Why I would have made a better Buddhist than I ever was a Catholic

[cornerofmadness]

I never got the whole point of Lent. Even as a kid, while I can understand why we had to give something up that supposed made us happy (to show us suffering) to me it always seemed that a better way to celebrate the sacrifice represented by Easter would have been to have committed ourselves to helping others. What really in the long run does me giving up chocolate or pop or whatever actually do? Not much.

So even though I don't really follow the Catholic tradition any more if the parentals ask I'm giving up my free time. I'm donating it to helping others. Working on charitable donations, giving time to help others who need it, reaching out to the community, raising money, adding charities and causes to spotlight on my website (got one you want me to add? send a link). You get the idea. I figure that would be a better use of Lent than giving up something for 40 days that I'll just go back to after Easter.

i had to cancel a class on Friday. Yeah that's irritating. I had forgotten my yearly with the ob/gyn and if i miss it I won't get in until summer. Yeah, not smart given my PCOS and breast masses. I'm SO far behind in class.

But I AM taking some intitiative there. Too many schools now require a 2 semester A&P class to go to grad school so I'm fighting for it.

ALso got VERY tired of the stupid today. There are two sets of doors between my hall and the nursing/computer science building. (and an enclosed walkway nowadays) For some reason NO ONE down here knows that there is a proper door to go in and out from and they're always going in the out door. Today two boys nearly got clipped. the girl apologized and they jumped on her bad, screaming she had better apologize, she hit them etc. I went over and said very loudly, if you two hadn't gone through the wrong door, your stupid heads wouldn't have gotten hit.' They took one look at me, shut up and fled down the hall. Morons. A couple students with me praised me and said they too are completely tired of how rude and stupid people are.

Comments

[saphira112.livejournal.com]

I STILL don't bloody get it... hence I am not religious...

People have said because of what I believe, I'd more likely be Buddhist, too, ironically... XD

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

definitely more spiritual than religious

[saphira112.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Buddhism fascinates me, actually. Reincarnation is definitely a loved subject :D

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

same here

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

Sean Patrick approves of your choice for giving up for Lent. :-)

I hate people like that, those that yell at you when they do something stupid....

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

I suspect Sulien would too

oh no kidding. tiny men trying to throw their weight around

[sillymagpie.livejournal.com]

Bwahaha! I would have made a better pagan or Buddhist. In my Mormon days (Mom dragged me through several churches), I had to give a brief talk at church on Sunday. My theme was "This is the day that the Lord hath made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." My interpretation was that people seldom took the time to really appreciate the world and enjoy its beauty. The bishop said, "That was very...interesting." (My first mistake was quoting from the Bible instead of the Book of Mormon. My second was practically invoking pantheism.)

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

snort. i still never figured out how they didn't just kick me out of bible study (they DID in college)

[esmerelda-t.livejournal.com]

I might be remembering it wrong, but I seem to recall the reason behind fasting during Lent is historical. Food was often scarce this time of year and so people prefered to think, "We're not hungry, we're fasting for religious reasons, so there."

Or possibly I spaced out during the reasons behind Lent talk and that's the answer I invented in my head as most religious traditions actually have some sort of common sense reason behind them if you apply them to a thousand years ago.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

yeah i'm sure the fasting part had roots in that just as the fish on fridays comes from the church stepping in to help the fish market economy.

the whole giving something up stems from the idea of learnign sacrifice

[mulzrule.livejournal.com]

I totally get your point. That's why during Lent I usually have a goal along with (or besides ;P) giving something up. Lent is also a great incentive for me to lose weight before our big Easter vacation. XD

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

well good luck with that

[mulzrule.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'll need it.

[the-penumbra.livejournal.com]

it always seemed that a better way to celebrate the sacrifice represented by Easter would have been to have committed ourselves to helping others.

To be fair, the Church does urge "doing charitable acts with those in need" as one of the Lenten sacrifices. :)

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

sadly not at any church I've attended here, unless of course you're giving the money to them to let them do what charity they will

[spagyric.livejournal.com]

Meh, that's dumb :-/

[spagyric.livejournal.com]

P.S. Sorry, this is the_penumbra, but was logged in with my other user name! :)

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

snort. i've done that before. Yeah that's one of the things that bothers me. Any more over here many Catholic churchs (I move around a lot so I've been to many) just have a second collection basket for a charity. Throwing money at it is pretty much the extent of getting the parishioners invovled.

I could handle that. The really bothersome thing to me is that too many are taking Christmas and Easter (teh two times they know they'll have a full church) and not use it to celebrate the holiday but to air their political views about abortion, divorce, right to die, gay marriage well you get the idea

[the-penumbra.livejournal.com]

The second-collection basket thing is weird! :-/

I can see why it annoys you... *grins* We get that alot here, but weekly especially for those who go to the Bishop's mass (which I never do :p ) Luckily, there's a really good priest at my church - his homiles make sense and even when he does argue about divorces etc, he reasons things out well.

What ticks me off is when priests argue stuff using ridiculous arguments, expecting people to swallow it up without any fuss...

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

you know in my home town we're lucky, in my 40 years we only ever had ONE priest who was mean and nasty like that. We might get the drunks and the ones the church is trying to hide or punish but on the whole they were nice enough and didn't pull that crap

yep second collection basket that is specific to a certain Catholic charity, whichever one it is.

What ticks me off is when priests argue stuff using ridiculous arguments, expecting people to swallow it up without any fuss...

yep bugs me too. One of the reasons I struck out on my own to find a belief system that fit me better

[marynachaotica.livejournal.com]

And you're not really giving up anything, by helping others....by helping others you give to yourself as well. That warm fuzzy feeling knowing you've done the right thing, and adding to your good karma.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

that's how i see it

[marynachaotica.livejournal.com]

In my humble opinion it's a win win deal!