I never thought this early on in my blogging hobby that I would have to write an apology and a retraction all in the same post. Wonders never do cease! I have to do both, retract, and apologise because the other month I learned something new.
In my previous post I wrote about C and how she thought a book of the bible was called "Judith" and then quickly learned while rifling through her bible that indeed there was not a book called Judith. Well, not in our King James version of the Bible, nor was the book of Judith found in the New International version and we took peek in the little Gideon Bible and Judith was not found anywhere. We looked in all of our Christian/Protestant standard bibles that we have in the house and no Judith. I am now standing corrected.
How was I corrected? Very nicely, by a cleaning client of mine, who has bible knowledge that is much much greater than mine, that every time I chat with my cleaning client I walk away knowing a little more than when I walked in.
I did a quick Google search on the book of Judith and indeed there is a book in the bible called Judith. Who would have thunk it? Not me! I do know that Catholic bibles have a few extra books in their bibles that Christian bibles don't have. Now I don't know why that is, I have not gone to seminary nor is that in my grand plan for the future. But, I do know a little bit about Catholics, like just a teeny tiny bit and I'm going to get to that part in a minute. Now for the retraction part of this blog and little FYI.
I'm going to tell you a bit about Judith, that mysterious and wise woman Judith. I'm not going to write a lot about her , because you can do your own Google Search and read it for yourself. Plus I have the apology part of this blog that I need to get to at some point otherwise C will be a teenager full of extra angst.
According to Wikipedi, this woman Judith was a daring and beautiful widow, and she was mad at her fellow Jewish countrymen for not trusting God to save them from their enemies. Judith and her loyal maid (why does the maid have to go too? I don't get that.) head off to the enemy camp and basically, with her feminine ways and her allure, promises the General of the enemy camp information on the Israelites which are her people. When she gains the General's trust with her allure, the General invites Judith into his tent for a lovely nightcap...very "Loveboat" style. Well, the General can't hold his liquor, and Judith, she does what all daring ticked off widows do, she decapitates the General and brings his head home as as a trophy. The enemy just can't keep it together without their leader so they disperse, and Israel is saved. There's a lesson here, always send a woman in to do a man's job. Nuff said about Judith, and no one really knows if this story of Judith is fact or fiction.
Now for the apology part:
Dear C,
Sorry for not believing you about the book of Judith. Seriously, who would have thought that your Catholic brain would have kicked in overpowering your Protestant brain? You have only been to a Catholic church a handful of times, when you were little. I guess it's true, little brains are sponges and soak everything in, and you soaked in some Catholic knowledge and didn't even know it. Don't use it all up, your Catholic knowledge may come in handy one day, you may never know when you need that information, like when you are on a game show or a trivia contest that's being held at a bar in unversity.
Once again, so sorry for doubting you and thank goodness for Google.
Love Mom.
As for C's Catholic brain, she's a bit of an Irish Rover song, but in reverse. The Irish Rover version is, "Oh, it is the greatest mix up that you have ever seen, me father he was Orange and me mother she was Green." In C's case, her mother she is Orange and her father he is Green. Orange being Protestant, and Green being Catholic.
As a little girl, C would be sent every once and awhile to visit her Green grandma, and Green grandma would bring C to church with her...Catholic church, a very cute Catholic church on top of a hill. For the most part, C didn't ever mind going to the Catholic church, which was so different from her own Orange church. She was a keen observer of Catholic rituals, from the kneeling, the standing, more kneeling, the light in the little box, the stained glass windows, kneeling again, and the wafers people received at communion.
Oh, that wafer, it holds such disappointment in C's eyes. For years she watched people go up to see the priest, receive the blessing, the wafer, and walk back to their pew, savouring their little morsel of goodness, in C's eyes, lip smacking goodness. She waited her turn patiently for a few years, and finally one glorious Sunday morning, it was her turn to be invited up with her Green grandma to receive what all the other parishioners were receiving, that little morsel of lip smacking goodness that the priest slid onto their lips.
"It's not chocolate Mom." Is what I heard when C came home from Green grandma's house. "All these years, and waiting for my turn to go up and get a piece of chocolate, and it's not chocolate at all. It's just a dry piece of nothing. I thought people were getting something good, it looked like something that would melt in your mouth, like white chocolate. I thought it was a white chocolate wafer, like the kind you get at the Bulk Barn store. It's not."
From that moment on, the Green part of C's brain was turned off and the Orange part was back upfront and centre. She felt as if she had been lied to and never returned to the little Catholic church on top of the hill. Although, she did mention if the Catholic church did start handing out pieces of chocolate, she would consider going back. I told her not to hold her breath.
Thus concludes our story of Judith, that wise, daring and apparently beautiful woman. I hope you all leave this blog a little wiser in the Orange and the Green. :)
From the 4th line,
Arlene
