Happy Easter

Well, today is Easter, and I've done nothing, really. Nothing that I set out to do. I learned more about Buddhism from watching Eddie Izzard's "Circle" special the other night than I have otherwise...

But something happened recently that has forced me to examine what I believe - my mother passed away. My mother, who was so active in the chuch, and whose faith never wavered for a second.

Her funeral mass was the first mass I'd been to in over a year....and it was in Spanish. I was surprised by how much I remembered of the Spanish prayers, but I was disappointed that I forgot as much as I did of the order of the mass (when to stand, when to sit...). Then again, my mind wasn't the clearest that day.

But I found that mass, the rosary the Hispanic Community from St. Boniface prayed at my mother's wake, and all the praying in between (at her bedside and beyond...) comforting. It didn't feel the same as it has in the past for me - there were times that I felt like I was praying to someone who had given up on me. There were times where I felt like I was praying to nothing, just reciting words because other people were doing it. Yet it was comforting. It felt active. It felt like somehow, somewhere, it was making a difference, even if I didn't feel like it was making a difference inside me...It's hard to explain...

I've believed for a long time now that God speaks to human beings in different ways. That all the religions of the world are different cultural manifestations of the same thing, and that they are all right and wrong for the same reasons. I'm a native Catholic speaker, but I think my natural inclination is to be multilingual, if that makes any sense. However, just like I don't want to lose my Spanish, I don't want to lose my Catholicism. I would just like to speak other religions with equal fluency. I'd like to be able to converse with God more strongly in a variety of "languages." That doesn't feel wrong.

I'm going to go to mass today, and I'm going to try to make it a habit again. While I'm questioning and looking into other things, there's no reason why I can't go somewhere that feels comfortable and homey. It couldn't hurt.

Happy Easter! (and Happy Passover...)