Halo

Church used to be a pretty much every Sunday thing, in part, because Molly liked to go and she's so routine oriented it seemed like I had to commit to either always taking her or never. I'm not sure how much she really gets out of going, she mainly does sticker art (just like at home) and lays around on a giant bean bag (just like at home, except no bean bag, just a bed, a couch, a recliner).

At some point she started saying no to church, as in when I'd be tucking her in on Saturday night and I'd say we were going to church the next day she'd say no to that. And more and more times, there were other things I wanted to do, and the next thing you know it'd been months.

But then she asked, specifically, at bedtime to go to Heartland Community Church. So we went, and it'd been so long the volunteers in the Through the Roof room had never met her before. It worked out, she did stickers and laid around on the bean bag and didn't have any seizures.

They had these halo installations and she posed in front of each one for pictures. The guy who created them, Dylan Mortimer, explained that people seem comfortable stepping into the halos for pictures, more than they often seem accepting salvation. It's a clever concept because the halos are definitely evocative of old church iconography, but by letting simply anyone who wants to stand in front of it be illuminated, it takes sainthood from something earned to something conferred by the grace of God and accepting Christ. I don't want to offend any of my Catholic friends too much with this, but this is an area I think the Roman church really goes astray in.

I have my struggles with Christianity and faith in general, but the Catholic concept of saints and praying to the Virgin Mary and company for intercession, it's like they've replaced grace with an HR department. Or, as I once put it to a Catholic friend, show me the scripture where Jesus answers a question with, 'Yeah, you better take that up with my Mom.'