I love old Victorian architecture, but not being “handy” – this would be a bad idea, at least for me.

Steve-o is finally bound and determined to buy a house.  It’s probably a good idea, since Mom is getting even nuttier than normal.  I know it’s getting bad for him when she leaves her TV on the EWTN (the 24/7 all-Catholic, all the time,) channel full blast all the time.  I know she’s trying to work the Catholic brownie point system- and the older she gets the more paranoid she gets about it- but Steve-o’s not Catholic.  If she’s looking for a conversion candidate so she can earn points for redeeming a heathen, I can think of much easier prey.

If Mom only knew.  ALL guys do it.

All of his religious instruction took place in a Lutheran church (where “self abuse” and/or contraception are not generally considered sins), and even so, he’s not a particularly religious kind of guy.  Wigging him out on the more bizarre points of Catholicism, which you will get a real education on if you watch EWTN for very long, is NOT going to result in him converting to Catholicism and joining the priesthood.

Major Logo FAIL.  In So Many Ways…

I am surprised he’s not having nightmares similar to the ones I had as a child over some of the more bizarre teachings.  He likes women and the horizontal mambo way too much for that noise.  He is at a point in his life where he is really questioning the existence of God and there is nothing apart from the power of the Holy Spirit Himself that will be able to bring him to faith.  Even then, sincerely it would take an Act of God to get him to even consider going back to church- any Christian church.  Right now spiritually he is rather injured and cynical.  He’s at that difficult point of finding it hard to believe in God because he is thinking, “How can a good God let me down- and let me hurt so bad?”  He’s still getting over being rejected by his daughter’s mother, and even though he would never admit how much that crushed him, that was a really deep wound.

I know this because I have been there too, as far as being rejected and feeling as if God abandoned me.  I went through that doubt and angst for about seven years at one time. Steve-o is too authentic and too intellectual to “get it” about faith easily, or without perusing the evidence.  He’s going to have to be one of those seekers and knockers and askers (more like screamers at times…) like I was.  For him faith will be like it is for me- only by the hard way.  An unexamined faith, and a faith without doubts, is not faith at all.

Faith is vexing, but unbelief is illogical.

I don’t mean to bash Catholics, and frankly, I can go along with most of what the RCC (Roman Catholic Church) teaches.  I have the same problems with Catholicism that Martin Luther had- the primacy of the pope, the celibacy of priests,  the purchase of indulgences for the forgiveness of sins, and the whole concept of a brownie point system where forgiveness is earned in any way by what people do.  I’ve actually read the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and according to their rules, if you don’t believe and go along with everything the Church teaches, then by definition, you can’t claim to be Catholic.   I have real intellectual problems with just accepting what some person (not God) or even some “esteemed group of people” says without being accorded any sort of space for analysis or debate.   That makes me Protestant by definition.  Just sayin’.

No, this is NOT me.

I’m still struggling with the concept of the feminine image of God and the importance of beauty in God’s view that we have been going over in our study.  Maybe that whole concept sort of pisses me off in a way, because I’ve never seen myself as beautiful, and I’ve never really been regarded as much more than a Fetcher of Beer, or someone to whine at about food, or someone to clean up when there’s dog shit on the floor.   From my earliest memory I’ve been defined by what I can or can’t do, (and by how epic my failures are) but I’ve never felt as if anyone saw me as having any sort of native, intrinsic value.

I know that I talk the talk and I get it, at least intellectually, that salvation is a gift of grace- nothing that I can earn or deserve- but deep in my heart of hearts I am still that pathetic, geeky little girl who the other kids threw mud and bugs at.  I’m still the awkward kid who doesn’t belong, still the girl the guys approached to get her phone number- so they could call her sisters.  I was never anyone’s first choice, and was doing good to be a consolation prize.

I’m still sticking with the study even though it’s tearing open some really old wounds.  Heart is a LOT harder to reach than Mind.

That’s what continuous multitasking will do for you.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I really don’t enjoy multitasking.  I don’t like being interrupted at all.  When I’m doing what I want to be doing I don’t get distracted…until someone else bugs me and nags me about doing something else or doing something in addition to what I’m doing.

Sometimes I just need to tell the rest of the world to bite me sideways.