Being home means not being online...
Dec. 26th, 2002 08:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
windandwaterDrat.
Because I'm home, I'm not allowed to block up the phoneline for hours on end. All the relatives keep calling to wish us happy holidays and things, so I guess that's more important than me destroying my mind online. Heh... weird priorities, ne?
Let's see... what have I been doing since my glorious vacation started? Oh, that's right. Christmas is a nominally religious holiday. >_<;;
So, without further ado...
I am agnostic. I was raised as a Roman Catholic, and a majority of my religious experience comes from that upbringing. I don't particularly think that the Church is evil or anything, and I think that the Pope is a very cool guy. I happen to have some problems with the way the Catholic Church is (dogma and such)... yes I went through a "crisis of faith" and went down in a blaze of glory.
Whatever.
I don't particularly care what other people believe, as long as they aren't committing genocide and stuff like that. Religion and beliefs are very personal and I think they should stay that way.
But, of course, my parents are the religious sort, and wouldn't take my absence of faith very well. It doesn't bug me really, since I'm okay with being a Holiday Catholic (you know, only going to Mass on Christmas, Ash Wednesday, and Easter). But my parents decided to drag me with them to the new Cathedral in Los Angeles... I think it's called Our Lady of Angels or something.
And thus begins one of the worst religious experiences in my life.
See, this was on the 23rd. It was a special Mass, attended by the Cardinal, for the Filipino community of the Greater Los Angeles area. Filipinos tend to be very... aggressive with their religious beliefs, so all the dioceses had representatives/their congregations come to the Cathedral for this special Mass.
Oh joy. Rapture. Just how I want to spend my Monday night... packed in a Cathedral with 200,000 Filipino Catholics.
>_<;;
See, the Catherdral was packed. Everyone was standing out in the hallways with very little concept of personal space. One thing about us, we can sure pack a bunch of people into a limited area.
So there were people everywhere, and I'd been up since earlier that day. Mass was supposed to start at 6:30PM, but by the time everyone was settled in, it was nearly 7. Then there was a processional and all this stuff, and of course, I was standing the entire time. Also, I hadn't eaten much that day (I was beginning to get my cold, and when I'm sick I don't get hungry), and we had left my aunt's house at 5PM to try to get there on time but the freeways and streets were full of traffic. By 7:30, I almost passed out because it was so HOT. The air was stifling and when the Cardinal let the incense go for the second time, it went straight to my head.
I managed to stumble into the main hallway where I immediately slid down the marble wall and collapsed into a little heap, breathing the cold air. Nothing makes me nauseous faster than being stuffed into an enclosed space with poor ventilation.
For all that the Cathedral was huge, it had really bad acoustics. And... the design is just... bad. Mind you, I'm not an architecture major or anything, but I've seen St. Patrick's in New York and another Cathedral in Chicago, and they had the traditional, slightly Gothic lines and design. Our Lady of Angels is all modern, straught lines and sharp edges, which I don't think goes very well with the fact that it's supposed to be a Cathedral. I felt like I was in a train station or something.
Oh! Before Mass started, I ran into an old friend from college. She commented to me about how strange it was to run into me in a Cathedral of all places (she knows of my religious non-beliefs). We made small talk. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one without a job. @_@ Kathleen is getting her Masters in Physical Therapy. We couldn't talk much because she was actually going to offer something. Wow. Never knew she was that religious.
Well, I think I sat in the hallway (there were other people there too, they couldn't get spots inside) for about 45 minutes before I stood up again and leaned against the wall of the annex I had come out of. I ran into my uncle and my mom (we'd been separated because of the crowd). It turns out my mom left the main area because of the heat from the crowd, too. ^^;;
That's about it. They offered Communion (me and my mom cut in line... heh), and I thought it was a good thing that they had so many priests in attendance. I don't even want to KNOW how long that took to give bread and wine to all those people. We gather up my dad and aunt and left shortly afterwards.
So... religion. Makes me want to pass out.
That pretty much sums it up.
^_^
Because I'm home, I'm not allowed to block up the phoneline for hours on end. All the relatives keep calling to wish us happy holidays and things, so I guess that's more important than me destroying my mind online. Heh... weird priorities, ne?
Let's see... what have I been doing since my glorious vacation started? Oh, that's right. Christmas is a nominally religious holiday. >_<;;
So, without further ado...
I am agnostic. I was raised as a Roman Catholic, and a majority of my religious experience comes from that upbringing. I don't particularly think that the Church is evil or anything, and I think that the Pope is a very cool guy. I happen to have some problems with the way the Catholic Church is (dogma and such)... yes I went through a "crisis of faith" and went down in a blaze of glory.
Whatever.
I don't particularly care what other people believe, as long as they aren't committing genocide and stuff like that. Religion and beliefs are very personal and I think they should stay that way.
But, of course, my parents are the religious sort, and wouldn't take my absence of faith very well. It doesn't bug me really, since I'm okay with being a Holiday Catholic (you know, only going to Mass on Christmas, Ash Wednesday, and Easter). But my parents decided to drag me with them to the new Cathedral in Los Angeles... I think it's called Our Lady of Angels or something.
And thus begins one of the worst religious experiences in my life.
See, this was on the 23rd. It was a special Mass, attended by the Cardinal, for the Filipino community of the Greater Los Angeles area. Filipinos tend to be very... aggressive with their religious beliefs, so all the dioceses had representatives/their congregations come to the Cathedral for this special Mass.
Oh joy. Rapture. Just how I want to spend my Monday night... packed in a Cathedral with 200,000 Filipino Catholics.
>_<;;
See, the Catherdral was packed. Everyone was standing out in the hallways with very little concept of personal space. One thing about us, we can sure pack a bunch of people into a limited area.
So there were people everywhere, and I'd been up since earlier that day. Mass was supposed to start at 6:30PM, but by the time everyone was settled in, it was nearly 7. Then there was a processional and all this stuff, and of course, I was standing the entire time. Also, I hadn't eaten much that day (I was beginning to get my cold, and when I'm sick I don't get hungry), and we had left my aunt's house at 5PM to try to get there on time but the freeways and streets were full of traffic. By 7:30, I almost passed out because it was so HOT. The air was stifling and when the Cardinal let the incense go for the second time, it went straight to my head.
I managed to stumble into the main hallway where I immediately slid down the marble wall and collapsed into a little heap, breathing the cold air. Nothing makes me nauseous faster than being stuffed into an enclosed space with poor ventilation.
For all that the Cathedral was huge, it had really bad acoustics. And... the design is just... bad. Mind you, I'm not an architecture major or anything, but I've seen St. Patrick's in New York and another Cathedral in Chicago, and they had the traditional, slightly Gothic lines and design. Our Lady of Angels is all modern, straught lines and sharp edges, which I don't think goes very well with the fact that it's supposed to be a Cathedral. I felt like I was in a train station or something.
Oh! Before Mass started, I ran into an old friend from college. She commented to me about how strange it was to run into me in a Cathedral of all places (she knows of my religious non-beliefs). We made small talk. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one without a job. @_@ Kathleen is getting her Masters in Physical Therapy. We couldn't talk much because she was actually going to offer something. Wow. Never knew she was that religious.
Well, I think I sat in the hallway (there were other people there too, they couldn't get spots inside) for about 45 minutes before I stood up again and leaned against the wall of the annex I had come out of. I ran into my uncle and my mom (we'd been separated because of the crowd). It turns out my mom left the main area because of the heat from the crowd, too. ^^;;
That's about it. They offered Communion (me and my mom cut in line... heh), and I thought it was a good thing that they had so many priests in attendance. I don't even want to KNOW how long that took to give bread and wine to all those people. We gather up my dad and aunt and left shortly afterwards.
So... religion. Makes me want to pass out.
That pretty much sums it up.
^_^
