Take the world together

A random Sunday observation:

As part of communion during Mass, we Catholics say the Our Father prayer (aka The Lord's Prayer) followed by the Sign of Peace, where we all shake hands with the people standing around us and say "Peace be with you." Between the two, the Priest rattles off a little introduction to the Sign of Peace that takes about 30 seconds.

It's become customary in many Catholic churches, especially the one I go to at the local college campus, to hold hands during the Our Father. Many people lift their interlocked hands in the air during the end part that goes "For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours now and forever" before letting go of each other.

It's at this point, as the Priest is rattling off his transition to the Sign of Peace, that I love to look around the pews at the couples that are there. Maybe it's because I'm a sucker for hand holding, but it always makes me smile to see a couple who doesn't let go of one another's hands after the Our Father is over but chooses instead to hang on for that extra 30 seconds.

Easter Sunday best

I had thought I was going to be on my own on Sunday with a trip back to Memphis to spend the holiday with my family out of the question, but a Modern Friend surprised me by inviting me to church and brunch.

Going to church meant I'd be going to the First Presbyterian Church. You may remember that I'm Catholic, and I was well aware there's one huge difference between Catholics and Protestants, (I mean besides the Pope): Catholics have a hard time dressing up for church for some reason. Presbyterians do not.

Since I was a sorority gal in my previous life, I have an irrational fear of not being dressed appropriately for any given situation. And since I was a sorority gal in my previous life, I keep in my wardrobe at all times at least one or two appropriate outfits for any given situation.

I hadn't stressed about what I was going to wear to mass before my plans changed on Friday night because I had plenty of springy skirts that I could easily pair with a plain shirt and my denim jacket and be totally Easter Sunday-in-a-Catholic-church appropriate. But a quick glance through the closet revealed only three Easter Sunday-in-a-Presbyterian-church-caliber dresses.

Fortunately I had the foresight to try them on on Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately (or I suppose fortunately) with the 27 pounds I've lost in the past 12 months, not a single one fit. I mean, they weren't even close enough to fitting that I could fudge it a bit. Despite my best brainstorming efforts, there was nothing I could do to improvise from what I had on hand. Of course, it's not like I need my arm to be twisted to go shopping.

That was Saturday afternoon around 3 p.m. I had dinner and a movie plans starting around 6 p.m. I had already planned to spend that window buying new eyeglasses. You do the math.

Now, the Modern Mom taught me to do many things well, and near the top of that list is shop under pressure. So after locating and ordering my new eyeglasses at LensCrafters, I had the standard 'about an hour' window to locate a new dress. When shopping on a deadline, you have to know where you can go to have the greatest possibility of success: Old Navy and Gap work for basic staples, J.Crew for sweaters and Dillards for shoes.

There was one store that I knew I could find an Easter Sunday-in-a-Protestant church caliber dress: Ann Taylor. I don't like shopping in Ann Taylor, a fact I was reminded of when the sales associate asked me if I needed a "wardrobing" room to try on the dresses. But wouldn't you know, I was so right about locating church-worthy dresses at Ann Taylor that I found two of them and in a panic bought both with the argument that I'd take one back. Of course I didn't actually mean that. ;)

It was worth it. I don't know if I made the right impression, but I at least didn't get that sick-to-my-stomach feeling that I always get when I'm not dressed appropriately. And church and brunch were lovely as well, much better than my original plan of dining on Dunkin' Donuts for lunch.

Lent: a short background

Forgive me while I do something in this post that you will rarely see me do and that's talk about religion. My personal religion is one of the very few things that I make off-limits to my blog along with the more intimate workings of my personal relationships.

But after reading responses to a number of posts out in the blogosphere about Lent and Lenten sacrifices, I just felt the urge to talk about it briefly here. I'm not intending to get preachy. I'm not trying to convert anyone. That's really not how I operate. I just want to offer to you a bit of a history lesson in the 'this is why we do what we do' sort of way. I'm not saying it's the right way, it's just what I choose to do because it makes sense to me and it's part of who I am.

TIME OUT FOR A DISCLAIMER: If you're going to read this post only to bash my religion or anyone else's in the comments, you may leave now. This is not the place for it. I will delete your comment. However, you are more than welcome to voice disagreement if you do it in a respectful manner.

What I've seen in the past couple of days is a lot of 'I don't get it,' and I totally understand that. Catholics have some weird traditions. Most of those traditions have roots in some sort of spiritual meaning, although it might be hard to figure them out because the traditions are so old. (And thankfully many of the traditions not rooted in spiritual meaning, like, say indulgences, are no longer part of the church).

Even though I grew up Catholic among a very Catholic family (have I ever mentioned my mom has 10 siblings?), I've spent plenty of time exploring religion, especially my own. I don't want to be Catholic because my mom is. I want to be Catholic because I understand what being Catholic is and accept it. So here's my best explanation of why Catholics do what they do for Lent from what I've learned over the years ...

Em was absolutely right in that doing things for Lent should be just as important as giving up things for Lent. In fact, in the Catholic church there are three basic pillars of Lent: prayer, fasting and giving. Each one is designed to bring you closer to God in some way. Those pillars go along with the gajillion other practices we do between now and Easter.

The prayer is self-explanatory. I suppose giving is too. Fasting or giving things up represent sacrifice. It's supposed to be a prompt to pray more. It's supposed to bring us closer not only to God, but to each other. Why do Catholics give up meat (or mammal, as the case may be)? Because it was symbolic of the food that the hungry cannot afford for themselves. And Catholicism is all about humility (in the religious sense not the dictionary sense) and serving the poor and helpless. There's a practice many Catholics follow during Lent called Rice Bowl -- you fast for a meal and take the money you would have spent on it and give it to the hungry instead. We give up things for Lent in order to better ourselves in preparation to renew our connection to God come Easter.

(Takes a breath). Here's a good extended explanation of Catholics and Lent if you're a glutton for punishment. If you have questions, just ask. I'll try to answer or find the answer.

Now, that said. I did already have plans for a couple of service projects to do in the next 40 days before I mused yesterday about what I was giving up. That much was easy to work out on my own. And I actually had a much better idea this morning on what to give up. I love buying new clothes, but I don't need them. I look at how many clothes I have in my closet, and I'm embarrassed. I could be giving that money to the poor. So, no new clothes until after Easter. Going hand in hand with that will be doing a major closet clean out and clothes donation.

I'm still planning on cutting back on Facebook. Em asked if that would be a real sacrifice for me, and the answer is yes. Working the weird hours I do, which involves a lot of late nights and weekends, I find myself sitting around a lot at times when none of my friends are available to hang out or chat. What's the next best thing? Stalking them on Facebook. I spend way too much time doing it when I should be doing other things. (Apparently giving up Facebook is the trendy thing to do this year.)

Anyhow, that's the last you'll probably hear from me in a long, long while about any of this. Because there's something else Catholic about giving things up for Lent and fasting -- you're supposed to be humble about it. That means no whining or bragging about it.

(Takes another breath).

The first step is ...

Another year, another last-minute decision as to what I'm giving up for Lent. I need to think about these things a little bit harder before Fat Tuesday.

After an extra-indulgent Fat Tuesday lunch at the local soul food restaurant, I'd prefer to just give up food altogether. I'm thinking that's probably not a great idea. I really don't have any particular food- or beverage-related vices that would constitute a sacrifice were I to give them up. All in moderation.

The thing is, I know exactly what I should give up, and that is Facebook, Twitter or (GASP!) blogging. Or get rid of my Treo.

I just don't know if I can.

The Treo is here to stay because I need it for work. Blogging is my hobby. Twitter and Facebook are my connection to the outside world (and often how I manage to make plans for the weekend). But they all eat up a larger chunk of my time than they should because I'm addicted to them like crack.

So here's what I'm thinking: I either limit my Facebook time to an hour window every night. Or I stop using my Treo to Twitter or access Facebook and e-mail.

What do you think, Modern Friends?

Have a mug on The Modern Gal

I'm a little late in getting to this, but I've got two fabulous Starbucks coffee mugs to give away to two of my wonderful Modern Friends as a thank you for reading The Modern Gal.

Ok, that's slightly false pretenses -- I obtained the mugs as part of our Dirty Santa gift exchange at work a month ago. My initial pick from the gift pool turned out to be two bags of Starbucks ground coffee, which was a jackpot find for me, but my dear co-worker and fellow coffee snob stole it from me. So my consolation gift was these two mugs with a small package of medium roast Starbucks coffee. The coffee I'm keeping. I'm not a huge fan of Starbucks coffee, but coffee is coffee is coffee.


The mugs are cute, but I have a gazillion coffee mugs anyway, and I prefer my mugs to be shorter and stouter. I tend to lose control of the flow with the tall skinny mugs resulting in me wearing more coffee than I've drunk.

So to enter, leave a comment below and in it tell me your favorite corny joke. You can cheat and look one up on the internet if you don't have one. They don't have to be clean or coffee-specific. I will do a random drawing on Wednesday, Jan. 21 and post two winners, one for each mug.

I'll go first with a joke (I admit, I found this one on the internetz, but it happened to be coffee specific, so there you go)

A man and his wife were having an argument about who should brew the coffee each morning.

The wife said, "You should do it, because you get up first, and then we don't have to wait as long to get our coffee".

The husband said, " You are in charge of the cooking around here and you should do it, because that is your job, and I can just wait for my coffee."

Wife replies, "No you should do it, and besides it is in the Bible that the man should do the coffee."

Husband replies, " I can't believe that, show me."

So she fetched the Bible, and opened the New Testament and shows him at the top of several pages, that it indeed says:

"HEBREWS"

Why we love Paul Rudd

It's been a while since I've done a celeb-oriented post, and I've got two things for you now.

Did you know there's a reason we all love Paul Rudd? It's because he's not a douchebag. Or at least, according to Google before that dude wrote that post. Now, of course, people are trying to argue the point.

And then there's this:

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Methinks they're going to be preaching to the choir on that one.

The audacity of Christmas hope?

As I was driving home through the 'hood today, I noticed that another two houses had their Christmas lights up and their Christmas trees decorated with care (yes, I peek in windows). That brings the grand total in the not-so-large 'hood up to four on the day before Thanksgiving.

And you know what? I didn't mind. And usually I would.*

I've always been a stickler to the notion that Christmas season doesn't start until the day after Thanksgiving. In my family, that's when we break out the Christmas music. The tree and decorations don't usually follow for another two weeks, although we do leave them up for a week after Christmas, 'cause you know, it took the Wise Men some time to get to the Little Baby Jesus.

This year, however, I've had the Comcast Sounds of the Season music channel while at home more times than I'm willing to publically admit in the past two weeks. I know I'm not the only one sheepishly indulging in Christmas tunes or the spirit of the season.

Is it because of all the bad news about the economy that's hit us week after week after week that we're all looking a bit more forward to the hope and cheer that Christmas brings? I know I've been turning the Christmas music on at the times I'm most bummed about my job.

Are we looking for the additional inspiration that Christmas brings now that the election has passed and the initial buzz from Obama's change-inspired victory has worn off?

I don't know, what do you think?

*I do still very much mind the Christmas advertisements hitting the airwaves before Halloween has passed. That, I don't think, will ever change.

Pondering the bigger questions through baseball

Is there a God?

Yes: Soriano goes on disabled list
No: Pujols goes on disabled list

P.S. Braves fans: I am highly disappointed with your team this week.

Now accepting suggestions for the Modern Gal's Lenten sacrifice

The Modern Gal has been so busy that she almost forgot today was Fat Tuesday. Which means tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. Which means she needs to think of something to give up for Lent.

I'm a pretty dedicated Catholic when it comes to giving up something for Lent. I've given up red meat (somewhat hard), cookies (really freakin' hard), soft drinks (hard at the time, wouldn't be so much now) and last year I sort of gave up cable and internet at home, more because I found myself in that situation though.

At the moment I have very few vices that I would miss horribly were I to give them up. Which means I'm not thinking hard enough. Which is why I turn to the smartest people I know, my modern peeps for suggestions.

What are you going to give up, if anything? What do you think would be really freakin' hard for you to set aside for 40 days? Any suggestions for the Modern Gal?

When good donkeys go bad

The animals in those living nativity scenes aren't the angelic little beasts people think they are. The living scenes are also pretty dang expensive to put on.



(Cheers to Noodles)

Pull out your yarmulke

Your soundtrack for today:

Yes, the Festival of Lights begun last night at sundown. Happy Hanukkah to God's chosen people and for everyone else, catch up on your Judaic traditions at Beliefnet, whose Guide to Hanukkah includes a Hanukkah starter kit and "How to Light Hanukkah Candles" video.

Sonny makes the rain fall

How's this for service:

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue hosts a vigil in front of the statehouse Tuesday to pray for rain to relieve the severe drought which has parched the southeast for some time.

It rains Wednesday and Thursday.

Does Sonny have a direct audience with God, or is he really good at checking the forecast? Because America is so great a democracy, you get to decide.

O Holy Hell

The Modern Gal has long since realized that it's futile to complain about the early coming of Christmas in consumerland. It's been going on for years. I've tried to fight it and to no avail.

But, I will have to call out two instances of pre-emptive celebration:
1. I was doing a scan of the local radio stations a few days ago and landed on an all-Christmas station playing Celine Dion.
2. I was strolling through the 'hood last night and saw the first domestic Christmas tree of the season glowing from inside a foyer.

Now, the Modern Gal has been known to bust out her favorite holiday album, Barenaked for the Holidays, in July. It is great that people get so excited about the Lord's birth, but I'm pretty sure (though no authority by any means) that he wants us to observe Ordinary Time and Advent first. If that's not your thing, please consider at least wait til Thanksgiving for the rest of us. Thank you on behalf of all modern gals everywhere.