Oh my Google!

As I discussed last week, Hubby and I have seen the error in our ways* and returned to church with the offspring and, as predicted, this has produced a lot of good material for you all to enjoy here. Because it's not really about bringing God into my children's lives, it's about amusing all of you. So to start back on the road to salvation, I had to bring Hubby and the offspring in for a meeting with the priest (whom I will refer to as Padre from here on out), presumably, to grill H and confirm that it wasn't just me brow-beating him out of his sweatpants and into church on Sundays.

Said meeting went along relatively as expected, my oldest gave a puzzled look to Padre when he asked her if she'd like to start going to CCD, meant to convey, "Um, I really don't know what the hell you're talking about, and please stop talking to me while you're at it.", daughter #2 shrank away from Padre as he tried to give her a high five in greeting and Little Man managed to crawl under the priest's desk and almost pull every single wire out of its socket. As we started to wrap up, thinking coming back to church wasn't really painful at all, Padre dropped the bomb. "I'd like you both to come in for confession before you recieve communion again as we begin this whole process." Wha??? Padre continued, "I can do it right now if you want to take turns watching the kids." I looked at Hubby, praying he would read my mind from the frantic look in my eyes, "Hell's, NO!"

Now, it's not that I didn't want to go to confession, it was more the fact that I haven't been to confession since the eight grade and neither has Hubby. For those of you unfamiliar with confession, there's a series of actions and phrases the priest assumes you know and after twenty years that brain space has long since been taken over by the names of all The Backyardigans and who got voted off on last week's Survivor. So we put Padre off, telling him we'd come to confession on Saturday and immediately rushed home to consult with the other all-knowing entity in our lives. Google.

Yes, we Googled "How to go to confession", and amazingly, or not so, I guess, hundreds of matches came up. So rather than have to embarrass myself and tell Padre I didn't even know what counts as a sin anymore - other than the big guns, obviously, but I haven't killed anyone lately (not for lack of desire). I combed the various normal and totally religious and wacko sites and was still stuck with my lame second grade list of lying and taking the Lord's name in vain (Christ on a bike, I do that a lot). So for good measure I threw in, at times, not being as supportive and kind to my hard-working husband as I should be (aka, ripping him a new one when he comes home late and doesn't email me or forgets to take out the garbage). Sure, I know I could throw in being judgmental, but then what would you all have to read?

So Saturday comes and H and I decide I'll cleanse my soul this week and he'll do it next week as our exciting schedule of kids' birthday parties and basketball games prevents us from both being able to go and I depart with my list of sins and my printout of the appropriate prayers (seriously), already drenched with panic-sweat. And....

It wasn't bad. Padre was nice about it and walked my through the process gently. He even paused to give me time to realize after blabbering out my lame list of wrongdoings that, to quote, "Maybe my ten years of godlessness?" counted as well. Oh, that. And since penance is part of the whole confession equation, I was readying myself for the eighty-five rosaries Padre would have me say for being a godless heathen for so long. But he didn't. I guess the church is pretty desperate these days, or otherwise, is taking a cue from today's modern, lazy parents, and told me to come up with my own prayer of personal thanks to god for all I have been given. Easy! And, I have to admit, awesome. So rather than making me feel like a huge jerk, I got to come back to church on a positive note.

So I drove home feeling lighter, relieved of the burden of (some of) my sins and thinking this church thing is going pretty well so far. Included in my prayer of thanks? Internet access. Thank you, dear God, for Google so I didn't have to look like a schmuck.

*Read: are tired of answering questions about what happens to things when they die.