On the Concept of the Blog...Then Grousing.

I have decided that blogging was designed by and for Catholics. I mean, look at it historically: Jews didn't (to the best of my knowledge) outline all their sins in public and ask forgiveness. Nope, they bought a goat and privately put their sins on the goat, then killed the goat so it couldn't tell anyone. Or ran it out of town to be eaten by something else. Catholics, however, got it into our heads that the only real way to heal from the guilt of sin was to tell someone else who would dole out the prayer equivalent of penalty minutes and tell you everything was okay. That's the real reason, in my opinion, that Confession/Reconcilliation is necessary: because, at least for me, I need someone saying, you screwed up and need to pay for it, but your life will go on and God loves you anyway.

And so I think of blogging as the technological version of confession. One can, in the relative anonymity provided by the internet, blurt out all the ridiculous/funny/mean things that one has done and, through the comments option, receive anonymous absolution. Unlike confession, however, if one doesn't appreciate the response from the readers one can simply assume that they must be more cracked out than the sinner and can move on.

Considering it again, maybe the blog is like the scapegoat...you put all your baggage into it, just to get it off your own chest, then send it out to the 'net to be found, lost or eaten as it will. Hmm. This bears more consideration.

Regardless, on to the recitation of transgressions! Actually, there's just one biggie that's been bothering me, and it's more like a rant because of which I screwed up. I can only ask that those of you who know the parties involved not think too poorly of me.

Okay, so my choir goes on a two-week pilgrimage/tour thing every year after graduation. And before you think how silly I am for getting weepy during senior week when I was going to see these people again in two weeks, I already know. Anyway, it's different. Enough said.

So, on this tour thing, the choir is hosted by families from the different parishes we visit and for which we perform. It can be great or terrifying, and the greatness of tour is never knowing which it will be. The situation, however, is made slightly sticky by one of our housing requirements.

Our associate director--who is amazingly talented and kind, but somewhat uncertain in the personality arena--has three children and a husband. All of whom come on tour. Now, maybe I'm just a loser who isn't putting enough effort into understanding the situation. Or maybe I don't get that, for families that are not military, two weeks without a parent is a really long time. But in my opinion, choir tour is not time for a family vacation in which you don't need to pay for lodging. The few times the crew was on the bus when we were in Ireland, we all had to be on best behavior because the babies were on the bus. Sometimes during performances the father in this unit needs help with the kids, and almost invariably one of the girls in the choir is pulled to help, because she has a relationship with them. The kids don't mind well, because from what I have seen these are fairly permissive parents, and the youngest has a tendency to, at the most inopportune moments, start making noises.

Please don't take this to be condemnation of the parenting skills of this family, because it's not. I acknowledge that each set of parents has its own way of working things out, and that just because they respond in ways that my parents wouldn't doesn't mean they're doing a poor job. I also realize that it is in the nature of young kids to be rowdy and of infants to make random noise just to hear what it sounds like. However, the combination of these things make it, to my mind, incomprehensible that the kids should be on tour, and particularly on this one. 3 plane rides of 3-4 hours each. Multiple hours on buses with 6 year-olds who want to be 6 year-olds and college kids who want to be college kids. All I can say is that I'm glad I only have 4 day of it.

And housing. At each of the parishes in which the choir is being hosted by families, these guys require a family that can host, not 2-3 people, but 5, complete with car seats. In most cases, that's doubling the size of a household and upping the vehicle requirements. Not to mention food! And many families are happy to do it, for which I commend them. However, when I heard that one of my favorite families had been kind of strong-armed into hosting this other family, my response was not congratulatory or grateful. Oh no. I, being the brilliant and kind person that I am, blurted out that I was impressed they were willing to do it, that the kids were a handful, that the personalities of the two families could not be more different and did they really want to do this. Nice. I couldn't believe what had just come out of my face. I mean, I mock good-naturedly most of the time, and have never been quiet about my opinions, but very rarely am I as outrightly malicious as I felt when I heard myself say those things.

And apparently the president of our ND club, and another friend, thought so to, expressing her disappointment with me the following day. She also said that she was even more disappointed in my favorite family, that she thought we were above being welcoming only to people who were cool. And all of this came out in front of a very nice gentleman of 25 who now probably thinks I'm the world's biggest arse. Despite what Nicholas might say about my endowment in that area, I certainly felt like it.

So after my meeting, I rang my favorite family to apologize. I pretty much fell on my sword, verbally. And then I got the whole story. Turns out that my favorite family had very much been looking forward to having college kids stay at the house, because they wanted their kids to see what it was like to be in college, in a choir, and being practicing and enthusiastic members of the Church. The choir family had also been offered an empty house and use of a car with car seats for the duration of their stay. Life, it seemed, was good.

However, the choir family declined, saying that they would rather stay with a family. The mom of my favorite family, despite her reservations, then agreed to host the choir family. After my revelations, however, she started questioning her decision. It wasn't just that, though. Apparently her husband was going to be at work during the duration of the visit, so she wouldn't have that extra help. She also found out that she was going to have to childproof her home, which she hadn't done even for her own kids (this family has some amazing things) and, while she could let a group of college kids use a car when she needed to get to work, etc., she couldn't do that if it also required a car seat. She prayed about it, and decided that she needed a group that she could fit into her life at the end of the school year, not one around which she needed to reorganize it.

Absolution.

I mean, yes, it was my thoughtless comments that caused her to reconsider, and perhaps the choir family will not enjoy themselves as much independently as they would have with a host family. But it was certainly nice to hear her say that it wasn't my fault. And I did learn the lesson about holding my tongue, though I can't guarantee how long that will stick with me.

So thanks for being my confessor. Thanks for not claiming that I'm justifying my behavior, and for knowing that I know I'm doing it. And come again soon, if you're not so turned off by this entry that you never want to see my goat--blog, I mean--again.

Song of the moment: "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" by Panic! At the Disco