I've struggled to get to church with the kids since they were babies.  My faith is important to me and it's a gift I want to share with them.  DD loves going- loves the music, the dressing up, the getting to have some quiet time.  DS?  Not so much.  Which leads me to my problem.  He truly doesn't care that it matters to me and, at 6, I can't say that surprises me too much.  But this morning, after working really hard to try to get us there, I just gave up.  He flat refused to put his clothes on, whined and cried screamed until it was too late for us to leave.  When I tearfully announced that he'd won, that we couldn't go, he was happy.  Openly, clearly happy.  

The Vatican has doubled the number of mortal sins, adding seven new transgressions that will land your soul in Hell if you don’t confess to them prior to your death. I know that I may not be the best person to write this diary, as I’m a.) not Catholic and b.) not pious, but I am intrigued by this new list, because they fall into the category of "social sins", as encapsulated by this list from Bloomberg News:

1. ``Bioethical' violations such as birth control

2. ``Morally dubious'' experiments such as stem cell research

3. Drug abuse

4. Polluting the environment

5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor

6. Excessive wealth

7. Creating poverty

These new sins are dramatically different from the original deadly sins, which, in my wholly untrained opinion, deal with personal failings and not necessarily sins against a wider community. For those of us who aren’t of the Catholic faith, they are: pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth. The new sins were presented by "Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti at the end of a week-long training seminar in Rome for priests, aimed at encouraging a revival of the practice of confession - or the Sacrament of Penance in Church jargon," according to this BBC article.

My father was a practicing Catholic when he met my mother, who was a devout Jehovah's Witness.

In order for them to be together, religion took a backseat in their lives. I was not baptized and I didn't attend CCD. I grew up knowing that one side of my family did not celebrate birthdays or Christmas, and it didn't much bother me. But as I got older, it got weirder.

Older relatives-- I'm talking grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins-- would mention casually that I wasn't going to heaven because I was never baptized. Or that my parents weren't really married because it wasn't sanctioned by the church. Or that I wasn't going to survive Armageddon and spend eternity in paradise because I hadn't embraced the one and only true religion.

In short, they freaked me out.

So when I was 6 years old and set to be the flower girl in my uncle's wedding, I believed my Catholic relatives when they told me I couldn't participate unless I was baptized. So I asked to be baptized the day of the wedding ceremony, and my parents honored my wishes.

In high school, I attended Pentecostal church services with friends and studied the Bible with Jehovah's Witnesses. Then I had my first communion so I could have a special quinceañera Mass for my 15th birthday-- a time-honored tradition for Catholic Latinas.

In the end, I never bought into organized religion. There were too many contradictions and restrictions. I believe in spirituality and strive to be a good person, but I have no desire to attend church. I respect my parents for letting me figure it out by myself and not foisting any rigid views upon me. But I also wish they had protected me more from my well-meaning relatives who filled my head with guilt and shame and confusion all those years.

Now I find myself worrying about my daughter. She is 3, and she hasn't been baptized. But my Catholic relatives-- who love Maya to bits-- make it a point to ask: When will she be baptized?

I don't think they are trying to be confrontational or judgmental. For Mexican Catholics, baptizing a baby is just automatic. And I don't want to seem argumentative or disrespectful, so I have tended to brush it off with a "We'll see," or "When she is old enough to express interest in being baptized."

Soon she'll understand enough that they just might start asking her directly, and I have no idea how to handle it. Part of me thinks I will freak out on the first person to do it, as the last thing I want is for my daughter to face a lifetime of confusion over the "right" religious path. And god help them if they ever tell her that her parents aren't "really" married. Things could get mighty ugly.

So I was really intrigued by this story about the growing trend of baby blessing ceremonies.   Interfaith and nonreligious couples are increasingly opting for personal ceremonies in order to welcome their babies into the world:

Baby blessings can help fill the need for ritual, says Macomb. "If you’re not religious, or don’t belong to a specific religious community, you still have that need."

Their rise in popularity may be driven in part by some members of the post-baby boomer generation who have bypassed religious institutions and are experimenting in ways that make sense to them spiritually, said Richard Flory, a research associate at the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California.

"It usually comes out of a dissatisfaction of what they were brought up with," he said. "They don’t want to participate in (religious) institutions. But what they do want is to be part of some spiritual activity that meets their understanding, to create some sort of spiritual identity for themselves."

Baby blessings can take many forms. They can be held outdoors. You can light candles, sing songs, read poems, vow to love and protect your child, even baptize them outside of a church.

I must say I like the idea of some form of ritual or formal welcoming. We are hoping to have a second (and final) child. I will definitely consider the possibility of our very own baby blessing. We could include our older daughter and verbalize our devotion to our children, our intent to love them and guide them through life as best we can. It would be a public declaration that we're a family.

Have any of you held baby blessing ceremonies? How did you handle interfaith issues? If you baptized or christened your children, how did you come to that decision? For those of you that don't belong to a church, how have you explained faith and religion to your children?

I am so sorry about your father, Tessa. But we enjoy having discussions about faith on this site. Thank you for bringing it up! -Elisa

Every now and again, it occurs to me that I miss having faith.

Tonight, I was in the hospital, giving my wrung-out mother a break from sitting with my father who is recovering from a stroke.  While the nurses were in his room helping him with something a little more...delicate...than he wanted his daughter helping him with, I stood out in the middle of the stroke unit to wait.  I got overwhelmed, and started to cry a little.

There is this 81 year old man that was admitted to the stroke unit today.  He is very religious, and has been talking about God all day.  He saw me out there, and smiled at me, and said "Little lady, you look very concerned.  Give it up to God, and he'll carry you."

This man was admitted today with a stroke, and he has been the chipperest person on the ward.  And it's all because he has faith in his God.  That faith gives him a peace I haven't known for years.  I do truly envy that.  He's not depressed, or stressed, or sad.  He's accepting.  He's cheery.  He can reach out and comfort someone else when she's crying.  I think that is a gift.

I felt more than a bit empty around Christmas this year.  For the first time it seemed completely devoid of meaning.  No one believes in God.  No one believes in Santa.  There's nothing particularly thrilling to give or get.   There's just an obligation to pour money into the pockets of corporate jerks and fill our houses with crap none of us needs, or even really wants.

I remember Christmas as magical.  But, as I reflect on my childhood, the magic of the holiday was closely tied to religious ritual.  Coming into church on a Sunday soon after Thanksgiving, back when Christmas lights didn't begin showing up by Halloween and could still be cause for celebration, we'd find the Advent wreath suspended from the rafters.  Oh, yes!  Christmas is coming! The three purple candles, a pink one for the third Sunday of Advent, a white candle for Christmas Eve.  Each candle with its own story and symbolic meaning.

The beautiful haunting Christmas carols.  O Come O Come, Emmanuel was my favorite.  It still gives me goosebumps.  The nativity display.  The Christmas story with its shepherds and wise men and camels and bright stars and inns and stables and mangers and gold, frankincense and myrrh.  Oh my!  I just loved it all.

Recently, my DH and I came very close to buying a house.  In the end, we realized that we couldn't justify or pull off all the up-front expenses (down payment PLUS closing costs PLUS moving costs PLUS inevitable move-in costs).  We're lucky that we like where we live, so we can keep on looking and maybe something else will come up.

What interests me is the response from other people.

Originally published in Bay Windows, April 19, 2007, and crossposted at Mombian.

When I first read the title of Waiting for the Call: From Preacher's Daughter to Lesbian Mom, I expected the tale of a woman rejecting her religious upbringing and denouncing her parents as she came out. Jacqueline Taylor's memoir is thankfully not as simple as that. It is an insightful, compassionate story about coming out, motherhood, and faith, woven into a narrative that reveals the many layers of what we mean by "family." It is less about rejection than transformation.