Sometimes I don’t mean to, and then I wind up getting the best pictures of my child… like this one.
Another brilliant picture of the Bub.
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Archive of ‘personal’ category
I still do not regret “dropping out” of RCIA.
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Although I know that I’ve actually been writing more about religion in here than I have video games over the course of… well, this Lenten period (even though I actually had to Google “when is Ash Wednesday?” and “when does Lent start?”, as well as some other things like “what is a Hail Mary?” and “what is Our Father?”, because all of those Masses that my ex and his mother coerced me into attending, as well as those functions and get-togethers that they made me come to, were intentionally completely lost on me because I ignored as much from them as I possibly could, did not listen to or learn a thing from them, and just wanted to be done with it all and leave because I did not want to be there and still wish that my ex had respected me enough to say something to someone about that… but I honestly think that he thought that “with enough exposure, I’d change my mind,” which led me to believe that he had an idealized version of “me” in his head, I was never actually going to be that person), I do intend on stopping come Easter and only picking it up come each Lent.
Never once in my life have I had a questioning moment that has led me to speculate the existence of a higher, or supernatural, power. I have been happy with that, and I don’t think that will ever change anytime soon given that it has been a decade now since I have “rejected” RCIA in the literal self-admission of being a decades-long atheist to the class instructors (and my ex’s mother), which led to me being dropped from the class roster and being disinvited to the church functions that I had been coerced into attending. It was my ex’s mother’s plan to get me to convert to Catholicism so that I “had” to consent to have her son baptized so that she could use that to exert even more control (or what little control she comparatively had), make me marry her son in the Catholic church to “fix the sin of us having had a child out of wedlock”, and then use that to exert control over me because of how the Catholic church feels about contraceptives, even though I made it plainly clear to both of them that I was done having children… I guess they didn’t realize how done I really was, and that as long as it had to do with my body, I could and would be the one making that decision.
As far as “rejecting” RCIA though (even though I literally actually did it), I do not regret doing so in the manner that I did. It would have come out at the end of the inquiry period had it not come out then, and then I would have been dropped from the class roster by the RCIA instructors or the priest himself after being interviewed by one (or two) of them, but it would have been worse because I would have sat through more classes that I didn’t pay attention to and the fact that my ex’s mother had lied to as many people as she did telling them that I wanted to convert to Catholicism would have become even more of a glaring lie. Either way, at some point early on in the process the truth would have come out and I would have been dropped, because if my mind hasn’t changed on the matter aside from me continuing not to believe in the existence of anything supernatural and being completely opposed to all theistic doctrine in an entire decade it would not have changed in a few weeks’ time. And they would not have married me in the church (which is that important to his family) because I would have stood in opposition to any and all infant baptisms (which, if you get down to brass tacks, would only have been one because I was not having any more children), and I was opposed to all of his church’s doctrine, especially that which involved me in any way, shape, or form…
If they had been content to keep their religion to themselves and not force it, things may have been different.
But I don’t really think that they would have been because they, and Catholicism, are not that kind of people.
I regret to inform the masses in general…
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That I was recently given a picture of Bub’s father volunteering at one of his church events from a few years ago, and as much as I had thought that there would be some degree of paternal resemblance, there is absolutely no resemblance… and although they are related, I find this absolutely hilarious and ironic. I do.
Enclosed is a picture of one fresh Bub, the child that his father does not look like in any way, shape, or form.
A lot of things, jammed up in one post.
With any luck, our PS4’s external hard drive should be here in… about a week or so, give or take, and then we can stop playing the “internal hard drive shuffle” for a long time! I didn’t want to get an extravagantly large one and then have to pay a lot of money for it knowing that I want to get more physical copies of games, but I wanted to get one realistic to our needs for the PlayStation 4. This one should serve us well.
I’ve also gotten into more debates over the course of the Lenten season (“the inquiry period for RCIA is for those who may be interested in converting to, or joining, the Catholic church”) and I actually had to go to Bub’s father’s church’s website myself and quote what their actual site says about the RCIA program. Needless to say, the wording of their very own site is not ambiguous about the fact that they are looking for people who are actively interested in conversion and joining, so if they continue to have the same RCIA instructors as they did when I… was a brief participant in the classes, it should come as absolutely no shock to anyone that they are not looking for someone who not only “actively questions religion” (probably their own way of putting it or reconciling it to themselves) or is only taking the classes because a boyfriend or the father of their child or grandmother of their child really, really wants them to take it, and by that I mean has actively coerced them into enrollment because then that makes it a lot easier for their son or grandson to get baptized Catholic because now both parents are Catholic and they have to adhere to Catholic doctrine regarding baptism now don’t they? (Except, as I’ve mentioned in previous entries, I honestly do not think that I would ever have gotten that far. Prior to becoming what is called a catechumenate, or someone who is actively interested in pursuing Catholic baptism, either the RCIA instructor(s) or the priest themselves interview you to ensure that this is what you really want to do and you are “fit” for the program. If I hadn’t been dropped from class enrollment after that first class, I would have been dropped at this point in time.)
There’s also this quote from another site:
“Ideally, this is a period of time that is to be ongoing. It is for anyone that has heard the good news of Jesus Christ from the living example of someone who has drawn them to the parish and they are interested in learning more.”
Literally none of that was true in my case, and I continue not to have any regrets about dropping out.
I’ve tried to open as much dialogue as I can, though, for those who have sincerely dropped out of RCIA, never returned, not looked back, never converted to or joined the Catholic church (or any other theistic church) in any way who are happy with how they are living their lives and do not intend on changing that. You hear a lot of stories from people for whom the reverse is true — atheists converting to Catholicism, people from other religions converting, people conversing about how they felt “the call”, but fewer people openly disclosing how the opposite was and continues to be true for them. It’s almost as though the very subject of that is taboo. Or you’ll hear people (almost always Catholics in this case) talk about how “they’ll convert when the time is right”. It’s been a decade now for me and, as I continue to read about Catholicism and theism, the more I realize that I was right in rejecting this doctrine and want nothing to do with it for me and mine. I am content not to have it in our lives. I want to see more unashamed dialogue here in general…
Look what I bought Bub! Look at it! Look!
I ordered Bub the ten-in-one Kingdom Hearts game that is coming out later this month because I found out that they were having a 70% off sale on… wait for it… a bundle that normally sells for $99, and with tax, I got it for just over $30. Friends, I call that one hell of a deal. I didn’t even have to think about that one. In my cart it went, and on our PlayStation 4 it went. Now, that drew attention to the almost chronic problem of us running out of hard drive space on our PlayStation 4, which I am attempting to rectify by way of having ordered an external hard drive to begin to store things on so that we do not have to play the “hard drive shuffle” that we have begun to play. I didn’t get an extremely large one, but I got one that suits our needs.
Meanwhile, switching my Medicaid HMO as a result of needing to keep all of my doctors in network (since one of them changed the hospital that he was affiliated to, which meant that one of the three Medicaid HMOs in my area was one that was… no longer in network with them) has caused me to need to switch the inhaled steroid that I have been on for maintenance to control my asthma to a new one, and this has not been fun. As the saying goes, “this has been widely regarded by the cosmos as a bad move,” or something to that effect. If I “fail” this medication, which I strongly suspect that I will, insurance will cover the medication that I was formerly on. It’s just a matter of getting to the point where my insurance will have seen me as “being on it long enough to have failed it”, will be satisfied with that, and will then let me switch back.