article about some poor little 8th grader who, along with her grandparents, is suing her school over a movie that was shown in class. It was “Brokeback Mountain” and most of us know what that movie is about. Now, as a parent, I can see why this girl and her family are outraged. It was shown by a substitute teacher. It was not on the agenda of the regular teacher and the administration claims that they didn’t know that it was going to be shown. As a parent I would also not want an R rated movie shown to my child without my permission, and there was allegedly none given in this instance. What I am not understanding, though, is the claim that they need $500,000 for pain and suffering as well as emotional stress. The grandparents claim that there was severe psychological harm done to their granddaughter and that they could barely cover her medical expenses. I have had to discuss some things with my 7 year old nephew that were a little uncomfortable. I would hope that these grandparents would be able to sit down with their teen granddaughter and talk about homosexuality and then relate it to their beliefs instead of suing and putting her in therapy. They claim that it is against their religion and that is fine. The grandfather has also complained in the past about cuss words in books that his granddaughter has to read. Again, as a mom I can see why he wouldn’t want his granddaughter around these things,, but once she is in the real world she will hear this stuff everywhere. I think that he should talk with her about these things instead of trying to get rid of it everywhere, especially if he is the only one complaining about it. That is part of our jobs as adults-to teach these children as best as we can before they go into the real world and learn it from someone else. I just hope that by saying that it’s against their religion to watch/read this stuff this family doesn’t take up court time or taxpayer money to get their point across.

60 years without…

So I have been thinking about all of this Heaven stuff. If someone were to take away my daughter for 60 years, but tell me that I can see her in 60 years in Heaven I would be devastated. If someone I love dies and I live another 60 years without them, I would be devastated. Like I told my husband, either way it’s 60 years without the person you love being in your life. So I don’t really care if someone tells me that there is a Heaven. Thinking that the person I love is in Heaven isn’t a comfort to me. I am crying because I am going to miss him no matter where he is. When I was little I was told that when we cry at a funeral we are only feeling sorry for ourselves and being selfish. What we should be doing is celebrating because our loved one is happy now because he or she is in Heaven. Once again the Catholic Church steps in and fills us with guilt because we feel a certain way. I wouldn’t feel this way as much as I do, I don’t think, if I hadn’t had nuns and priests telling me this when I was young. I went to a Roman Catholic grade school and I was taught by honest to goodness habit wearing nuns so I got the information from the so-called informed. All I can say is…Thanks for the guilt!

Baptism and Purgatory

I have been thinking a lot about my grandpa’s last wish for me. He wanted me to baptize my two year old daughter. Now, at one point I had told my parents that I would baptize her just to keep the peace, but that I didn’t have the same beliefs that they did and I would basically be lying. The only thing that my mom had to go on was the fact that if something were to happen to my daughter she would be welcome into Heaven. Well, now the Church has decided that there is no more “in limbo”, where children and babies would be if something were to happen and they weren’t baptized before they died. So now that the Church has decided that, does that mean that all of the little souls that were “in limbo” get a free pass into Heaven? Same goes for Purgatory. A few years back it was declared by the same Church that Purgatory no longer exists. Now, I went to a Catholic elementary school where we learned all about Purgatory. It’s where a soul went to repent before going to Heaven. The soul had to be pure, so when a loved one died we were supposed to pray for them and that would help them out of Purgatory and into Heaven. I was a little girl, and in order for me to really process that information I imagined that my prayers were like tokens, and when my loved one got enough tokens then he/she could buy their way out of Purgatory. So, like I told my husband, what happened to all of those souls when the Church decided that there was no more Purgatory. Did they get into Heaven on good behavior? If anyone knows I would be MORE than happy to hear what they have to say. Thanks!

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