tongues of flame
May. 15th, 2005 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7It's Pentecost today. I toyed with the idea of getting up and going to Mass, but didn't. I keep asking Dave to come to church with me, but he feels he's been to church enough for his whole life, having been a Catholic schoolboy and an altar server. He's probably right.
To me, Mass was something we girls did with Dad (my mother is Dutch Reformed and uses Sunday mornings to do her grocery shopping), every Sunday morning, and we would all pile into the pew, and play silent poking-one-another games, and during the homily Dad would put his arms along the back of the pew and embrace all of us he could reach. He could never reach all four of us, but the two closest would lean their heads on his shoulders, and the two farther away would usually get a pat on the shoulder or a scratch on the back from his hands. He often wore his leather motorcycle jacket, and so I am probably one of the few people in the world to associate the smell of warm leather with a Catholic mass.
I always loved the singing, as well. For the last fifteen years or more my dad's church has had a folk group for its 8:30 Sunday music, and while happy shiny folk isn't necessarily my bag, they usually did three and four-part harmonies, extremely competently, and that was how I learned about harmony and melody and counterpoint.
So I have much shinier-happier memories of church than Dave, who had to attend Masses six or seven times a week and was usually involved in lifting heavy things and lighting and snuffing things. Whenever I burn a candle and then blow it out, he'll sniff and say, "Mmm, smells like... church," and make a face. Scented candles are lost on him.
All of which is somewhat irrelevant. I was thinking, it's Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came with tongues of flame and inspired the Apostles. And I thought, I should do something with that inspiration theme.
What came to me?
The thought that I should write a smut scene (having nothing to do with Christians) and call it 'tongues of flame'.
I am a lost, lost sheep. *snicker*
To me, Mass was something we girls did with Dad (my mother is Dutch Reformed and uses Sunday mornings to do her grocery shopping), every Sunday morning, and we would all pile into the pew, and play silent poking-one-another games, and during the homily Dad would put his arms along the back of the pew and embrace all of us he could reach. He could never reach all four of us, but the two closest would lean their heads on his shoulders, and the two farther away would usually get a pat on the shoulder or a scratch on the back from his hands. He often wore his leather motorcycle jacket, and so I am probably one of the few people in the world to associate the smell of warm leather with a Catholic mass.
I always loved the singing, as well. For the last fifteen years or more my dad's church has had a folk group for its 8:30 Sunday music, and while happy shiny folk isn't necessarily my bag, they usually did three and four-part harmonies, extremely competently, and that was how I learned about harmony and melody and counterpoint.
So I have much shinier-happier memories of church than Dave, who had to attend Masses six or seven times a week and was usually involved in lifting heavy things and lighting and snuffing things. Whenever I burn a candle and then blow it out, he'll sniff and say, "Mmm, smells like... church," and make a face. Scented candles are lost on him.
All of which is somewhat irrelevant. I was thinking, it's Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came with tongues of flame and inspired the Apostles. And I thought, I should do something with that inspiration theme.
What came to me?
The thought that I should write a smut scene (having nothing to do with Christians) and call it 'tongues of flame'.
I am a lost, lost sheep. *snicker*
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no subject
Date: 2005-05-16 03:56 am (UTC)I think I have more memories of the German Catholic church I grew up in than I do of any other place. Other than the house I grew up in. Your memory of your dad is very sweet!
no subject
Date: 2005-05-16 11:49 am (UTC)My dad is very cool, so there you have it.
And I dunno why everyone but me is always so traumatized about how awful church is. It wasn't exactly a funhouse, but I liked going. I still do, I just never get to. The last time I forced Dave to come to Mass with me, it was in Westchester, and the interior of the church was pukey lime green and smelled like old lady, and the priest was not only boring (when we figured out what he was saying) but had an incomprehensible Indian accent, and the music sucked. So that wasn't rewarding.
But this is Dave's hometown, and is the most heavily Catholic city in the US, so it's not like there aren't churches around. Sigh.