Joel was over at a friend's house today. The mum called and asked if he could stay over night. The catch was that he'd have to go to mass with them this evening. Joel was okay with going. He has no aversion to church. (Why would he?)
I said he could, but he needs to be home tomorrow morning in time for our church. What would you have done?
It might have been a good experience for him. Plus you could run a trade off and get that kid to come to the obviously more fun church in a couple of weeks.
ReplyDeleteThat's the plan!
ReplyDeleteStuffed if I know what I'd have done. Perhaps pass the phone to Jude...
ReplyDeleteThe obvious prior question is whether 'mass' could be swapped for 'synagogue' without affecting the answer!
I think I'd have let him go to synagogue too. We'll have stuff to talk about tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteHow old is J? Is he savvy enough to see the good and ignore / otherwise deal with the dross (every tradition has some) and only actively participate in the good? Is he capable of having a discussion with the friend and friend's family about why they do certain things? Sounds like it could make for interesting discussions.
ReplyDeleteJoel is 9.5.
ReplyDeleteI'll let you know how the discussion goes.
I'd let him go. Plenty to talk about. But then our sons went to a Japanese Catholic kindergarten...that was interesting! All sorts of Japanese cultural-religious stuff mixed up with Catholic traditions.
ReplyDeleteThey held a Mary festival once a year where they carried a statue of Mary around like they do in their Shinto festivals and then offered bouquets of flowers to her and prayed to her! We pulled out of that particular event.
Same as you. Catholics aren't THAT evil, in fact some of them are quite nice.
ReplyDeleteWhat you did. And then it would be interesting afterwards to talk about the differences he noticed.
ReplyDeleteChris and I went to a Catholic wedding mass once. I couldn't tell you the differences now but I remember feeling pleased that I had seen the way they do things.
Interesting chat.
ReplyDeleteJoel said, "I didn't wash myself with the holy water because it wasn't holy. They kept on doing this [crosses himself] at random times. I didn't go up the front. The line was too long."
What you did.
ReplyDeleteYep. Let him go and then chat with him about the experience afterwards. Definitely.
ReplyDelete