WASP 101

[itsallovernow]

I'm the epitome of WASPishness (if you count the whole atheist/agnostic line straddling), but culturally. White? Oh my yes. Anglo-Saxon? Check and check. Protestant? Most certainly.

So, when the other Hussies explain certain fundamental aspects of Catholicism to me, I boggle, fascinated, in much the same way I do when friends explain Judaism and Jewish ritual to me.

I say over and over again - nice protestant girls don't do those things. (Mostly meaning we don't have exciting rituals or festivals for anything, unless you count candlelight service at Christmas and the occasional potluck.)

Today, both rubberneck and life_on_queen told me these funny, touching stories about communion wafers that makes me want to compile all these little bits of cultural/religious/community experiences into a book.

So, favorite strange religious moment (not so much faith based as culture based)?

I admit to heathenish tendencies. I admit to joining the church choir to lust after a pair of twins at 16 (and sadly, now that twins have been ruined for me, that whole endeavor seems a little creepy:)

I admit to lighting candles in every church in Rome, just because. The closest I'd felt to a god since attending church with the Quakers as field work, and literally feeling the spirit move through me and around the room. Followed by pie.

I want to call the collected anthology, "How Nice Catholic Girls Learned to Shut Up and Swallow" based on Kath's story. Although, I don't necessarily want to SECURE my place in hell:)

ETA: Kath's story was in NO WAY dirty!

Comments

[life-on-queen.livejournal.com]

*facepalm*

Well, now I just sound like a pervert... Like we needed help with getting that rumour around...

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Oh, sounding like a pervert would be good for you!

No, they really were nice stories, really lovely stories!

[fbf.livejournal.com]

I got one for you, but I don't know how stange you might think it is, but I think it's cool.

Blessing of the Baskets on Holy Saturday afternoon. You gather up all of the specially prepared Easter food into a basket and take it to church. The asiles (what ever) are lined with cloth covered baskets. Father then says a bunch of stuff and walks down the asiles sprinkling holy water on all and their loot. Then around 4pm the basket, freshly blessed, arrives home and the feasting begins.

Things to note: one is not allowed to eat anything that is in the basket until after it is blessed. The smell of cooking ham all frelling Saturday and you can't touch is the worst kind of tease. The no-meat rule that began on Good Friday is in effect until after the basket is blessed. The basket usually contains the following: homemade bread, ham, kolachi, nutroll, poppyroll, hard-boiled eggs, salt, honey, cedec(spelled wrong), kielbasi (also spelled wrong), and some other stuff I am probably forgetting.

My uncle told me about when he was a kid and the gypsies would come to the church (yes, there were actual gypsies in my neihborhood at one time) with their huge baskets, hemp wrapped jugs of homemade wine sticking out. cool stuff.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

See!! That. That is very cool! We do not do those sorts of things!

[rubberneck.livejournal.com]

Mom still does this--cooked cold kielbasa, challah, eggs, wine, butter molded into lambs with peppercorn eyes.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

I'm telling you, sometimes being a WASP is terribly, terribly dull!

[ropo.livejournal.com]

Here in L.A., there is a Blessing of the Animals ... at some point, next to Olvera Street. I'm too lazy to look it up, but it happens!

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

It's near Easter!! I have always wanted to go! I have always talked myself out of it on the theory that I'd need to be blessed after hauling two slippery Siamese downtown:)

[cofax7]

Feast of Saint Francis, hon. Naturally, as he was the patron saint of animals.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Which is not near Easter? Because it seems to happen near then!

[riarambles.livejournal.com]

September... :)

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Okay, but in LA, they do it in the spring!

[fbf.livejournal.com]

That is because y'all in Cali are weird. *bg*

I went to the Blessing of the Animals at St. John's in NYC one year. Paul Winter and company were the house band. I was quite shocked at that. Anywho, they opened the center doors (one of the only times they do) and there was a procession of animals. Folks in white quasi-Franscian robes led a procession of animals from a bowl of algea on a red velet pillow (they did the same with a white mouse) to an elephant. It was pagentry at it's grandest and most profound.

There is a reason Bono said that Catholicsm is the glam-rock of religions.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Apparently (because I did research on this!!), it's because they used to do it in November and it was too cold. Ah, LA. Can't tell time, and our perspective on weather is a might skewed.

[lomer.livejournal.com]

I'm Quaker! *g* What branch of the Society of Friends did you hang out with? Liberal, conservative? (And technically we don't have "church" we have Meeting House, or just meeting.) I'm a liberal Quaker, and yes the post meeting-pie is always awesome. *g*

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what branch they were. I was doing fieldwork in St. Paul, MN (so liberal is my guess) for my B.A. in Cultural Anthro. I went to meeting every Sunday for 5 months. It was lovely, hands down the best religious experience I've ever had.

[lomer.livejournal.com]

Yeah probably liberal. So far liberal Quakers are being out conservative - numbers wise. *g*

Glad it was a good experiance for you. My lovely little hippy religion works for me. My father's side of the family has been Quaker as far back as we can research (which is the 1700s), so I love little reminders that other Quakers exist out there. It's an uncommon religion.

My weirdest "religious" experiance doesn't come from my religion but from a comment someone else made after hearing my morbid family history and list of injuries. I was told "you must have some bad karma to work off!" I think that's the single most horrible thing you can say to someone who's had a lot of death in their family. It's the equivalent of "your daddy, grandparents, uncle, and friends all died because YOU were a bad person in a former life." It just struck me as the oddest, rudest, most horrible thing to say based on religious or cosmic beliefs. Bad karma? Lame!

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

That's definitely a ridiculously ignorant thing to say to someone!

[cofax7]

Every Christmas my mother takes several pieces of straw from the creche on the altar. The tradition she tells us is that if you carry straw from the manger in your wallet, your wallet will never be empty.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Oh that's sort of lovely.

[wearemany.livejournal.com]

i don't know how strange it is -- it's one of my fond religion memories, actually. my temple was sooooo reform that for our afternoon service for rosh hashanah (the new year) we would go up into the sierras and do an outside service. there was a lot of hippie guitar playing and bob dylan covers and the like, and then we would eat the traditional apples & honey and -- my favorite part -- do this ritual that included standing over a stream and emptying our pockets of any lint, which was supposed to represent the leftover baggage we'd carried around for the last year, so that we could start fresh.

but your proposed title is FABULOUS.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I love that idea. (Hands down, the symbolism in the Jewish holidays remains my favorite:)

And yeah, I LOVE the title! I actually am so terribly charmed by the idea of a collection of community/ritual stories from people our age!

[suenix.livejournal.com]

I'm not Catholic , but I spent my formative years
on the Gulf coast and Catholics are in the majority
there.
They have the blessing of the fleet every spring.
All the boats are decorated and freshly painted.
It's a sort of "county fair' type atmosphere.
This happens in the spring for the beginning of fishing season.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

I'm really digging the renewal/rebirth blessings.

[kerlin.livejournal.com]

Methodists do the blessing of the animals and the blessing of the fleet as well! Or at least they do in my family's rather conservative Methodist church in Maine.

Though I am also as WASP-y as you can get, and of the New England Puritan strain to boot. No really fun religious customs.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Blessings of the animals and fleets totally count!

[raithen.livejournal.com]

I love the Easter Vigil rituals when they are done right. We did them right in Waterloo.

Mass would start at 8PM on the Saturday night. It would already be dark. We'd take our seats inside, but then the priest would invite us all OUTSIDe the church (we were at a catholic university, so the church doubled as a lecture hall/performance center etc) and there would be a fire, and we were all given candles and the easter candle would be blessed and lit from the fire, and then the entire congregation would light their candles from the easter candle and there would be this sea of light, and we would all then walk into the church. It was always really amazing.

Then there would be mass, and we would do ALL the readings, from Genesis forward (I usually read either Isaiah - "everyone who thirsts, come to the water" - or Baruch). And then the new adult catholics would be baptised and confirmed (and we baptised them by full immersion -- in a heated WATERING TROUGH!) and there would be an "intermission" so they could change. And then the rest of mass, which would end around midnight.

And then there was always a MARVELOUS reception with lots of wine. A reception I helped prepare and run every year I was there, actually. I really really treasure those memories. The people and the spirit and the whole thing was the very best of the Catholic church.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

That's utterly lovely.