Stuff

Home with a sore throat today. :-( I want to nip it in the bud before it becomes the annual Voice Loss. Bah.

I finished one of my two Christmas knitting items last night -- yeah! Can't picture, though it is on Ravelry if you're over there. I know it looks so easy (and it was) but it's definitely a bang-for-your-effort-buck item. It doesn't photograph all that stunningly, but it's very pretty in person, and has a lovely squishiness to it.

Onto finishing item 2, which I really need to get booking on.

I had a parish council meeting last night, which was interesting on many levels. (On a superficial level, I've decided when I have to bring refreshments, it's going to be a loaf of challah, some cheese, and some brownies from the King Arthur flour package.) One thing I have been struggling with at my parish is the mediocre liturgy. It's not heretical, it's not horrific, there is nothing shocking going on there. But if this were an Episcopal Church, it would be waaaaaaaaaaaay low church, and I am such a high-church person. On top of that, our music is so bad I want to cry (although there are no tambourines a la the Cathedral!). All very 70s & 80s vapidity in the hymn and Mass setting department. I confess my lack of charity -- and I will say that some things we sing would be fine at a Cursillo, a retreat, at a church camp or BBQ. But not for Mass!

Yet, I feel a responsibility. I have until the summer of 2011 to serve out my term. My parish is going through a financial rough spot, and losing parishioners would only make it worse. It's possible there would be a new choir director someday with better music, or the pastor we receive when this one retires may be more liturgically conservative.

I don't know quite what to do. For now I'm trying to think of it the same way St. Therese of Lisieux dealt with the nearby nun who clicked her rosary during prayer. I'm going to make the bad music and indifferent liturgy part of my prayer, and also part of my penance. Because Lord knows I have seven zillion things to do penance for.

It's comforting that there are many very nice people in this parish, and that even if the Mass is not so fab, it's done in an arching, beautiful, very traditional church, not someplace that looks like a gym or auditorium.

Kvetch, kvetch. Standard disclaimer: I know those who like these kinds of Masses are almost certainly better people, better Christians, better Catholics, than I am.

Off to knit and stop being so curmudgeonly!