When I asked Elise’s dad for his daughter’s hand in marriage, I made mention of, “…and if we ever have children, I’m fine with Elise raising them in the Catholic church…”
In order for Maly to be baptised in the Catholic church, her parents are required to take classes. Four classes to be exact. I’m not going to name names here but her dad is not happy about this.
We attended our first baptism class on Sunday. Our teacher went into seminary school years ago but decided he couldn’t live a life of celibacy. He also spent two years as a missionary in east Africa. He sang us a tune that went something like, “Bwana, anakawuita. Bwana, anakawuita. Bwana, anakawuita, all the live long day.” I made that last part up but I do have “Bwana, anakawuita” stuck in my head. He went so far as to grammatically dissect the song and translate it on the dry erase board. It means something like “He is a part of us all” or “I don’t have any food for you, white man, but you’re welcome to one of my small goats.”
Elise and I had a “discussion” when I was told we had to take 8 hours of baptism classes. She pointed out that I have a tendency to approach things like baptism classes with a closed mind and don’t allow myself to gain anything from the experience. So I made a wholehearted effort to attend our first class with an open mind.
From our first baptism class I gained a miniature blueberry bagel with pineapple cream cheese and vision of small African children dancing with goats and singing, “Bwana, anakawuita!”
you know what is nice about the whole thing when you are done is the fact that you’ve started her on the road of being accepted into a possible life of organized guilt. seriously though, there is always the fact that religions are organized structure no matter which one you choose but keep in mind that all noted religious schools are expensive. You should know from your classes at SEU -world religions class to be specific- thought you that the stem of all christianity comes from the Jews and each one of those is full of shit…but-they are good for schooling children and not filling their heads with “child porn” -we leave that up to our less righteous friends.
think of your martial arts philosophy as a religion with all it’s structure and integrity, take away the physical aspect of it and it becomes a religion – a religion that is great for structure and life. That thought might make it better to deal with the whole religious thing.
I never would have been a fan of the Lutherans, Episcopaleans, for the fucking french if it were not for my great lessons from SEU…which brings to mind that they just published their benefactor report and I didn’t see your name on the list of givers. Just throw them $50 bucks or so but we need to raise the level of national respect that our school gets so that out degrees are worth more than the cheeply scanned, small ass diplomas.
any how just stick out the damn class for the sake of your daughter and your wife’s well-being and allow Mayli to discover to world of delema on her own -but at least she will have a starting point no matter how bull shit it is…by the way Cyndi and I went through the same thing.
love. your freak’n friend,
marc