And now for something completely different...

As you may have noticed, I've been pretty obsessed with the excommunications in Brazil. This was pretty much the last straw for me and Catholicism, and as such I attended an Anglican church today.

IT. WAS. AWESOME.

Seriously, this place was full of the most hilarious of old ladies, one of whom kept calling me "Marilyn." Everyone was really nice. They all knew I'd never been there before (I guess it's a pretty tight-knit parish) and made sure I came to the rec room for coffee and cake after the service and got introduced to everyone. It was amazing. Another cool thing is that the closing hymn ("The King of Glory" - one of my favourites. I'm going to assume the Anglicans stole it from the Catholics and not the other way around) was done at a tempo so fast that most of the congregation had trouble keeping up, which was hilarious. It made me think of my dad, because he always bitches about how all the songs at Catholic Mass sound like funeral marches. If they don't play "Joy to the World" quickly enough at Christmas, he just sings it at the tempo he feels it should be... at the top of his lungs. My dad is hilarious.

Anyway, I digress. I wanted to talk about what I thought was most remarkable about the service I attended today. Check out the poem the reverend read during his sermon:

GOD'S NATURE

Sometimes we think what we are saying about God

is true when in fact

it is not.

It would seem of value to differentiate between what is

God's nature and what is false about Love.

I have come to learn that the truth never harms

or frightens.

I have come to learn that

God's compassion and light can never be limited;

thus any God who could condemn is

not a god at all

but some disturbing image in the

mind of a

child

we best ignore, until we

can cure the

dark.

This is pretty much the best thing I have ever heard uttered in a church. Not to sound tacky or anything, but my heart started singing when the reverend read this. I went up to him (while eating cake - which turned out to be angel food, of course) to ask what the poem was because I was so excited about it. It's from a book called Love Poems from God, by Daniel Ladinsky, which I went out immediately after church and bought. Then I came home and read the poem to my grandma, who also went out and immediately bought the book. There are some other gems in there too. I highly recommend checking it out.

Also, I can't remember the last time I was this excited about church. I can't wait for next Sunday.