[ religion... ]

sooooooo... i was raised catholic, went to a catholic school but we seldom went as a family to church, in fact i can probably count the number of times we did on one hand... my dad would tuck us in at night & listen to our prayers...

when i emigrated, with my parents (my mum [mom] is 100% italian) to a very small village in italy at the age of 15 & it was a whole other story... everything revolved around the church, religion is in everything...

after i returned to the uk i didn't continue going to church ~ except christmas & for the usual activities that my dad likes to call 'hatching, matching & dispatching...'

then i found myself living in the states & engaged to an agnostic ~ it didn't cross my mind for a moment that we would marry in a church.

on a visit to my mum we were exploring the amalfi coast & as i ran up the 64 steps to this gorgeous cathedral i said now this is a church to get married in!! 6 seconds later my mum emerges from the church saying you can!!! what! nooooooo we can't, but apparently we can & could!! it involved me registering at my local parish, lots of paperwork & my now husband being a really great sport about the whole thing!! from meeting with the priest, at our local parish, for all the paperwork i got to know & really like this guy!! & felt compelled to go on sundays & i have to say i started to enjoy going... sometimes i'd sit there listening to the sermon & think ??? no way... but for the most part there was a nice message & a feeling of community...

believe it or not i even started being a lector...

everything was good until... i went, heavily pregnant with my first son, to the baptism classes & this woman (running the class) said something unforgivable about hurricane katrina... it took every ounce of my husbands being to not walk out & i'm surprised we could see across the room from steam that his nostrils were generating!

then there was the fact that we had very carefully picked out the god parents ~ we chose the most amazing couple & we would want only them to take over from us... but no we weren't allowed by this church... & were told that they would pick out people for us...

needless to say the actual god parents are the only ones we adore (we got around it) & i started backing away from my religious love affair...

which leads me to today... we were in one of my most favorite places on earth... dragonfly farms :) i'm perusing the beautiful christmas ornaments... when my son oscar shouts out 'mummy... that's kevin...' intrigued by what he meant... i go over to where he's standing & say 'where darling?' oscar points & i follow his finger to a beautiful wooden carved nativity... he's pointing at joseph!!! seriously?! i started laughing... mostly because i found it funny (where did he get kevin from!!!) & the slightly nervously because i should be having a religious conversation...

wish me luck!!

kevin...