Getting Personal

OK, so I broke my rule about keeping posts short and not too serious.  This one got out of control.
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I am so grateful that I never had a crisis of faith or a big dramatic religious struggle. I have not been rejected by a church or harmed by a church or clergy.  I did not need to leave a church that taught wrong ideas that I had to unlearn or outgrow.  I did not need to search for a church that was right for me.  A great many of my friends have traveled that road.  It must be a painful thing. To put a positive spin on it, many of those same friends did find a group, on the Right or the Left,  where they are now accepted, appreciated, needed and involved.  That is a very good thing. I guess that's what all churches should strive to be.
I made one church change but it was not dramatic, not like I quit Christianity and became a Buddhist or something.  Not for a negative reason either.  I felt that a fledgling  group needed me more than the Methodists did at that time. But I carefully avoided saying that I had "left" my Methodist heritage. I never used that word. 
I was very involved in church affairs for a great many years.  Suffered through too many board meetings,  fancied myself a hotshot lay preacher for a while.  I no longer attend anyplace. Corporate worship is good, valuable and important but I don't feel a need to be part of it right now.   My age and introvert nature keep me comfortable  thinking, observing and writing about what's happening in religion and spirituality. And it gives me freedom to write things that I would not say if I were a committed member of a particular church.

A most superior Mother.

I am so pleased that EWTN is running those old Mother Angelica programs. Her handling of the phone calls is something wonderful. Touching, funny, wise and always loving. Not being Catholic, I don't know what it takes to become a saint but I think you have to have a miracle to your credit.  I'd say starting a world wide Catholic radio and TV network in Irondale, Alabama is a pretty good start.

Box me slap me. Not.

Alright.  If you absolutely must put me in some religious box and slap a label on it, call me a liberal mainline Protestant Christian.  I say that knowing that it doesn't mean precisely the same thing to anybody else that it means to me.  Which is why I don't much like boxes and labels.  And I'm not at all interested in a long, boring detailed discussion of just what it means to me.  So don't ask.