Sunday, February 29, 2004
(2:09 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Warmer Weather
It's strange, but warmer weather makes me want to be "more Catholic." During the winter, I'm much more open to dissenting from the church's position, but during warmer weather, particularly the summer, I'm more likely to fall back into a mild apologetic tone (for instance, last night I gave a standard defense of the pope's decision to remain in office despite his manifest physical debility that has to be keeping him from doing as good a job as he could). I also find myself wanting to be pious. Part of this is probably due to my personal history and the way we all tend to associate certain things with certain times of the year. I began to read heavily in Catholic apologetics in the spring, and I memorized my first Catholic prayers in the spring. My first ever lenten observance was walking home from school every day, so that the fresh air of the waning winter is closely associated in my mind with piety and prayer. I spent my semester at Oxford during the spring, when I was going to mass almost every single day and when I had a lot of walking time in which to pray. The summer months are especially Catholicizing for me because for many years I would spend the summer attending St. John the Evangelist in Davison, which seems to me to be one of the better parishes I've seen (in my limited experience) and was certainly the parish that drew me into Catholicism -- its members, its liturgy, even its building. The fact that so much of my conversion was tied up with a romantic relationship, which for me always increases in intensity in warmer weather, only helps this effect.
Today was also the first part of the big lead-up for RCIA members. I'm not particularly nostalgic about the RCIA process, since for me it wasn't so much a process of discernment as a somewhat annoying formality, but it was still nice to see most of them be so embarrassed and excited to be up front and have their name sung -- because really, how often does one hear one's name sung in public? I wonder how differently my life might have gone if I had done RCIA at St. John's my senior year in high school and if I had simply decided to apply at state schools or Catholic schools. I can't even begin to imagine how different things would be, at least at the moment, although perhaps the basic shape of my life will end up being the same. In any case, perhaps it's good, only in the long run, that I wasn't able simply to dismiss and turn my back on my upbringing. Perhaps it's good that I didn't alienate my family so completely. Even if I didn't need more time, even if nothing would have kept me where they wanted me, maybe they benefited from having more time to process it and from not having to go through the disgrace of my leaving the church during the highly stressful period of my senior year. Perhaps it's good, too, that I managed to get some distance from the aforementioned romantic relationship, so that I, and everyone else, could be more sure that I was making the change for myself, rather than for her. Providence does not submit to analysis, but maybe it's alright. Maybe I don't have to dream so often of starting over from ten years ago so that I can get it right.
