Memoirs of a Geezer!
Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth
to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!
This Episode: "Next Question, Please: Your Religious Affiliation?..."
To borrow a phrase from that outstanding a cappella group, "Sweet Honey in the Rock," I'm tryin' to find a way to talk about religion... I mean, without being judgmental or giving offense to anyone or any religious tradition... Really! That's my goal! ("Sweet Honey..." found a beautiful, memorable way to "talk about Greed"!)
Back in the 1960s and 70s, long before the onset of his GeezerHood and mine, my brother proffered the opinion that edifices devoted to the practice of religion should be multi-functional. He suggested, and I agree, that the monstrous if beautifully designed and adorned church and temple structures that seem only to be populated one day a week -- or so it seemed then and now -- represent a monumental waste. Why not build places of worship such that they can be used and enjoyed seven days a week? Suggested uses include meeting halls, daycare centers, community meeting places, rentable or lendable spaces for film screenings, party facilities, temporary safe refuges for people in peril, emergency shelters for the homeless and refugees...
There are some religious facilities that were or are designed to serve more than Saturday or Sunday religious observances, but too many stand mute and empty six days a week. But that's not the main theme of this writing. (However I'm not sure I know what is??!!)
I've never been terribly keen on the practice of religion, meaning in a formal sense. (Although I do possess a certain spirituality...) At some point in my early high school years, trudging slowly and reluctantly up the steps to the gigantic doors of an enormous church on a Sunday morning, a friend popped into view and asked, "Hey, going to church, or do you wanna go water skiing...?" Without a moment's hesitation, I threw myself into his dandy, two-door 1950s-something Chevy with moon hubcaps, and off we motored to Druid Lake.
Though Father Schmocklausen said the "fastest mass in the West," I had no interest in gambling on yet another possibly overly-long homily that would have put me into a near coma. At my own parish church, some 3 or 4 miles west of the holy edifice I had just quit, corpulent, magnificently be-jowled and ancient Monsignor Hooper's saintly tonnage resulted in agonizingly slow movement, endless warbling of high mass altar prayers and creaky, cracking genuflecting in extreme slow-motion, irritating the hellfire out of the impatiently grumbling faithful!! A great many of us in any case!! That would have been my usual option, meaning
enduring the Hooper pageant, complete with mistaken full revolutions when his true aim was to face the congregation (vs. the altar!) and launch a wondrously falsetto, full warble into its pained, collective auditory organ!
(Funny thing! Ancient Msg. Hooper wouldn't let us kids use the new gymnasium building at our grade school. "We must keep it clean for visitors," he'd say! "Yeah, but isn't it supposed to be our gym to use to play hoops," we kids would retort. "Don't be impertinent!" he'd holler... Funny old business, that unusable gym... Only Mrs. Beemish ever seemed to visit, and only because that's where she and Msg. Hooper frequently met to discuss the misbehavior of one or more of her seven or eight children!! However, the monsignor heaped praise upon her for eschewing sinful birth control!!)
I admire and respect all religious practices and traditions. I really do! What I do not admire is the use of religion as a pretext for killing one another, that specious practice of calling upon the deity to help butcher legions of heavily armed members of one religion by hordes of weapon-wielding devotees of a different or opposing religion. Oh! And where is god in that scenario??!! I may be naive, fatuous and dopey, but I always thought god called upon his "children" to get along with one another, to practice tolerance and charity, to succor* one another. (*I believe I saw that word used in a biblical text, maybe the Torah and the Koran as well!!)
I mean, "kill for Jesus... butcher for Mohammed and Allah... wack off a head for Vishnu or Buddha..." Those concepts seem terribly out of keeping with the true intent of religious teachings. But maybe I'm getting a bit off the track, here...
My father was a Catholic; my mother practiced no religion, though her entire original nuclear family was of Jewish ethnicity, Ashkenazi to be precise. My siblings and I were raised in the Catholic tradition. My maternal grandmother flirted with a number of religions, her last being Christian Science. She had no aversion, however, to ordinary medicine, its practitioners and remedies... pills and analgesics, doctors, nurses and shamans! I believe I last saw her at Mount Sinai Hospital in Milwaukee where she lost her battle with cancer.
In my own experience, I eventually concluded that Catholicism was not for me. While in Turkey, in military service, I attended a Muslim service or two, and found it fascinating, perhaps owing in large measure to the beauty of Hagia ("Aya") Sofia, the Blue Mosque and other remarkable houses of Islamic worship scattered throughout Istanbul. I've also attended a Jewish temple service or two. At one point, I considered Unitarian Universalism. The minister (or maybe "presider"... not sure what they call the person who runs the service!) delivered a homily that was truly delightful. He suggested that his religion was such a jumble of confusing ideas to many casual observers, opining that if an angry "clan" of some sort wanted to erect a symbol of protest on the lawn of the church building, they'd probably have to burn a Question Mark. He was very entertaining!
The music of religious observance is another matter entirely. Wonderful stuff! Gospel music,
chants, Easter litanies sung in Latin, cantors singing Jewish liturgical music, muslim music too. I remember sitting in nightclubs in Istanbul -- pavions we called them! --listening to mesmerizing songs and melodies, rich with lutes and flutes, guitars and mandolins.
But back to recollections of amusing moments in religious service. In Iowa we attended mass at a small town church in which the celebrant stated, "The Lord is not male or female... In fact he's both!!" At another service, the priest droned on for 30 solid minutes; the only thing that woke me from my snoozing was a mention of "milk clabbering." I have no idea how clabbering milk connected to saintly personages, or angels, the deity, other models of Christian behavior! Lots of muffled snickering undulated among the congregants!
As a youth I was asked to leave a Sunday service owing to excessive laughter and frivolity between a chum and myself, both of us so consumed with hilarity we couldn't contain our laughter even as we were being ushered from the church. It may well have been prompted by another of ancient jowly Monsignor Hooper's pirouettes and croaking warbles! I'm certainly not inferring that religion is inherently funny, but rather the flawed humans who populate religious service can and have made the most ridiculous pronouncements and suggestions. e.g. The Iowa priest again "...the prophet tied his ass to a tree and walked a hundred miles..." Or was that part of a derisive joke made at the atheists' picnic?
A few of my favorite moments under the tutelage of Catholic school sisters: Sister "Knuckles" Outregis dealt with misbehavior by pounding the spinal column with the middle knuckle of her devastating right hand. (I often wonder if she caused permanent damage to some of my unluckier classmates!) Sister "Heckler" blasted our little palms with her heavy wooden ruler. Sister "Stretch" Borgia once threatened to smack me with a tennis racket. On balance, Sister Marie was the kind and loving principal. I was grateful to have her as my eighth grade teacher, or I might have abandoned Catholicism prior to that momentous high school decision.
And then there was high school. Father "Pustule" paraded about the halls inflicting "necessary' discipline by swatting miscreants with his sawed-off golf club. Scholastic Mr. Night delivered open-handed slaps in the kisser... I guess I'm not really talking about religion in any philosophical manner, but rather just rambling on about recollections, memories of some of the stranger moments in my Catholic schools adolescence era... the amusing side of religion and those ordained to preach, teach and punish. Lest one forget, we had to learn a litany of words describing liturgical apparel -- habits, surplices, chasubles, cassocks, inner and outer rasons, scapulars, cinctures, cowls...
SweetHeart and I sent our children to CCD classes, but briefly. We couldn't quite embrace what the nuns and lay teachers were "selling" to our kids. Our younger daughter kept asking, "What's this ABCCD stuff? What does it mean and why do we hafta go?" We pulled them out and embarked on our own morality and spirituality instruction!
In the end, thank goodness some of us emerged from religious education of the 1950s and 60s with our dual senses of emotional wellbeing and humor mostly intact. And thank goodness many of us still have our guilt to hang onto, thanks to confession and its velvety-curtained booths, vigil lights, benediction, poor boxes, holy pictures, rosaries, incense diffusers, kneelers, rambling sermons and other forms of corporal punishment! But aren't we better, stronger individuals for the experience?! I have to think about that one!!
Back in the 1960s and 70s, long before the onset of his GeezerHood and mine, my brother proffered the opinion that edifices devoted to the practice of religion should be multi-functional. He suggested, and I agree, that the monstrous if beautifully designed and adorned church and temple structures that seem only to be populated one day a week -- or so it seemed then and now -- represent a monumental waste. Why not build places of worship such that they can be used and enjoyed seven days a week? Suggested uses include meeting halls, daycare centers, community meeting places, rentable or lendable spaces for film screenings, party facilities, temporary safe refuges for people in peril, emergency shelters for the homeless and refugees...
There are some religious facilities that were or are designed to serve more than Saturday or Sunday religious observances, but too many stand mute and empty six days a week. But that's not the main theme of this writing. (However I'm not sure I know what is??!!)
I've never been terribly keen on the practice of religion, meaning in a formal sense. (Although I do possess a certain spirituality...) At some point in my early high school years, trudging slowly and reluctantly up the steps to the gigantic doors of an enormous church on a Sunday morning, a friend popped into view and asked, "Hey, going to church, or do you wanna go water skiing...?" Without a moment's hesitation, I threw myself into his dandy, two-door 1950s-something Chevy with moon hubcaps, and off we motored to Druid Lake.
Though Father Schmocklausen said the "fastest mass in the West," I had no interest in gambling on yet another possibly overly-long homily that would have put me into a near coma. At my own parish church, some 3 or 4 miles west of the holy edifice I had just quit, corpulent, magnificently be-jowled and ancient Monsignor Hooper's saintly tonnage resulted in agonizingly slow movement, endless warbling of high mass altar prayers and creaky, cracking genuflecting in extreme slow-motion, irritating the hellfire out of the impatiently grumbling faithful!! A great many of us in any case!! That would have been my usual option, meaning
(Funny thing! Ancient Msg. Hooper wouldn't let us kids use the new gymnasium building at our grade school. "We must keep it clean for visitors," he'd say! "Yeah, but isn't it supposed to be our gym to use to play hoops," we kids would retort. "Don't be impertinent!" he'd holler... Funny old business, that unusable gym... Only Mrs. Beemish ever seemed to visit, and only because that's where she and Msg. Hooper frequently met to discuss the misbehavior of one or more of her seven or eight children!! However, the monsignor heaped praise upon her for eschewing sinful birth control!!)
 |
| I believe the above image is that of a Buddhist temple in Siam! Mongolia maybe?... |
I admire and respect all religious practices and traditions. I really do! What I do not admire is the use of religion as a pretext for killing one another, that specious practice of calling upon the deity to help butcher legions of heavily armed members of one religion by hordes of weapon-wielding devotees of a different or opposing religion. Oh! And where is god in that scenario??!! I may be naive, fatuous and dopey, but I always thought god called upon his "children" to get along with one another, to practice tolerance and charity, to succor* one another. (*I believe I saw that word used in a biblical text, maybe the Torah and the Koran as well!!)
I mean, "kill for Jesus... butcher for Mohammed and Allah... wack off a head for Vishnu or Buddha..." Those concepts seem terribly out of keeping with the true intent of religious teachings. But maybe I'm getting a bit off the track, here...
My father was a Catholic; my mother practiced no religion, though her entire original nuclear family was of Jewish ethnicity, Ashkenazi to be precise. My siblings and I were raised in the Catholic tradition. My maternal grandmother flirted with a number of religions, her last being Christian Science. She had no aversion, however, to ordinary medicine, its practitioners and remedies... pills and analgesics, doctors, nurses and shamans! I believe I last saw her at Mount Sinai Hospital in Milwaukee where she lost her battle with cancer.
The music of religious observance is another matter entirely. Wonderful stuff! Gospel music,
As a youth I was asked to leave a Sunday service owing to excessive laughter and frivolity between a chum and myself, both of us so consumed with hilarity we couldn't contain our laughter even as we were being ushered from the church. It may well have been prompted by another of ancient jowly Monsignor Hooper's pirouettes and croaking warbles! I'm certainly not inferring that religion is inherently funny, but rather the flawed humans who populate religious service can and have made the most ridiculous pronouncements and suggestions. e.g. The Iowa priest again "...the prophet tied his ass to a tree and walked a hundred miles..." Or was that part of a derisive joke made at the atheists' picnic?
 |
| As a child, I think I called this a Jazzubobble! It's actually a chasuble! |
A few of my favorite moments under the tutelage of Catholic school sisters: Sister "Knuckles" Outregis dealt with misbehavior by pounding the spinal column with the middle knuckle of her devastating right hand. (I often wonder if she caused permanent damage to some of my unluckier classmates!) Sister "Heckler" blasted our little palms with her heavy wooden ruler. Sister "Stretch" Borgia once threatened to smack me with a tennis racket. On balance, Sister Marie was the kind and loving principal. I was grateful to have her as my eighth grade teacher, or I might have abandoned Catholicism prior to that momentous high school decision.
And then there was high school. Father "Pustule" paraded about the halls inflicting "necessary' discipline by swatting miscreants with his sawed-off golf club. Scholastic Mr. Night delivered open-handed slaps in the kisser... I guess I'm not really talking about religion in any philosophical manner, but rather just rambling on about recollections, memories of some of the stranger moments in my Catholic schools adolescence era... the amusing side of religion and those ordained to preach, teach and punish. Lest one forget, we had to learn a litany of words describing liturgical apparel -- habits, surplices, chasubles, cassocks, inner and outer rasons, scapulars, cinctures, cowls...
SweetHeart and I sent our children to CCD classes, but briefly. We couldn't quite embrace what the nuns and lay teachers were "selling" to our kids. Our younger daughter kept asking, "What's this ABCCD stuff? What does it mean and why do we hafta go?" We pulled them out and embarked on our own morality and spirituality instruction!
In the end, thank goodness some of us emerged from religious education of the 1950s and 60s with our dual senses of emotional wellbeing and humor mostly intact. And thank goodness many of us still have our guilt to hang onto, thanks to confession and its velvety-curtained booths, vigil lights, benediction, poor boxes, holy pictures, rosaries, incense diffusers, kneelers, rambling sermons and other forms of corporal punishment! But aren't we better, stronger individuals for the experience?! I have to think about that one!!
Humbly Submitted, 03-27-18 -- Joel K.
