marc and I tried a new church out... nothing particularly wrong with our current church, we're just a little bored by it. Anyway the church we went to was larger, and he was commenting on how many old people were there. I had to explain that we're a weird age group of people going to church. It's a well-known fact that people don't tend to go to church much, between the ages of 18 and 30. Here's the average path I think a church member goes on:

1) You're born. Your parents make you go to church.

2) You hit high school. Your mind starts thinking about God differently. You want to explore faith. You go to youth group, which is fun, usually includes rock bands.

3) You get older. All your friends are drinking and having sex. YOU start drinking and having sex. You're 19 years old, you've been dating the same person for a year or more, you're not ready to get married but you can't understand what the freaking deal is about sharing a bottle of wine and getting it on. The only people not drinking and having sex are The Christians... they have a little campus club where they hang out having chip and dip parties, planning early weddings (nobody else I knew got married before graduation... I'm going to blame that one on sex, too) talking about how Jesus helps them deal with the pain of being total outsiders. You can either be one of them, or relax and have fun. Most people choose the fun.

4) You graduate. You're single. You have plenty of friends. You've forgotten about church entirely. There's a lot going on.

5) You get married. You have kids. You don't go out late at night, so suddenly you're awake on Sunday mornings. You're afraid your kids are going to do bad things. You take them to church.

The key thing is, that by step 5, the Big Dividing Factors (drinking, sex) are okay now! You're married so the church encourages you to have sex, drinking is legal because you're now 21, so suddenly, going to church is no big deal. You fit in, it makes sense, you can chat with that guy in your office with the "GOD BLESS AMERICA" poster hanging up. You forget why you took time off from church, and start finger-pointing at the crazy youth who'd rather be doing something else. Church naturally fits into your lifestyle when you're married with kids. Nothing about it fits when you're 19.

I think it's healthy to explore spirituality at all ages, and I hate that there's this void of church-goers between the ages of 18-24. Churches are doing things... some have rock bands, saturday services, young adult groups, and it all helps. But there's still this looming fact that it's an institution created by old white guys, for old white guys. Everyone has to make changes to be Christian. Young people need to drink less. Old people need to give more money away. But the church tends to place first emphasis on changing the young people because the leaders can't relate, and "finding balance" is never a popular topic of discussion when it comes to sin, you're just supposed to try not to. I'm not sure what the solution is.

I accidentally posted about abortion on christianity. I say accidentally because i made a poll about it, someone had just made a post about "I can't believe there are pro-choice people in this community" so I made a poll to show just how diverse we all were. It turns out about half the community is pro-choice on some level, saying that a woman should have a legal right to an abortion during at least part of her pregnancy, regardless of health status. Throw in "health of the mother in danger" and you get up to 84% (personally that number scares me... no, the 16% on the other side scares me, but I wasn't going to debate too much myself).

It was interesting that someone gave me static about leaving out the "in cases of rape/incest" situation... I didn't think anyone was there any more. I mean, it doesn't make sense. Anyone who's really pro-life tends to believe that the second an egg splits, it's a PERSON, and it's not going to care (if it could care) about the circumstances creating it, and doesn't deserve to die because someone else is a rapist. Anyone who's really pro-choice is usually in touch with women's rights to know that the case-by-case basis is totally impractical. I mean, are we going to tell a woman to come in with her "I was raped" certificate to qualify for an abortion? If the actual rapist won't initial it, does she have to get from accusation to conviction in nine months for this to all work out? If there's anyone who responded to the poll who I really wanted to debate, it was the "it should be on a case by case basis" people. I can just see a judge up there saying, "Oh, case by case basis? Well in my cases, you're having those babies."

But anyway that's not why I posted the poll... I did it because christianity reminds me a lot of my office some days. the conservatives just assume we're all with them. they say whatever they want and then act shocked when someone says, "I disagree with you". Maybe that's why liberals started all the "awareness" and "I feel your pain" and other things people laugh at us for... being marginalized is annoying. Where I live, I know my opinions are in the minority. I deal. And I like to think that if I was in the majority, I'd still deal with differences, too.

Extreme Home Makeover is a fun show to watch, but it's so obvious that it's *all* about the product placement for these people. Everything is SEARS and KENMORE and ___ WINDOWS and ___ CONSTRUCTION and... yeah. Apparently, apple computer won't pay them enough, because they use powerbooks in every episode but they tape over the apple logos so nobody can see what they are. You know what I say? Good for you, apple! You provide a product that serves a purpose, and if they want to hide your logo with ugly tape, fine. We don't care what the world thinks. It's what's on the inside that counts.

The other thing that bugs me about the show is that since they spunoff the "how'd they do that?" thing, they purged the main Sunday night show to nothing but tear-jerking family wholesomeness. There's no balance. I don't have time to watch TV during the week so it's all I see now, and it sucks.

I refuse to watch "Desperate Housewives" because... I just do. I've seen it a couple times. Something about it is just insulting.

I had a good relaxing weekend. Last night, I watched "Babette's Feast". I bought the DVD some weeks ago because I remembered loving the film when I first saw it several years ago, but I didn't watch it because for some reason I remembered it being depressing, like it was about death and things being taken away. Watching it away, it wasn't about that at all. It was very uplifting. If you've never seen it I'd highly recommend it; it really focuses on the idea that an artist can give so much to the world around them, and that's what heaven is: a place of self-expression, where everyone gives. It's a beautiful film. And the DVD has english voiceovers so you won't have to read the subtitles if you don't want to (I like subtitles, but I'm freaky weird like that)

I spent a couple hours at church this morning. I really am getting to know people now that I've gone to sunday school classes which is cool. I came home and I had Joshua in the mail from netflix, so I watched that while I sewed and read the paper. The book was better. It was all kind of cheesy. Oh, but one of the lead actors was Salieri from Amadeus... another all-time favorite movie of mine, so getting to see him in a more modern movie was definitely worth it.

Wow, two movies in one weekend! It's a record... no wonder I feel so relaxed. I hope my professor doesn't start assigning homework for this class I'm taking; that's what always decreases my ability to sit around and do nothing.

I just got out of the bath... it was so nice. I'm all pink and soft now.

Livejournal was down and I forgot how to update! aahh! I though it was so cool how they put up status messages all the time though. When advicenators is down, I just tell all 13,000 users to stick it, it's a free site and I'm not killing myself for fixes here.

Okay, so the weekend! Friday I stayed in, sewed, watched Sex in the City, did yoga and went to bed early. And it felt great.

Saturday I went to the office and ran a million errands all afternoon, which sucked. Ever have one of those days, when you have so many places to go that it's just not fun anymore? I was really tired by the end. I went out to a gathering in the evening... my friend patrick, who I know from the gay rights group. his apartment is adorable. Why can't straight guys decorate like that? Or do I just not meet the ones with taste, who actually care about candles and throw pillows? Eh, I'm not one to question. Anyway I figured the group would totally avoid talking about *the amendment* because we're all so sick of hearing about it... usually when I'm with patrick, that's what we're talking about. It's kinda like when you get together with coworkers, nobody really wants to talk about work? But we ended up talking about it. there were eight or so people there, it was an interesting conversation.

I got in around midnight. Woke up this morning and went to church... two sunday school classes, because I got roped into this one at 11:00 that I only wanted to go to for one session but they used that session to persuade me to come back and talk about the rally from monday. Okay fine. So another hour of my life dedicated to *the amendment*.

It's funny how I joined the gay rights movement in May only because I wanted to do a website for somebody. If I only knew...

Anyway it was a really interesting conversation. I like my 9:40 class because there are so many smart, prestigious people... people with power in the local government, in our church, it's a leader class. The 11:00 one is more like a class for hippies. It evolved out of this project some people did... they wanted to make 1000 paper cranes for the new year, and sitting around folding cranes lead to a lot of deep discussion. So now there's a class. We talked about the rally, and we talked about issues, and we talked about how these marriage amendments sometimes seemed like a distraction so we'd always be on the defensive and never get to tackle the really big issues, like "why is wal-mart big enough to force outsourcing?" or "why are we fighting a war in iraq and how can we persuade people that avoiding more is a good thing?" Good, big progressive issues, not little ones like gay marriage that *really* effect about 600,000 households total in this country. We stayed late talking to one another, and exchanged some phone numbers. My 9:40 class makes me feel educated and intellectual. My 11:00 one makes me feel inspired.

I got to thinking that if I want to go to the church *service* I'll have to get up and go to 8:00 now... three hours of church! I'll be one of those people!

Okay, anyhow, I got home, did laundry, checked my mail where I had the new Jill Sobule CD. Yes, I'm a sucky fan, I lost track of the fanclub for so long that I missed an ENTIRE ALBUM... she released Underdog Victorious in september or something and I didn't realize it until last week!

Well I don't have to tell you that the album is incredible. Go get it. the title track is the best song ever, and the other ones are pretty darn good to.

So yesterday's entry was a poll asking how many of my friends celebrate Christmas, but not Christ. Turns out it's around 40% which is about what I would have guessed.

I guess everyone has their own set of beliefs and that's fine. You all know I would never try to force my religion on anyone, or try to take away something that's sacred for you. I thought a lot about this over the last 24 hours. I'm glad people can find joy in giving, family, peace, love and friendship and possibly a bottle of wine and an incredible home-cooked feast. I find joy in that too. I mean, that's really what makes it feel like a holiday.

But there's more to it than that. There's a renissance song called O Magnum Mysterium (Gabrieli), which I will not distribute here but if you have some sort of music downloading tool I'd suggest looking it up. It's sung in latin but the english translation of the text is this:

O great mystery
and wondrous sacrament,
that animals should see the newborn Lord
lying in their manger.

Blessed is the Virgin whose womb was worthy
to bear the Lord Jesus Christ. Alleluia!

I can't be upset that people make Christmas what they want. No one is making it anything bad. But there's more to it, and that's what's tough for me to deal with... the fact that there are people who see the pure family celebration as so sacred when there's a much, much bigger idea present to contemplate. God, deciding not to give up on the sinful people of the world, God who is invisible becoming visible, God who is all-powerful becoming vulnerable, God who is ageless becoming an infant with nothing, just to be closer to us, to know us, for us to know him. The great mystery of why he deemed us worthy of salvation. Even if you don't believe in the event, just contemplating the idea is so much more sacred than any general celebration about our imperfect, human love for one another.

The Christmas Eve candlelight service last night at Church of the Resurrection was incredible, I just have to say that. But it got me wondering... how many people celebrate Christmas and don't do anything with any church? I can't imagine Christmas not being a religious holiday but I know it happens... my atheist friends put up a "giftmas" tree to mark the holidays which I think is... interesting. Technically, since we stole Christmas trees from the pagans to start with, I can't bash on anyone too much for stealing it from us.

But it begs the question... just how Christian is the average Christmas?

Poll #408561 Christian Christmas?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 112

What did you do to mark this as a Christian holiday?

How would you describe your sprituality?