November 15: "Catholicism," Exhausted, Perfection

I'm a cradle Catholic.  

I was baptized by a bishop, so my mother had high hopes of me entering the priesthood.  Obviously, I was a disappointment to her in that respect.  However, I have been playing the pipe organ every weekend since I was about 18 years old.  If you do the math, that's well over two thousand Masses, and that number doesn't even include special holidays and times I played two and three times on a weekend.  Throw in Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Episcopalian churches, and the number of worship services I've played climbs well above five or six thousand.  

That's a lot of time on an organ bench, meditating on my life and its failings.

Billy Collins examines his conscience . . . 

Catholicism

by: Billy Collins

There’s a possum who appears here at odd times,
often walking up the path to the house
in the middle of the day like a little ghost
with a long tail and a blank expression on his face.

He likes to slip behind the woodpile,
but sometimes he gets so close to the window
where I am standing with a glass in my hand
that I start to review my sins, systematically

going from one commandment to the next.
What is it about him that causes me
to begin an examination of conscience,
calling to mind my failings in this time of reflection?

It could just be the twitching of the tail
and that white face, but his slow priestly pace
also makes a contribution, as do the tiny paws,
more like hands, really, with opposable thumbs

able to carry a nut or dig a hole in the earth
or lift a chalice above his head
or even deliver a document,
I am thinking as he nears the back door,

not merely a subpoena but an order
of excommunication with my name and a date
written in fine Italian ink
and signed with a flourish of the papal sash.

I'm pretty exhausted tonight.  I just got back home from practicing at a couple different churches for this weekend.  Most people would be surprised how similar Catholic and Lutheran worship services are.  Often, I play many of the same hymns for Mass on Saturday evenings and Lutheran worship on Sunday mornings.

What I have learned during my tenure as a church musician is that there's not much difference between various Christian denominations.  They all follow the same lectionary, sing the same songs, and read the same Bible (with a few extra books thrown in for Catholics).  

Some people have asked me which denomination I like the best.  That's a hard question for me to answer.  I like Catholics for their pageantry and rituals.  Methodists have the best music.  And Lutherans, for the most part, are the most open-minded and accepting.

This week, a good poet friend of mine (who was raised Jewish) said that I'm a mystery to her, because I'm a Catholic, but love being irreverent.  Admire saints, but would rather hang out with sinners.  They're more fun.  

We're all the same--broken and imperfect--trying to survive in a broken and imperfect world.

Bless Saint Marty, for he has and will continue to sin.  Over and over and over.  Perfection is kind of boring.

August 28: Joining a Monastery, Denominations, Differences

"Listen.  What's the routine on joining a monastery?" I asked him.  I was sort of toying with the idea of joining one.  "Do you have to be a Catholic and all?"

Holden thinks about religion and God a lot.  He's drawn to the idea of salvation and heaven.  He's looking for a place to fit in, to be a part of.  He doesn't really like the people he goes to school with.  He doesn't have many adults he looks up to.  His idea of paradise:  saving kids who are about to fall off the cliff into adulthood.  Holden wants to be the catcher in the rye.


I think everybody wants to fit in.  Everybody wants to be liked.  In the film Dead Poets Society, Robin Williams' character asks what is the purpose of poetry.  Several answers are offered, chief among them being to communicate.  "No," Williams' character says.  The purpose of poetry is to "woo women."  Everyone is the scene laughs.  But I think there's a lot of truth in what Williams says in that movie.  Poetry is about connecting, reaching out, being a part of something important.

So much of life is about disconnection and disharmony.  I've been a lifelong practicing Catholic.  For the last 20 years, ever since I met my wife, I've also been heavily involved in my wife's church.  She's a Methodist.  For the most part, I've always felt welcomed, accepted.  Sure, I've been the recipient of some good-natured kidding at my wife's church, but I would never characterize any of that kidding as intentionally cruel.

If religion is about exclusion, any religion, I have a problem with it.  Methodists think Catholics have too many statues.  Catholics think Methodists sing too loud.  I'm joking, sort of.  I think Christian denominations spend way too much time focusing on differences instead of similarities.  In my experience, Catholicism and Methodism have a lot more in common than either denomination cares to admit.

Lutheran.  Baptist.  Methodist.  Catholic.  Assembly of God.  It's all about salvation.  It's all about Jesus Christ catching us all at the edge of the rye field.  My worry is that too many people fall off the cliff because they're looking for a Methodist catcher or a Catholic catcher.

Saint Marty doesn't care.  As long as the Catcher is there for him when he gets to the edge of the field.

Catch me, Robin