Gratuitous Swimming the Tiber Posting

[Sooper-sekret note to Steve-O: This post is Church-politics free. Easy there, big fellah.]

I had a dream last evening that I was attending Mass. In the middle of it, a woman who looked very much like a cross between Tilda Swinton and Glenda Jackson (beautiful and cruel at the same time) came and sat down next to me. Before she could conceal it in the folds of the fur coat she wore, I saw that she had in her hands a long, sharp pair of scissors. I was positive that she meant to stab me with them and sprang to my feet in fear. As our pal Sleepy Beth would say, and then I woke up, only to discover that I had in fact sprung out of bed as well.

Whoa.

Now I have anxiety dreams of this sort on a very regular basis, but this is the first time I can recall having one in a specifically religious context. I suppose it comes of a combination of several factors:

-- Taking under consideration Jesus' words about not blowing horns and otherwise acting like a hypocrite, I may say that I have taken my Lenten obligations far more seriously this year than ever before (although I still could do much, much better). This has definitely had a mental, physical and spiritual impact on me in a lot of different ways and, apparently, has now got right down into my subconscious as well. (I suppose this means that I'm doing something right.)

-- In preparation for being received, I turned in all my registration bumf to my new Church this week. It's just a simple form, plus copies of my baptismal and marriage certificates, but handing them in had a real Crossing the Rubicon feel to it.

-- While my very old-fashioned Palie mother has come around in full support, the Missus remains extremely skittish about this whole business. She puts as brave a face on it as she can but she really doesn't fool me. Naturally, this is a continual source of worry (and sadness) for me, exacerbated by the fact that I don't even have the skill and vocabulary to adequately explain just what the heck I'm doing and why.

-- I suddenly realized the other day that if I'm received into the Church at the beginning of the Easter Vigil Mass as scheduled, then it will be on the first anniversary of Dad's death. It's probably just as well that the Old Gentleman isn't around for it, as he would have had conniptions (or, as I remarked to Mom the other day, if he weren't already under the earth, this would have put him there). Ironically, though, I flipped back through the archives of the religious posts I've done since then, and it's abundantly clear (at least to me) that his death - much more so than any issue of TEC politics - was the prime driver in finally sending me in this direction. Go figure.

The upshot of all this? There's an awful lot of stuff banging around in Robbo's brain at the moment. Looks like I picked a heckuva Lent to quit drinking.