I like being Catholic...usually.

So, I consider myself a relatively liberal Catholic, but a Catholic nonetheless. My mom's is Catholic, my dad agreed to raise us as such, and my upbringing in my lovely little church at home in Ohio was a good one -- it's full of good people and good memories.

Yesterday, however, Andy and I were at Mass, and all was going well...until the homily took a political turn. Which is a red flag/flashing danger sign for sure. In the near future in Vermont (our current home state), this is a vote on whether gay/lesbian couples will be allowed to enter into marriages. Now, it is no secret to me that the Church is against marriage being anything other than one man, one woman, and it is something that I have accepted that I will just have to disagree on, but the tone of the sermon (by our priest who I really do like) was pretty negative. He used phrases such as "under a mistaken notion of equality" (which I'm sure he would also use if I argued that women should be priests), and at the very end, got very negative when he warned that if this were passed, "they" would demand that a priest marry them as their "right," and then priests would be considered civil disobedients and put in jail.

Now, I won't disagree that that might happen -- I know enough about Civil Rights movements to know that testing those limits is part and parcel of the struggle. But the characterizations that gay and lesbian people are out to jail the clergy is, I think, wrong. And I have to imagine that even if this passed, it would be pertaining to marriage in a civil sense. I don't think that they could force religious to change their views and perform sacraments that the religion doesn't believe are valid. Perhaps I'm naive, but I do have a certain amount of faith in the separation of church and state.

As my Dad always says, "If you're going to be Catholic, be Catholic." I have to disagree with him. I'm willing to take some bad with the good. But for the longest time, I had no framework for my gut feeling that homosexuality is NOT a sin, despite the fact that I consider myself to be a Catholic. I got one last year at Pre-Cana, however. At one point, our leader was talking about a formation of conscience, and how we have to pray about things we are unsure about, and allow our conscience to form. I think that my opinions about homosexuality have really developed under such a model. I know that the Church finds it wrong. I really feel in my heart, however, that is isn't. I'm suspicious of all the talk of a "natural order," when homosexual beings have been around since the beginning of time, and I'm not convinced that the ability to procreate has to be a criteria for "natural." I just can't wrap my head around that.

I'm hopeful, despite the horror that the diocese is feeling, that this particular issue changes to allow homosexual marriage, although I would also hope that church opinions would be respected, and that no clergy would be forced to perform any actions against his beliefs. I guess we'll see how it turns out.

Academia

A few weeks ago, I got a hankering for academia, and e-mailed my adviser from my master's program asking if she would second-author my thesis if I worked on turning it into a journal article for publication. She of course agreed, and told me to send her a draft when I had one.

I've been dragging my feet for weeks on said pare-down, and with good reason. It's a major undertaking, at least in theory -- the thesis was 100 pages plus, and a journal article needs to be around 20 to be submitted. I was dreading the task, but when the star aligned and I got a full weekend off from my part-time job, I figured it was a sign that I should probably take the plunge.

After hemming and hawing all day yesterday, I got up early this morning, and holed up in a nice little coffee shop with an espresso-laden drink that gave me the shakes, and a great soundtrack of 1940s music that they had playing. And about half an hour in, I found myself really enjoying my work, and missing academia. What I was doing was, for the most part, academia-light, but I loved being immersed in my research again, and putting together something that might (fingers-crossed) be put out there for other teachers/researchers/academics.

I got accepted into UVM for their MAT program for next year. This is a part of the hoop-jumping I have to go through to be a real live certified teacher. Part of me is excited, and part of me is groaning internally. This kind of writing and research won't be involved, and I know going in what to (generally) expect. But it WILL be learning, nonetheless, with people who want to learn and discuss and improve their teaching, and that, at least, will be mentally stimulating to a degree. But today's work has started a twinkle within me to think about doing the Ph. D. thing in the future...maybe even in education, which I swore up and down that I would never do. I guess the distance I have from last year has given me a little perspective...but I would still have a lot of mental convincing to go.