The Oral Report

Standing up in front of the class was never so much fun!

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Location: River City, United States

The rantings and ravings of a mom of three wonderful girls as she finds new love while working like a dog and shaking her fist at the system. You know. Pretty much like everybody else.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down!

Today is Ash Wednesday. I'm not a religious person, but my kids are catholic, so I've been exposed to a great deal of religious doctrine in my efforts to do right by them. My ex is catholic and wanted his children raised in the faith. It wasn't a significant issue for me, because it seemed to be important to him and I knew that I could help "interpret" the teachings. Since he made little or no effort himself to instruct them in his faith or handle any of the sacrament preparations (until my middle daughter went through confirmation after we'd separated), it turned into another thing on the Mom List.

If I may digress...and I may, 'cause it's totally my blog...when my oldest was going through preparations for her confirmation and I, ALONE, was making sure all of the required elements had been taken care of and getting appropriate clothing, etc., the director of religious education at the parish was praising me to the point of asking me if I could help with some of the other parents, and when I told her I wasn't catholic myself and had been kind of feeling my way through it, she was taken aback. And she shared with me that I had done a "phenomenal job". Much better than most of the parents who WERE catholic and knew what was supposed to be going on. And she just couldn't believe that I wasn't catholic, myself. So, apparently, while I'm not one in real life, I can play one convincingly on tv. Just one of my many talents, boys and girls. Step right up.

Now, for the uninitiated, Ash Wednesday is the kick off for the Lenten season. The forty day period leading up to Good Friday. Around our place, lent always meant that something was sacrificed (generally speaking, it was not a goat or a chicken) and meatless Fridays became a staple until Easter. Lenten sacrifices are handled pretty much the same way New Year's resolutions are. Only they have a 40 day expiration period, as opposed to a year (or lifetime) with New Years. Making sense of Catholic traditions and practices is something that I've worked on for some time and have come up short.

Even though Highlander and I are not catholic, I will be instituting the Lenten diet, for my girls. Consequently, it's tuna casserole for dinner tonight folks! Lucky for me, everybody loves my tuna casserole.

However, in keeping with the spirit of the season (and I'm stretching here...work with me), I heard the following on the radio today and thought it was somewhat appropriate. Religious humor works for Ash Wednesday, right? And it's all kind of Mom-ish (as it mocks children), so that works for me, too. Hope you guys enjoy it.


LAMENTATIONS OF THE FATHER (or Mother!)


Of the beasts of the field, and of the fishes of the sea, and of all foods that are acceptable in my sight you may eat, but not in the living room.

Of the hoofed animals, broiled or ground into burgers, you may eat, but not in the living room.

Of the cereal grains, of the corn and of the wheat and of the oats, and of all the cereals that are of bright color and unknown provenance you may eat, but not in the living room.

Of quiescently frozen dessert and of all frozen after-meal treats you may eat, but absolutely not in the living room.

Of the juices and other beverages, yes, even of those in sippy-cups, you may drink, but not in the living room, neither may you carry such therein.

Indeed, when you reach the place where the living room carpet begins, of any food or beverage therein you may not eat, neither may you drink.

But if you are sick, and are lying down and watching something, then may you eat in the living room.

And if you are seated in your high chair, or in a chair such as a greater person might use, keep your legs and feet below you as they were.

Neither raise up your knees, nor place your feet upon the table, for that is an abomination to me. Yes, even when you have an interesting bandage to show, your feet upon the table are an abomination, and worthy of rebuke.

Drink your milk as it is given you, neither use on it any utensils, nor fork, nor knife, nor spoon, for that is not what they are for; if you will dip your blocks in the milk, and lick it off, you will be sent away from my presence.

When you have drunk, let the empty cup then remain upon the table, and do not bite it upon its edge and by your teeth hold it to your face in order to make noises in it sounding like a duck: for you will be sent away from my presence.

When you chew your food, keep your mouth closed until you have swallowed, and do not open it to show your brother or your sister what is within; verily I say to you, do not so, even if your brother or your sister has done the same before you.

Eat your food only; do not eat that which is not food; neither seize the table between your jaws, nor use the raiment of the table to wipe your lips. I say again to you, do not touch it, but leave it as it is.

And though your stick of carrot does indeed resemble a marker, draw not with it upon the table, even in pretend, because we do not do that, that is why.

And though the pieces of broccoli are very like small trees, do not stand them upright to make a forest, because we do not do that, that is why.

Sit just as I have told you, and do not lean to one side or the other, nor slide down until you are nearly slid away. Heed me; for if you sit like that, your hair will go into the syrup. And now behold.....even as I have said, it has come to pass.

For as we judge between the plate that is unclean and the plate that is clean, saying first, if the plate is clean, then you shall have dessert.

But of the unclean plate, the laws are these:

If ye have eaten most of your meat, and two bites of your peas with each bite consisting of not less than three peas each, or in total six peas, eaten where I can see,

and you have also eaten enough of your potatoes to fill two forks, both forkfuls eaten where I can see,
..........then ye shall have dessert.

But if ye eat a lesser number of peas, and yet ye eat the potatoes, still ye shall not have dessert; and if ye eat the peas, yet leave the potatoes uneaten, ye shall not have dessert, no, verily I say unto you, not even a small portion thereof!

And if thou tries to deceive by moving the potatoes or peas around with a fork, that it may appear that thou hast eaten what thou hast not, ye will fall into iniquity. And I will know, and ye shall have no dessert.

Do not scream; for it is as if you scream all the time.

If ye are given a plate on which two foods ye do not wish to touch each other are touching each other, and your voice rises up even unto the ceiling, while ye point to the offense with the finger of your right hand; but I say unto you, scream not, only remonstrate gently with the server, that the server may correct his transgression and peace shall prevail throughout the land.

Likewise if ye receive a portion of fish from which every piece of herbal seasoning has not been scraped off, and the herbal seasoning is loathsome to you and steeped in vileness, again I say, verily, refrain from screaming.

Though the vileness overwhelm you, and cause you a faint unto death, make not that sound from within your throat, neither cover your face, nor press your fingers to your nose. For even as I have made the fish, and it is as it should be; behold, I eat it myself, yet do not die.

Cast your countenance upward unto the light, and lift your eyes to the hills, that I may more easily wash you off. For the stains are upon you; even to the very back of your head, ...and there is rice thereon.

.....And in the breast pocket of your garment, and upon the tie of your shoe, rice and other fragments are distributed in a manner beyond comprehension!

Only hold thyself still; hold still, I say. Give unto each finger in its turn for my examination thereof, and also each thumb. Lo, how iniquitous they appear. What I do is as it must be; and you shall not go henceforth until I have done.

Bite not, lest you be cast into quiet time. Neither drink of your own bath water, nor of the bath water of any beast of the field, or any fowl of the air nor of any kind; nor rub your feet on bread, even if it be in the package; nor rub your feet against cars, not against any building; nor eat sand.

Leave the cat alone, for what hath the cat done, that you should go forth and afflict it so and bindeth it with tape? And hum not the humming in your nose as I read, nor stand between the light and the book. Verily I say unto you, you will drive me to madness.........

Neither forget what I said about the uses of the tape......

13 Comments:

Blogger Doc Nebula said...

Heh. And I can very clearly see SuperAdorableKid doing every single one of these abjured actions, too.

3/01/2006 3:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You are too much! LOL

And do you type fast or just have lots of free time?

BTW, I'm a recovering Catholic and I can't tell you how many times I went to confession for accidently eating beef on Fridays.....

3/01/2006 8:25 PM  
Blogger Mike Norton said...

Ha! You've given us a vision of a true horror: Martha Stewart as a Catholic... ;) (Hey, I don't know... I just presumed she's Protestant.)

I came up through all of the Roman Catholic nonsense, was very happy to leave it all behind and have only sparingly (ie weddings, funerals and any direct questions) subjected my kids to any of it.

So, it is with a confused state of mind that I wish you good luck!

3/01/2006 9:57 PM  
Blogger SuperWife said...

H -

I can, too. But, I've actually watched her sisters bite cups, drink their own bathwater and drive various felines insane. So, don't think she's alone in this.

Marci -

Wish I could take credit for the comedy, but I totally cut and pasted it from the radio stations website.

As for "free time", is that code for sleep? I type about 120 (or more, I haven't tested in eons) words per minute. Highlander is faster than I am. And deadly accurate...;)

Mike -

I am not actually Martha, I only have occasional flare-ups. And I'm not catholic. I don't do church at all. But if it's important to the kids to keep holy during lent, I can make fish or veggie dishes for a few meals without much effort.

3/01/2006 10:22 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Catholic is uppercase when talking about the religion.

And remember--religion is not faith. Your husband nodded to the Catholic religion, but faith had nothing to do with it. And the food is the least of it (in fact, I do believe you're allowed to eat meat on Fridays now); you're supposed to be helping your kids ponder over You-Know-Who's last days.

Don't bother with it if you're not going to do more than scratch the surface (and not even that). It's a waste of your and your kids' time.

3/01/2006 11:00 PM  
Blogger SuperWife said...

I don't necessarily take correction from people who don't want to sign their names. And as it applies to catholicism, I'll spell it any damned way I please. I might even put an "x" in it,if I wanna.

Difficult to judge your religious credentials in this light as well. But, I'll say this...I'm not necessarily supposed to be the one helping my children discover a faith I do not share. This was my personal decision (this is still America, right? I mean, I didn't wake up in Iran did I?) and one that I discussed with my ex when we split. I will not sabotage their efforts to explore a faith I do not share and I will not stand in their father's way (though he made no effort whatsoever to share this day with them), but it is not my religion and it is no longer my responsibility to be their teacher. This was acceptable to both of us, and to our kids.

Religion has to work within the confines of family. At least it does for mine. My role is no longer as the lead...no longer attempting to navigate my children through corridors I've never ventured through myself...but to stand by the sidelines and cheer them through their personal triumphs (when they are triumphs in a faith I don't share) and to direct them to those who can better help them when they have religious questions.

As for wasting my time, I imagine I've got a right to spend my time any way I choose to spend it. Though I don't consider my responsibility as a parent to be anything remotely like a waste of my time. As long as I'm not hurting anyone else or doing anything illegal, it shouldn't be an issue. Now, should it?

3/01/2006 11:33 PM  
Blogger Mike Norton said...

Ah! Well, I knew about that you weren't Catholic, T. What I was reacting to (Martha Stewart as RC) was in reaction to the Lamentations piece, the authorship of which I wasn't sure. When you wrote you "heard it on the radio today" and then unrolled such a long stretch I thought you were playing around and might have only pretended to heard it while actually having written it yourself.

Concerning anonymous' comments, I have to laugh whenever Catholicism and contemplation are used in proximity. Oh, I know that ideally that's the case, but having come up through it I can testify that functionally it's all about appearances. Being physically present at the right times, saying the refrains, having the dogmatically-approved responses to questions, mouthing the words, making the gestures, knowing when to sit, stand or kneel. It's somewhere between an occupation (with one, big, Final Reward paycheck/entry pass) and institutionalized OCD to keep Heaven and Earth right via ritual.

In the end, though, I have to nod to the details of anonymous' comments -- though I haven't checked on the status of meatless Fridays in many years. Catholic ritual isn't faith. Still, faith really can't be taught unless the teaching inherently stifles the ability to reason and question, so perhaps that's irrelevant.

You're doing what you're doing solely out of a desire to accomodate the wishes of your ex with regards to the children. Only time will tell if providing the... superstructure via routines and observations of ritual will do them any good. Still, it's an education of sorts, provides some cultural tether to their father and is likely, ultimately harmless, so few worries. It'll either come to have some deeper meaning to them as adults or it won't.

My primary concern is that it often becomes a security blanket of sorts. I honestly believe that that's what people go running back to in later years when life's turned to shit and they're craving a long lost sense of security and safety.

3/02/2006 7:51 AM  
Blogger SuperWife said...

Mike -

I probably got my hackles up more than I should have. Partly because of the late hour (it was WAY past my bedtime), partly because people who don't know me or my kids making sweeping statements like "you're supposed to be helping your kids" do whatever...just hit me the wrong way, and partly because of the email exchange you and I were having yesterday on a topic that I'm not ready to make public, but that is a stressful situation.

Religion is a touchy subject for everyone, I guess. Probably wise that people are advised to avoid discussions of politics and religion with the masses.

While you are predominantly right in your assertion that I'm doing what I'm doing to accommodate my ex, at this point, it a routine to which the children have become accustomed and to insist on making changes that would better suit me, and make all of their previous efforts moot, strikes me as terribly inappropriate and very unfair to them, as well.

Meatless Fridays may have changed. I'm not on the mailing list and it's not like my ex goes out of his way to keep me informed about anything. But hey, bean soup, cheese pizza, baked fish, shrimp stirfry...it's all good. Whether it's a "requirement" or not. I do understand that from the outside, it looks pretty stupid for me to be hooking my girls up with the (presumed) appropriate dietary requirements, and nothing else, but it's honestly up to someone else to provide the remaining elements and if he is, that's fine and if he's not, it's not as if I've made it a problem for him to do what he wanted to do. It's not as if my girls have no morals or values and that's really all I wanted them to get out of the experience in the first place.

3/02/2006 8:11 AM  
Blogger Laurie Boris said...

SuperG,

This is awesome. The "scripture" reminded me of my older brother, who vowed that he hated that our parents always had all these restrictions on us and would never let us eat in the living room and HIS kids were going to damned well eat in the living room if they wanted to. And then he had two boys...who ate Cheerios and chocolate in the living room...and then my brother was always bitching about picking Cheerios out from between the couch cushions and trying to get chocolate stains out of the furniture...

And we were brought up open-minded Unitarians, which meant we celebrated everything, so that nobody would feel left out and that we'd get the "experience" of all cultures. When I got old enough to decide for myself, I pronounced most of it bull, since they were only open-minded with people who agreed with their ideology.

But I did like having hot cross buns on Easter and chocolate coins from my Hanukkah dreidel...

3/02/2006 11:52 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ha! I love that piece you included in your post. I might hang it on my refrigerator.

L.C.

3/02/2006 3:28 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Y'know, I suspect it'd be wise to avoid the topic of religion, but here I go anyway. :-) I just have one question, actually. Have your girls expressed a desire to continue with this Catholic stuff? I can certainly understand your going along with it if that's what they desire, but if they actually would rather not participate in Catholic indoctrination, then I don't think it would be right to force them to do so because of some promise you'd made to their father, who has pretty spectacularly demonstrated that any influence he now has on his children is overwhelmingly negative.

Incidentally, I skimmed the previous blog entry about him because it was just going to make me too angry if I actually read the whole thing. This is not the first time I've known a wonderful woman with wonderful kids who are all suffering because of the noxious nature of the children's father, whose behavior is so blatantly and obviously horrid that anyone can see it except for himself. Where do these guys come from, anyway? Ugh... At least he's not stalking you. Sheesh!

Guess this ended up more of a response to the previous blog entry. Maybe I should go over to that one and talk about religion now. :-)

3/04/2006 1:44 AM  
Blogger SuperWife said...

ST -

Thanks for stopping by and hanging a comment...anywhere, actually!! As for the kids, Daughter #3 has abandoned her religious upbringing (before the split actually) and Duaghter #2 has embraced it. Consequently, it's not much trouble for me to go to in order to help Kid 2 keep holy during lent. I agree, it's definitely more a matter of how they are approaching their religion than continuing with something their father wants that they do not. I did not make that clear at all. Thanks for pointing it out!!

As for your other comments, thanks for the support through this custody change thing. I wish his lawyer (or doctor or indian chief, actually) or any of his friends (who, unfortunately do not know most of this stuff, I'm sure) could be honest with him about how he should be handling things.

I will say this, though, he called yesterday to ask Daughter #2 if she wanted him to attend the counselling session with her. It was the opportunity she had been looking for and took full advantage of it. I wasn't here, but Highlander said she was firm without losing her temper. Very proud, I am. He seems to have backed down nicely. I'm sure it's harder for him to hear his childrens issues from me, but they are afraid to talk to him directly. I've not lied to him before, and as the only result of me lying about this stuff would be to hurt him, given the lengths I've gone to to AVOID hurting him, that wouldn't make much sense. Anyway, at least he's not going to show up and make a thing for Kid #2. And I am very grateful that he's not going to add insult on top of the injury.

3/04/2006 8:12 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Not sure if the Living Room Commandments qualify as sacriligeous or not, so I'm not sure if I should be amused or outraged...

...well, He DID create the platypus, so He must have a sense of humor...

Funny stuff, then!!

(Guilty of most of it as a kid. Especially the cup-biting thing.)

3/05/2006 4:08 PM  

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