Project:Lost Sheep

As a youngster, I believed that God was this hipster-looking man as big as King Kong living beyond the clouds and the devil was like a red gremlin living in the earth's core, scooting around in lava and surrounded by fire all day long, carrying a pitch fork. Later on, my crazy imagination thought more of God as a ghost hovering around me and watching my every move while the devil was a snake, waiting for me to screw up. It could get quite stressful.

And maybe that's still my problem. I didn't understand a lot about religion in my growing-up years. My parents attended church at one time but by the time I came along, Sunday mornings were a lovely time to relax with no worries about rushing about, getting on our Sunday-best and in the car in hopes to get the best seat in God's house. (We were trying to get the best seat in my brother's room to watch All-Star Wrestling on the only colour TV in the house!)

That's not to say I haven't been to a church service. Over the years I've attended services for one reason or another but I've just never been a member of a church. I used to consider myself a heathen because in the town I grew up in, when you met someone for the first time, they'd always ask "What church do you belong to?"

I'm Mennonite but it's only by default....and I'm not a very good one at that. I try to be good and caring because that's what God would like to see. Everyone has their own interpretation of religion and when we listen to a sermon, we take with us what we will....and hopefully we leave the service armed with more spiritual information, feeling enlightened and a better person.

So I've been thinking of trying out churches. You know, like we try on clothes or take a car for a test-drive. Every week or two I'll look up the worship hours of a different church and go.

Sounds easy.

I'll blog about my experiences. I've got to set myself some rules to make it an even playing field for every church service I attend. I've decided that I won't judge (because the bible tells me so) and keep an open mind throughout the project. I will try to take note of how happy and relaxed the church-goers are and how engaging the ministers, preachers, fathers, rabbi's or whatever, are with the congregation,. I'm hoping to strike up a conversation or two with members to get more inside info without sounding "under-cover".

I'll be sure to get enough sleep the night before. There's nothing like one's fall-asleep-o-meter hitting high digits during a church service. Besides, I'm really bad for yawning. 

Do we chose a religion because that's what our parents chose? What other reasons might there be? And why do many of us feel so comfortable with the religion that we grew up with? I have many questions. It's not like shopping, after all.....browsing through Amazon, trying to decide what religion I'd like to try next. Click on one or two and add them to my shopping cart....in case I don't really like the first one I've got another on stand-by.

I wish it were so easy! I'm no expert but practicing your chosen religion is a journey and a process...perhaps even a certain life-style.

I've discussed this unusual idea of church-hopping with a few family members and friends. Some of them get a kick out of it and chalk it up to one of my hair-brained ideas again but others have expressed concern. I got the question regarding what if I become brain-washed? Well, if you see me teetering on the edge of the cuckoo's nest, head to the nearest liquor store, pick up some wine, grab a copy of the Exorcist and come charging through my front door. At that point, I will need saving!

I know...some of you are already reaching for your car keys. I think I'll be okay.

I'm not sure if this project will take me a few months or a year. I'm not going to lie and say this will not be emotional. I can be a bit of a blubber-face when the right heart-strings are plucked but I'm looking forward to it anyway.

I'll be sure to stock up on tissue for my purse.

I Won't Always Be There....And She Was Right

I wrote a post about my mom awhile back titled "I Won't Always Be There..."about how she used to always say to young me "I won't always be there to say Rebecca, watch out". She used this every time I got hurt.

Eye rolls frequently escaped my baby blues at the time but I guess that's what happens when you don't realize what you've got until it's gone.

My mom died in February of this year.

She was right. She won't always be there and her saying that made me realize at a very tender age that I need to be independent. I can't expect somebody else to deal with my issues. I've got to take responsibility for things that happen to me.

This past summer my siblings and I got together to go through the old farmhouse. Box by box. Bag by bag. Book by book. Childhood memories came flooding over me as I found old pictures, jewelry boxes, clothes and dusty books. I wasn't surprised that she kept everything ever given to her. There were hundreds of birthday cards, mother's day cards and letters. She appreciated every single one. They were all in pristine condition too!

I used to tell mom to throw stuff away that she didn't use anymore but she insisted on keeping it...... although she was always willing to give it to somebody who'd appreciate it. Several years ago she started giving me a few things from the deepest corners of her house. She knew she wasn't going to live forever and she had this big ol' farmhouse full of stuff. I would go for a visit to Manitoba and come back home with the back of my truck filled with old china, beautiful old kitchen ware and daintily crocheted doilies. I kept what I could but she would be disappointed with me if she found out what just wasn't salvageable and had to be thrown out! Sorry Mom!

Anna Harder, originally from a small town in southern Saskatchewan, was somebody I wished I'd known better. She was a great help to her mother and spent most of her young life helping at home with household duties. At the young age of 19 she was married off.

Here's my beautiful Mom at 18 years old with her mother and her twin niece & nephew. She adored them!

Mom didn't talk about her young self very much. I don't think she was hiding anything, she just didn't say much about it. I guess it was another life to her or maybe she just didn't think anyone would be interested.

I only found a few pictures of young mom in the old photo box. In every one, she's got her lovely smile. I imagine talking to 18 year-old Anna and asking about her hopes and dreams. Surely she wasn't planning on having six babies and staying home to raise them all?...and working endless hours making meals, darning socks and doing yard work? Or maybe she did.

In all my years on this earth, I never heard Mom say "I should've stayed in school and become a _____" or "I feel like travelling somewhere". She never complained about carrying armfuls of chopped wood or buckets of coal across the big farm yard in the wee hours of a Manitoba winter.

She said "It needs to be done".

Whenever I pull up a picture of Mom in my head, I always see her smiling or at the very least, a smirk.....as if she had a private thought running through her head and wasn't about to give it up.

This is how I remember Mom. Still beautiful. 

It was a lot, I repeat, a LOT of work going through her belongings but a part of me is relieved that she didn't throw stuff out easily. Even though most of the "junk" (sorry Mom) got tossed into the dump, at least we were able to take one last look at it.

Father, Where Art Thou?

I'm always thinking about if my dad were alive, I'd be really interested in what he'd have to say about a few things going on right now. I know for a fact he would be totally baffled by what this world is becoming. He'd get so damn mad.

I'd pay money to see his reaction to the news that Utah is the first state to pass the Free-Range parenting bill. What?! My dad would just stare at me and tell me to repeat that because it's one of the craziest things he's ever heard of. Why would a government pass a bill so that your child can walk, alone, to the grocery store, play at the park or ride public transit without an adult assisting them. Do we not give our young offspring any credit for having brains?

Another one might be.....we have a distracted driving law in effect. Yep. If you're on your phone or putting on make-up while driving your motor vehicle, you can get a ticket for, get this, $287! Some places one cannot even drink from their water bottle with one hand while driving with the other. Dad would look at me and squint for a long time and then proceed to tell me how he used to roll a cigarette and steer with his knee AND wave to the police all at the same time! Well, Dad, I suppose people are not that talented anymore.

Ooohhh.....here's one that will knock his socks off! ....The legalization of marijuana! I don't even want to think of what he'd say about that! Isn't everyone a little cloudy in the head already?

There may be a law or two that he might approve of....no smoking in public areas is one. He had a heart condition and we're all pretty sure it was from stress and heavy smoking all those years.

I know ol' Abe would be very sad and teary-eyed about all those hockey players that were in a tragic bus crash in Saskatchewan. While sitting at the kitchen table, he would bow his head with his elbows on his knees and you would see the muscles in his jaw twitching while he's thinking about it. When he was like that, everybody left him be. He hated hearing about somebody needlessly having their life taken from them, especially when they had so much more life left to live. I think back to times when he was like this and I think he absorbed other people's pain and sadness.

Even though my father and I didn't see eye-to-eye, we'd still have healthy conversations and I'd actually feel like we were on the same team sometimes. It was a love-hate thing. We always seemed to get each other riled up about something. He's been gone almost 15 years now and I find myself wishing he was still around just for the sake of NOT getting his advice.

The scary thing is that I'm finding I'm more and more like him as I'm getting older! Help me, Lord!