Religious Education - Part 2

Part 2 - Our Next Step

So we left St. James, feeling kind of burnt from our whole experience.  We wrote a letter to our priest explaining our departure and continued to remain close with the friends we had made there, but we were left without a church.

Then my dad got sick.  I suppose the absence of church during this painful time would have been felt more if I had more of a relationship with God, but one less thing off my plate was probably a good thing for me.  When he died, our family decided on a funeral at the funeral home rather than in a church.  He wasn't a religious man so this arrangement suited him well.  In the end, I think he probably would have thought there was too much religion mentioned during the service we had.

Shortly after my father's death, we moved to Purcellville.  Once we had settled in, which happened to be after our twins were born, we decided to try the local Episcopalian church.  Steve had called the priest before this decision and told him of our concerns based on our last experience at St. James.  The priest said that our new church was very open and seemed to mesh with our morals and ideas.  We made the decision to go to St. Peter's, celebrated the twins' christening, and volunteered at coffee hour and Children's Chapel.  It seemed like this was a good place for our family.

I continued to have the same hesitations about God, but wanted to keep an open mind.  I enjoyed meeting new people, especially the ladies who would come up to me to tell me what a lovely family I have.  Our family participated in church celebrations, family picnics and Vacation Bible School.  The babies liked going to the nursery and the older kids seemed to be making some friends.

Last summer there was a national convention of Bishops and other leaders of the Episcopal church who discussed, among other things, whether or not priests could be openly gay and if they had the right to marry homosexual couples.  This sent shockwaves through the Episcopalian church and sparked our priest to write a letter to the congregation informing us that if (paraphrasing) "the Episcopalian church is going to go off a cliff, we don't need to join them."

We never went to St. Peter's again.

Now, I should say here that we didn't just make this decision lightly.  Steve wrote a letter to our priest asking for clarification and there was a bit of dialogue back and forth...we're judging the church...they are judging others...  It became more confrontational because of the word "judge", but the fact is Steve and I just don't agree with our priest on this matter.

Let me say here that I would hate for one of my children to be gay, not because I think it is immoral or a sin to be a homosexual.  Heck, I certainly don't know the Bible very well and certainly not as well as our priest and honestly I don't really care what the Bible says about homosexuality.  I don't want my children to have to face more adversary than necessary in this world and the world isn't necessarily an equal place for people who are openly gay.  If my child was to tell me he/she was gay, I would love them just as much as I did the moment before I was told.  Unconditionally.

What I wonder is if my child would ever "come out" to me if I continued to attend a church which does not believe in equal rights for all?  While I don't think a priest speaks for all of his congregation, the fact we attend a church which would like to leave the Episcopal church and join the more conservative Anglican church may make my children afraid to bring it up to me.  It goes deeper than that for me, but I think I'll just leave it at that.

Again, we were without a church.  Again, I felt burnt and very disenchanted with organized religion.

Again.

Part 3 - Home

Religious Education - Part 1

When I was little, my parents never took us to church.  Never.  Not on Christmas or Easter.  Never.  I knew nothing about what went on inside those enigmatic buildings and felt foolish to ask about such things.  Not that I blame my parents for my lack of exposure to church, I really had no interest.  Church was more of a social inconvenience for me, my friends couldn't have sleepovers on Saturday nights because of church on Sunday morning or play dates had to be cut short due to religious education during the week.

As I got a little older and attended the occasional wedding, I felt very much out of place.  All the standing, kneeling and sitting, the chanting and singing without any book to read from, it all seemed very overwhelming to me.

When Steve and I started dating, we started going to St. James Episcopal Church on Easter and Christmas.  As I sat next to him, holding his hand, I felt safe learning when to stand, kneel, and sit, but mostly fascinated with the gorgeous organ on the altar.  As time passed, I learned the Lord's Prayer and the Nicene Creed and felt more comfortable at church.  Eventually Steve and I got married and christened each of our three boys at this church.  Church became part of our lives as we got more involved in meeting people and volunteering.

My belief in God continued to be an internal struggle for me.  My doubts outweighed my beliefs but I tried to keep an open mind.  I sat in church and hoped, maybe I would even say I prayed, for a voice...a spark...a sign...of God.  I didn't ever voice my beliefs or concerns for a couple of reasons, but the biggest one was that I hadn't felt like I had explored exactly what I believed enough.  I was too busy with my other responsibilities as a mom to get in touch with my spirituality.  I continued to go to church because I wanted to give my children the religious foundation I never had as a child and thought this was a good start down the road to exploration of my spirituality.

We were members of St. James for approximately five years.  We adored our priest, had made friends, and loved that our children were warmly welcomed by the congregation every week.  We left abruptly in the summer of 2004 after we realized how different we felt about some issues, than the congregation.  I don't want to go into too much detail about it, but there weren't harsh words spoken or hurt feelings, just a realization this environment wasn't where we wanted to raise our children.

Part 2 - Our Next Step

Grandma Hoyt's Chocolate Cupcake Recipe

After trying these, you will say "These are not your kids' cupcakes!"  Dee-lish!

A couple of you have asked for my grandmother's chocolate cupcake recipe. So here goes:

Grandma Hoyt's Chocolate Cupcakes

1 cup sugar

pinch salt

2 tablespoons melted butter

1 egg, beaten

2 squares unsweetened chocolate, melted

1 cup boiling water

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven to 350 F. In a large mixing bowl, stir together sugar, salt and butter. Beat in egg. Add melted chocolate and water. Make sure this is well beaten. Stir in flour, vanilla and soda. Do not over mix, batter should be lumpy. Pour batter into prepared cupcake tins. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

The icing is the part which is tricky to explain. Written on my card it says, "Icing ingredients - butter, milk, sugar, vanilla." One of the things which makes this recipe so special is that my grandmother dictated the recipe as I wrote.  I'm sure she gave better instructions than what I have written down, and my father said I never got it exactly right. I always hoped for perfection with this icing, but he died before I got the "Perfect 10".  I'd love to have one more shot for him to taste them.

But I digress.  I can give you a couple of hints about the icing. The icing is meant to be a drizzle, not spread. I would not put more than 2 tablespoons of softened butter in it and I would imagine a little salt would work in nicely. Obviously, the sugar is confectioner's sugar.

Good luck! I think I will make these cupcakes sometime this week and will update you with some better icing info. Gotta say, the cupcakes would be great with no icing at all and the bastardization of icing from a can is just not acceptable!

Enjoy! 

* Update: I made the cupcakes and icing yesterday. I used 2 tablespoons softened butter, 1 cup confectioner's sugar, 3 tablespoons milk, a pinch of salt, and a half teaspoon of vanilla. Use clear vanilla if you want pure white icing. Put a dab of icing in the center of the top and it will expand.

This was fun for me to make these cupcakes, I haven't made them in a while. The taste fondly reminds me of my grandmother and my dad. I miss making cupcakes for them!

Blizzard 2010

As promised, some more pictures of the snow for my out of town friends.

I love this one , especially of the wreath which you can't normally see since we had to paint the red doors black due to HOA regulations. Happened six months ago and I'm still not over it!

The drifting of snow after the second storm was mighty impressive! I love how the wind carved holes under the table and through the chairs. The bottom right of the picture does not do the drift justice to how cool it was!

This is a picture of our neighbor's car. He dug out the side of it so the plow would see it and not plow it into a snow pile. We might be able to see it by the Fourth of July!

Stir Crazy!

Perhaps you've heard we've had some snow...

So yesterday was the breaking point, the point you have reached when you tackle the dreaded tasks out of sheer boredom. Yes my friends, we're talking about taxes and science fair projects!

My friend Marcy has agreed to help with the unending nightmare of dealing with taxes. In desperation, I bribed her with coffee and was able to drag her out. First coffee shop was closed, be we persevered and found one open. Thanks for making an unenjoyable chore enjoyable!

The second thing we did was Trent's science fair project. I think parents dread these things more than the kids, because frankly it is a lot of work! Trent doesn't have to do a science fair project, which makes it even more painful. So, in the name of making of our kid smarter, we chomped on some gum.

You see his project was to see which gum made the biggest bubbles. We chomped and blew and chomped and blew until our jaws hurt from so much chomping and blowing. The irony which was not lost on us was that Trent can't blow bubbles, much less chew gun because of braces, so he enlisted Mom, Dad and Kyle for help.

Lucky us.

The paper below has a measuring tool and labels to help us decipher how long we had been chewing and which gum we had. All very scientific of course!

After all of this, books and TV seemed a little less boring and we returned to our caves to hunker down again. We still have Kyle's science fair project to do, but we have to wait until we can go outside...

It's explosive!

Snow Daze!

Kate and Luke during the first snow when we were all smiles.

Perhaps you have heard about our snow?

First there was the snow in December. About two feet to get us really excited for the fat man in the red suit. Ho, ho, ho! Great photos for the Christmas card and lots of fun! Snow banks piled up as high as the front-end loader could pile them and only the tip of the babies' hats could be seen over the piles of shoveled snow.

Kyle and Trent

Trent after the summit.

We enjoyed the snow, what a memory!

Little did we know what was in store. The December snow was just a taste of what Mother Nature held in store for us in February. Last weekend, the second storm hit...with gusto! It snowed for two days, sometimes at a clip of more than an inch an hour. Two and a half feet, added to the six inches we had gotten two days earlier, left us begging for mercy.

Making lemonade out of lemons, as Wellers always do (hee-hee), we made the best of it. We invited neighbors over, played some games, and went sledding. Often I laughed as I passed a window, amused by the joke Mother Nature had played on us. School is out for all week and the kids are happy! I'm getting creative with ideas, baking cookies and making valentines. Good thing we have so many people to love in our family!

Steve and Trent braving the elements, trying to carve out our cars.

Kyle displaying the absolute craziness of it all!

Today I don't feel like laughing anymore. The blizzard conditions and expected 10-20 more inches of snow isn't funny anymore. Mother Nature has blown the snow to cover all of the windows so I can't look outside anyway. Otherwise I'm sure I would be calling her something close to Mother Nature, but not quite. I've run out of ideas for the kids, one baby is sick with another soon to follow, my joints hurt...I could go on and on! I'm ready for spring!

Perhaps, upon reflection, I should find gratitude in the madness. Gratitude not only for the loving family I can share this experience with, especially my husband who continues to dig us out. A roof over my head, warm food in my belly, and kind neighbors and friends with whom to spend these cold days and nights with. Electricity which hasn't given out once (yet) and cable to keep the kiddos occupied.

I'll stay quiet with my complaints, for I am truly blessed.

(Pictures of today's storm to come, once I can open the door.)