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Lent started yesterday. Do you observe Lent? What do you give up?
I don’t, but when I was a kid I did. I was born into an Episcopalian family (aka Catholic Lite). How did that even happen?
Lent is a Catholic and Anglican thing. Neither my mom or dad were actually religious, but they were both born in 1927 to a generation of parents that all went to church. Everyone went to church when they were young. It was just what you did. So how did my parents end up not really being religious? I’ll tell you.
My dad’s dad was an extremely demanding man. Born in the 1880’s, he was a man of his generation, which is to say of Victorian sensibilities. Men ruled the roost period! He was born in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania to a poor family of coal miners. My family on his side came to America from Scotland two generations before he was born. They were dirt poor of course and moved to where other Scots were in what I call the “greater Appalachian area,” which comprised rural areas where coal mining was a main industry. It still is in places like West Virginia.
Today Episcopalians are very progressive, well at least in America. Just last month the American Episcopal Church was excommunicated from the rest of Episcopalians for just that reason. Here in the States, Episcopalians have female priests and fully embrace LGBT. The head of the Episcopal Church in the USA is a women.
The usually restrained and often overly judicious Episcopal Church placed itself in the theological crosshairs of two of the most significant social issues of the day: women’s leadership and LGBTQ rights.
Episcopalians outside the US simply can’t stand that and moved to exclude American Episcopalians from worldwide Anglicanism. So the American bunch got tossed out which seems rather strange as they’ve thrown away 93% of all Episcopalians.
The Episcopal Church describes itself as Reformed and "Protestant, Yet Catholic".[8] In 2013, the Episcopal Church had 2,009,084 baptized members, of whom 1,866,758 were in the United States.
January 14, 2016 - The Episcopal Church is suspended from participating in Anglican Communion activities for three years in response to the church's acceptance of same-sex marriage. The decision is made during a meeting of leaders from the Anglican Communion's 38 independent churches.
For my grandfather, being Episcopalian was a source of pride as it was really the only legitimate institution he could belong to coming from a family of uneducated blue collar workers without any aspirations other than living. Overall his family would be considered to be “white trash” in today’s world. He came from lots of alcoholics and folks that basically pissed their lives away doing nothing of relevance other than working the coal mines.
He didn’t like this. He went to high school, which no one had done who came before him. They might have made it out of grade school which was the norm back then. He wanted more. He had to drop out and work for his family’s benefit, but always returned to school eventually graduating high school at age 21.
Graduating high school back then opened doors allowing you to go to college or go into training for a career that required education vs. an apprenticeship-type of career. He went straight into medical school. He never spoke of his family. No matter how much I pried, he refused to tell me anything about them. He was totally embarrassed about where he’d come from and simply pretended none of his family existed. I’ve done some snooping and have found nothing but dead ends. No records of our family coming to America on either side. Did they come down from Canada? Who knows. If you didn’t get put on a proper ledger when you got off the boat, there is no record of you ever having arrived in the New World. I’ve only been able to find out that they came from around Paisley, Scotland which would have been part of The Kingdom of Northumbria way back in the day.
Well back to Lent. Granddad wasn’t really religious at all. For him belonging to the Episcopal church was being part of the establishment and not part of a bunch of alcoholics. He knew damn well, as did everyone back then, that church is where you meet people who can give you advantages in life. Golf courses are like that too. So we did Lent but is was just an exercise. Granddad demanded my father and mother take us to church. They relented because he was such a overbearing dude. After church we’d go over to Granddad’s house for our weekly Sunday visit. For Lent we’d do things like not eat anything sweet for instance. It was like that for the first seven years of my life, but things changed.
Dad wasn’t religious. He’d gone to church his whole life and had been an alter boy and all that jazz. He saw everything from behind the scenes for years which truly made his think about it all. By the time he was out of high school, he’d decided the whole thing was pretty much a man-made ritual and not something that came from divine origin.
Mom was actually anti-religious. In the small town she came from in the south there were basically two options → Southern Baptists and Methodists...and racism. My mom’s family was Methodist because, as her mom put it, “Methodists are Baptists that can read.” That’s a racial slur in case you missed that. But religion in the south was like a religion. It totally defined you and was overbearing. You couldn’t escape it. She hated that. Mostly she hated the hypocrisy, which was rampant.
So, that’s it...my experience with religion through the lens of how my elders felt about it and why.
Do you observe Lent? What did you give up?
Community Building Updates
State Open Threads
Colorado: Wednesdays, 6:00 PM Mountain
Michigan: Wednesdays, 6:00 PM Eastern
North Carolina: Sundays, 1:00 PM Eastern
Washington: Sundays, 3:30 PM Pacific
Missouri: Wednesday Evenings
Kansas: Monday Evenings
Events Currently Scheduled
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13TH
TRIANGLE KOSMOPOLITANS JOIN THOUSANDS IN THE 10TH ANNUAL MASS MORAL MARCH ON RALEIGH & HKONJ PEOPLE'S ASSEMBLY GET-OUT-THE-VOTE GATHERING AND MOBILIZATION
TIMES and LOCATIONS:
Pre-rally — 9:00 AM Corner of Wilmington and South Streets near Shaw University
March — 10:00 AM to the State Capitol on Fayetteville Street • Raleigh
ORGANIZER: RSVP at Facebook to bolster their numbers!
Look for the Daily Kos — Forward Together, Not One Step Back signs to march with the Triangle Kosmopolitans!
Send a kosmail to the local Triangle Kosmopolitans or state group North Carolina Blue to connect with other readers of Daily Kos for future events.
SAVE THE DATE: February 20th! Otteray Scribe has offered his home in Northeast Tennessee. ‘Round about noon. Contact randallt for more details.
RSVPS:
1. randallt
2. Joieau
3. Mrs. unfangus
4. LamontCranston
5. Otteray Scribe
6.
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Maybees:
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The Four Corners Kossacks are having an EPIC meet-up on The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. The date is Saturday, February 20th, 2016. The cost is $27.90 PLUS fees & tax. The train begins boarding at 9:15am, and leaves the station at 9:45 sharp, and it waits for no one. Thinking Fella will be there by 9:00am for your assistance. Please RSVP to Thinking Fella, via kosmail. As of noon, 1/26/16, there were still 44 tickets left—act soon or lose the chance to join us!
For more detailed information please see: Announcing a Four Corners Kossacks Meet-up: Going to be another EPIC One!
RSVPS:
1. Thinking Fella
2. unfangus
3. Mrs. unfangus
4. COMTNGRL
5. 'Uncle John'
6. Carol R.
7. Mr. Carol R.
8. Land of Enchantment
9. jnhobbs
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Maybees:
LucyTooners
Mr. LucyTooners
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February 27th at 1PM at Ferguson Brewing Company, 418 S Florissant Rd, Ferguson, Missouri. We expect to have a few guests, good food, and we will have new data available from the state house. Netroots Nation 2016 planning is also on the menu (besides great food). More info in Chris Reeves’s diary.
navajo is going to be on vacation in NYC and the NYC Kossacks are gathering for lunch on Sunday, Feb. 28, 2016 at Noon at Spitzer's Corner - 101 Rivington Street, cross street Ludlow. Meet in the back room. This venue is wheelchair accessible.
There will be fries.
RSVPS:
1. kathny
2. belinda ridgewood
3. navajo
4. sidnora
5. aoeu
6. ericlewis0
7. joanbrooker
8.
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Maybees:
blue jersey mom
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Registration and hotels still available
Cheers & Jeers Welcoming Dinner Wednesday, July 13, 2016 Time: TBD, early evening, 5-ish or 6-ish Location: TBD, near Convention Center
Roll call for the C&J Dinner in Connect! Unite! Act! This will be the headcount for the C&J Dinner. Spread the word.
RSVPS:
1. navajo
2. Meteor Blades
3. Bill in Portland Maine
4. Common Sense Mainer
5. jotter
6. aha aha (Mrs. jotter)
7. side pocket
8. Mrs. side pocket
9. paradise50
10. smileycreek
11. Chris Reeves
12. Ramara
13. loggersbrat
14. Justice Putnam
15. theRoaringGirl
16. winkk
17. jakedog42
18. vicki
19. markm667
20. brillig (bday gurl that day!)
21. mik
22. K1
23. K2
24. Eddie in ME
25. moody in savannah
26. lulu
27. texasmom
28. texasdad
29. Ed Tracey
30. Shermanesq
31. Doggie
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Maybees:
norm winifred3
normAl1792
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There will also be a Daily Kos Caucus session during NN16. Stay tuned for date and time.
Event Reporting
The marvelous NYC Kossacks got together to welcome front pager, Laura Clawson, to NYC. And what a fantastic job they did. Look at all the people who showed up! Full report here.
nhox42 organized and reports details about a recent meet-up in Maine along with food pr0n! Cheers and Jeers/NE Kossacks Midwinter Meetup Success!
While visiting Boston, belinda ridgewood invited TrueBlueMajority to her annual Boxing Day holiday party and it became a meet-up of two Kossacks! Yay! In the meantime, an impromptu gathering occurred in NYC consisting of the Saturday Morning Garden Bloggers, Kishik, Missys Brother and Christin. Go NYC!
Houston Area Kos met on 11/24/15 for community fortitude and basic camaraderie. A good time was had by all. If you’d like to connect with other readers of Daily Kos in the Houston Area, please kosmail Chrislove, he’ll send you an invite.
navajo maintains the above event list. Kosmail her if you have any diaries about your event or if you have changes or additions.
This is an open thread. Nothing is off topic.