The Only One Who Could Ever Reach Me Was The Son Of A Preacher Man

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This is a thread for children of the Clergy.

Me and The Lex can't be the only ones. Represent!

Or, err, make sweeping observations and generalisations about children of the clergy that you know.

When I was a teen, the stereotype was either that they were goody-goodies or else total hellions. Does it make you wilder? Drink more? More dogmatic? More open-minded?

Famous children of clergy? I just found out David Tennant is one, and it made me laff.

Sonic Smouldering Iron (kate), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:05 (seventeen years ago) link

Who is that? And which clergy is his parent?

Do Not Feed The Crush (kate), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:10 (seventeen years ago) link

Please, if you are going to contribute, can you do more than just post a picture? Perhaps a name and an explanation?

Do Not Feed The Crush (kate), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:13 (seventeen years ago) link

I don't think I ended up being either a goody-goodie (although I'm sure some here would disagree) or a hellion, but I did end up pretty fucked up thanks to religious indoctrination that I think made me less able to deal with the real world. (See: everything printed in red in the New Testament.)

We had a great, close family and I had a genuinely really happy childhood, but everything began to came crashing down in adolescence.

R_S (RSLaRue), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:15 (seventeen years ago) link

Please, if you are going to contribute, can you do more than just post a picture? Perhaps a name and an explanation?

We also contributed "LOL" and "HI DERE", don't be so reductive.

Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:16 (seventeen years ago) link

Also, I stopped going to church when I was 15, without getting hassled about it much at all by my parents, so I guess I can only complain about so much. It was obviously awkward for them.

R_S (RSLaRue), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:18 (seventeen years ago) link

Top one = Tim Westwood, the Big Dawg, son of the Bishop of Peterborough.

Boom Dershowitz (noodle vague), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:21 (seventeen years ago) link

For reference, the above are Tim Westwood, Radio 1 DJ and complete knob, whose father is a CoE bishop of somewhere or other. The other is Slobodan Milosevic, who you must surely have heard of.

xpost

ailsa (ailsa), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:22 (seventeen years ago) link

The only famous ones I can think of are Neil Hannon and the dude from 60ft Dolls.

My aunty was (something like) a granddaughter of an ex-archbishop of Canterbury (I don't know which one as not sure of her maiden name). She turned out ace: upper-class bohemian type who is inordinately clever.

emil.y (emil.y), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:22 (seventeen years ago) link

Emile Durkheim and Marvin Gaye as well.

Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:23 (seventeen years ago) link

I am assuming that Gaye Senior is no longer ordained.

Pete (Pete), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:25 (seventeen years ago) link

Haha, Neil Hannon and Carl (?) thingie were the only two I could think of too. I really should know 60ft Dolls dude's name, the amount of times I've been in the pub with him.

ailsa (ailsa), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:25 (seventeen years ago) link

Ooh, Carl Bevan!

ailsa (ailsa), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:25 (seventeen years ago) link

(that's 60ft Dolls dude, not another person over and above those already mentioned)

ailsa (ailsa), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:26 (seventeen years ago) link

daughter of a methodist pastor, tori amos:

http://www.yessaid.com/pic/piglet1.jpg

plus another two people i know in real life, neither of whom are at all religious! hurrah for THE LAPSED

lex pretend (lex pretend), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:28 (seventeen years ago) link

Tori Amos, it figures.

R_S (RSLaRue), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:31 (seventeen years ago) link

Neil Hannon, ah, yes, I'd forgotten him.

Tori Amos, I didn't know was one.

Do Not Feed The Crush (kate), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:34 (seventeen years ago) link

I rejected Christianity, my older sister became more extreme (she's a Calvinist now--also she's now very right-wing politically), and my brother (the middle child), who has stuck mostly to my father's Methodist theological orientation is still like WTF? what happened to you two? He's really baffled by both of us.

R_S (RSLaRue), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:36 (seventeen years ago) link

kelis, daughter of a pentecostal minister:

http://pub.tv2.no/multimedia/na/archive/00237/Kelis_237215y.jpg

lex pretend (lex pretend), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:39 (seventeen years ago) link

I wonder if extreme embracing or rejection of religion is part of the experience of growing up like this. You're surrounded by it, so you can't *not* have a reaction to it.

But I think part of that may be down to the very nature of it - at least of Anglicanism (can't speak for other brands of Protestantism, and obviously Catholics aren't supposed to participate) - that the Anglican clergy is at least supposed to be educated. That intellectual attidude gets passed down. Also, Protestantism is supposed to be about personal experience of God, so it leaves latitude to examine this faith - and perhaps reject it.

Sorry, my thoughts are ill formed at the moment and I'm not sure where I'm getting.

Do Not Feed The Crush (kate), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:41 (seventeen years ago) link

In stating the obvious, part 22,000 - I'm not surprised many musicians come out of the church, considering that music is so much a part of many churches. I certainly got my early musical training at our church. I dropped the church, but kept the music.

Do Not Feed The Crush (kate), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:48 (seventeen years ago) link

The only famous one I can think of ... the dude from 60ft Dolls

benrique (Enrique), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:49 (seventeen years ago) link

I think I know what you are saying. It was definitely presented as a personal decision, not something that one just believed because it was handed down. (So in a way I am still culturally Protestant in my rejection of the whole thing. Like some sort of reductio ad absurdum.) Being a nominal Christian never seemed like a real option.

x-post

R_S (RSLaRue), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:52 (seventeen years ago) link

He was sort of famous in Melody Maker precisely BECAUSE his father was a bishop who didn't take too kindly to the rock'n'roll excesses of his wayward son.

xpost

ailsa (ailsa), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:55 (seventeen years ago) link

the weird thing about anglican clergy children is that they are probably the ONLY people in the entirety of the anglican church who are raised on a diet of anglicanism-as-religion. for most kids with anglican upbringings, it consists mostly of sunday school classes when v little, church at xmas and easter, gestures rather than any sense of religion pervading every part of your life - in contrast to catholicism obv.

so wrt to the truism that when catholic kids lapse, they tend to LAPSE (and inevitably return, or at least cannot fully get away from, the fold), but that a protestant upbringing is merely preparation for a gradual and vague slide into atheism, doesn't really apply. so i've personally often felt more affinity for those raised catholic (esp as my parents were basically anglo-catholic in belief).

anglican clergy children do tend to have more intellectual curiosity - if they're clever to start with, anyway. it tends to manifest itself in very esoteric areas though (greek mythology usually a favourite), none of which include anything remotely to do with pop culture. they tend to have read a lot of victorian novels by the time they hit double digits.

lex pretend (lex pretend), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:56 (seventeen years ago) link

Ha ha, the reductio ad absurdum of Protestantism is eventually to become an Atheist. I like that.

I do also see what you're saying, Lex. Lapsed Catholics often understood the kind of *wrestling* I did with Christianity being woven into the fabric of my life (and the usual goth/Satanist/wiccan sort of stages) in a way that those gentle Anglicans who had lapsed into a gentle sort of atheism that they weren't really bothered about could never quite seem to do.

it tends to manifest itself in very esoteric areas though (greek mythology usually a favourite), none of which include anything remotely to do with pop culture. they tend to have read a lot of victorian novels by the time they hit double digits.

Ha ha ha, this could almost exactly describe an ex-boyfriend of mine - whose father, funnily enough, went to the same Seminary as my mum.

Do Not Feed The Crush (kate), Thursday, 4 January 2007 14:03 (seventeen years ago) link

my parents are not religious

RJG (RJG), Thursday, 4 January 2007 14:05 (seventeen years ago) link

so wrt to the truism that when catholic kids lapse, they tend to LAPSE (and inevitably return, or at least cannot fully get away from, the fold), but that a protestant upbringing is merely preparation for a gradual and vague slide into atheism, doesn't really apply.

This also doesn't really apply to those raised by happy-clappy fundie Evangelicals. Amongst whom the division between clergy and congregation is much less formal anyway - anyone who shows a bit of enthusiasm for it and says the right things can become a 'worship leader' or have a turn at teaching teh Bible etc...

Flyboy (Flyboy), Thursday, 4 January 2007 14:06 (seventeen years ago) link

kate otm re the wrestling with religion you have to do! at various points during my childhood i was FERVENTLY christian, at others equally fervently atheist (happily, this one stuck from around the age of 11).

lex pretend (lex pretend), Thursday, 4 January 2007 14:14 (seventeen years ago) link

I've been fervently anti-Christian, or indeed anti-Religion, but I think I ever will be able to be an atheist. Some kind of belief is too deeply implanted into me. Plus, I have seen the *good* that religion did some people, from being that close to a parish, so I cannot discount it entirely.

But that's just me.

Do Not Feed The Crush (kate), Thursday, 4 January 2007 14:25 (seventeen years ago) link

i was pretty religious when i was young. it was ace.

now i'm less religious. like 'laughing about it' or soemthing.

ken c (ken c), Thursday, 4 January 2007 14:29 (seventeen years ago) link

Are yr parents clergy, Ken C?

Do Not Feed The Crush (kate), Thursday, 4 January 2007 14:35 (seventeen years ago) link

no wai! i went to a christian school though (actually my first school was Catholic, and later it was Anglican), and then when i was young some dudes from a baptist church came and talked in our school and i started going to church.. it was awesome!

ken c (ken c), Thursday, 4 January 2007 14:44 (seventeen years ago) link

I had to start going to church when I was about five because my dad is a Methodist minister, and so was his dad, and even though my dad is a pretty famously "bad" minister insofar as he makes his own wine and married jailed members of the Weathermen Underground and never was a pastor or anything, I think he still felt it incumbent upon himself to take literally the sacrament of baptism, administered by my grandfather, to "raise [me] in the Christian faith", although I'm not even sure he would admit it. That stuff runs deeper and stronger than anyone likes to admit. Until my grandfather died last year, at Christmas my dad would hide the wine in the cellar until after he left.

Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 4 January 2007 14:49 (seventeen years ago) link

HERROES! My dad was a cantor and is becoming a rabbi.

The synagoguge was very large, so I always felt like the son of some minor public figure.

I guess I did wind up rejecting religion, but not in a particularly violent way.

A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Thursday, 4 January 2007 15:05 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh, Jessica and Thingy Simpson, right?

mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 4 January 2007 15:07 (seventeen years ago) link

i can't believe i forgot them

lex pretend (lex pretend), Thursday, 4 January 2007 15:07 (seventeen years ago) link

Punt or Dennis is a Bishop's son too I think.

Boom Dershowitz (noodle vague), Thursday, 4 January 2007 15:10 (seventeen years ago) link

I thought their Dad was a pimp?

Boom Dershowitz (noodle vague), Thursday, 4 January 2007 15:12 (seventeen years ago) link

one of Basement Jaxx i think

reverto levidensis (blueski), Thursday, 4 January 2007 15:12 (seventeen years ago) link

kate, tracer and all - remember when you first moved away from home and all of a sudden could do whatever the hell you wanted with your sunday? that feeling lasted years.

xp yeah felix from the jaxx's dad is a vicar. he was classically-trained. lots of clergy children are.

lex pretend (lex pretend), Thursday, 4 January 2007 15:13 (seventeen years ago) link

And it's Hugh Dennis' dad who's a bishop of somewhere.

ailsa (ailsa), Thursday, 4 January 2007 15:14 (seventeen years ago) link

Lex, that feeling came when I was about 17 or 18 and finally won the right not to have to go to Church.

What felt weird was when my mum was here visiting me, and wanted to go round and figure out where the churches were and visit all the local clergy and everything. (For some reason she never got the nerve up to go and say hi to the Refuge Temple across the road.) She said she wasn't going to go to church AT ALL while she was here. But she went on Christmas Eve morning anyway. And then kept saying on New Years Eve day how odd it was, not to be going to church. I swear she gave me a sermon instead, just because she missed it. :-P

Do Not Feed The Crush (kate), Thursday, 4 January 2007 15:17 (seventeen years ago) link

Ha ha ha ha ha, I don't think I've told the story on ILX about my mum trying to visit the Archbishop while she was here.

Do Not Feed The Crush (kate), Thursday, 4 January 2007 15:20 (seventeen years ago) link

My paternal grandfather was a fallen Southern Baptist minister with dark secrets and illicit affairs and bastard kids, the repercussions of which trickled down to me in the form of an actively religious choir director father with dark secrets and illicit affairs and bastard kids.

I'm an atheist.

Party Time Country Female (pullapartgirl), Thursday, 4 January 2007 15:31 (seventeen years ago) link

Ha ha ha. That does tend to happen... and the other way around, too.

My dad came from a long line of Presbyterian and Dissenting and Wesleyan and More Protestant Than The Protestants Ministers - and he is a dedicated atheist.

My mum came from a long line of Atheists and Freethinkers - and she is an Priest.

Go figure.

I'm just confused.

Do Not Feed The Crush (kate), Thursday, 4 January 2007 15:34 (seventeen years ago) link

Kate, please to tell Marg0 v. Archbishop.

suzy (suzy), Thursday, 4 January 2007 15:38 (seventeen years ago) link

i never lived in a rectory.

When we moved to new england it was at a time when real estate prices were super high so the church helped with a down payment, but my parents still owned the house.

must be kind of weird though, for those who did.

mahalo 4 ur kokua (grady), Friday, 5 January 2007 05:18 (seventeen years ago) link

My college roommate, Dean Johnson.

http://a509.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/13/l_073052cbf733d605cd96b3611b44f0f4.jpg

Great guy, wish I'd kept in touch.

Arthurgh! A Music War (Arthur), Friday, 5 January 2007 05:34 (seventeen years ago) link

Parsonage.

aimurchie (aimurchie), Friday, 5 January 2007 05:39 (seventeen years ago) link

parsonage. of course.

mahalo 4 ur kokua (grady), Friday, 5 January 2007 05:43 (seventeen years ago) link

My dad left the seminary to become a lawyer.

Tape Store (Tape Store), Friday, 5 January 2007 06:25 (seventeen years ago) link

My Dad's a United Church of Christ minister, and I grew up in a parsonage[*].
During the blizzard of 78, I was ten years old, and all the snow got
plowed into the big parking lot inbetween my house and the church.
FUCKING RULED.
I turned athiest at 8 though. My dad didn't (doesn't) have a problem
with that. We like some of the same religious writers actually (or at least
Kazantzakis).
[*] Although I don't remember ever hearing that term growing up. What
do UCC types call it?

shieldforyoureyes (shieldforyoureyes), Friday, 5 January 2007 06:54 (seventeen years ago) link

My uncle is a canon, boom boom, the whole of that side of the family are deeply religious. My auld man is an organ enthusiast (ahem) several of the family have organs in their homes - big ones with pipes and shit - and gather round on a sunday evening with hymnbooks to drown out the cicadas.

I am not religious at all.

Rumpsy Pumpsy (Rumpie), Friday, 5 January 2007 07:49 (seventeen years ago) link

I think the weird part for ministers kids is growing up in a house your family does not own.

i never really noticed this!

lex pretend (lex pretend), Friday, 5 January 2007 09:40 (seventeen years ago) link

it's also not terribly weird anyway, hi dere council housing.

benrique (Enrique), Friday, 5 January 2007 09:48 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, it's probably not that weird. Our house was down the street from the church. Living right next door (or in the front yard) of the church might be a tiny bit weird. maybe the weird part is knowing the church - the congregation - sort of own your parent and your home.
And God is your fathers boss. That's always gonna be weird.

aimurchie (aimurchie), Friday, 5 January 2007 15:53 (seventeen years ago) link

i would have loved having church within walking distance from home.

waiting around forever after services were done and being the last car out of the parking lot every fucking week was near-traumatic. i still get twitchy on Sunday afternoons.

mahalo 4 ur kokua (grady), Friday, 5 January 2007 17:23 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh, Jessica and Thingy Simpson, right?

Actually, I think you'll find its Thingee Simpson.

Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 5 January 2007 17:45 (seventeen years ago) link

This thread is provoking all sorts of memories.
I got chastised by both of my parents for fidgeting in church, one Sunday. I kept getting up, and then sitting back down. Because I thought I was sitting on God's long, flowing white beard! I was very concerned that God couldn't float around, as he is wont to do. i was six, so forgive me.

I liked cleaning up after communion - retrieving the communion cups from the cup holders in the back of the pews. And pouring sweet juice down my throat. (not much has changed, there!)

My father kept a key under the altar - perhaps a key to one of the doors of the church? - and I was the only one small enough to crawl behind, and under, the altar to get the key. I loved it! It was the best secret hiding place ever! Thinking about it now, of course, makes me nervous about the implications of LOVING being under the altar.

The God=boss part is always going to be weird, I think. being a ministers daughter meant lots and lots of attention. And maybe i was savvy enough, at six, to figure out that all these people were paying attention to me because my father was in charge of their mortal souls.

My parents conducted a very seventies, churchie type club for married parishioners - the Ball and Chain Club! Which would be referenced in conversation - "You need to go to bed because the Ball and Chain Club is coming over!"

Anywhoo, my three brothers went to St. Thomas choir school around the same time as my father having this church. St. Thomas is about as high church as you can get, without moving to England. When my parents divorced, and my dad moved back to Scotland, I horrified everyone in the tiny Church of Scotland parish by genuflecting.

I was baptised Protestant, confirmed Episcopalian. An Episco-Prot.

my brother is graduating from Yale Divinity this year. it will be fun to see where he ends up - because he is a great preacher, already. He truly uderstands what a parish is - he's a good shepherd, and all that, I guess.

Until he is "placed" - or hired (the Anglican Bishops have a lot of sway in where and how anyone gets placed), I have been enjoying going to lots of different churches. (Waiting to go to my brother's church!)
I like the UCC in Northampton - because it was founded by Jonatahn Edwards, and there's a fierce statue of him in the sanctuary. "Sinner's In The Hands of An Angry God!" The pastor has written some great treatises about Jonathan Edwards and his image in the sanctuary.
I like the free thinking Unitarians - but I miss the churchiness.
Not so fond of the Catholic church - probably because I'm not Catholic. But the pageantry is good.

I call it "church shopping". And I think seeking an experience, a portal, a temple....is a valid activity to pursue.


aimurchie (aimurchie), Friday, 5 January 2007 18:10 (seventeen years ago) link

As much fun as it is to refer to God as "my mum's boss" in reality, it isn't strictly true. The Bishops and Archbishops kinda come first...

Do Not Feed The Crush (kate), Friday, 5 January 2007 18:30 (seventeen years ago) link

Arthurgh!, I love love love Dean Johnson and the Velvet Mafia. His email address is on the band's website if you want to get in touch.

Je4nn3 Fuhfuh (Je4nne Fury), Friday, 5 January 2007 18:34 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh, also, my pop was in the seminary.

Je4nn3 Fuhfuh (Je4nne Fury), Friday, 5 January 2007 18:36 (seventeen years ago) link

My dad got some sort of official reprimand for ranting against Nixon
from the pulpit, back in the day. Ha ha.
I remember him taking me to the top of the steeple once. Which involved
a few levels of successively narrower staircases, then one or two levels
of tall laders leading through trap doors. Very nice.
Having the sunday school's playground entirely to myself for every week
minus an hour or two was swell.
I'm not really sure what my mindset was at that point (at 8 or so) but I
do recall that I wanted to be a terrorist when I grew up. Don't remember
what inspired that... SLA? Red Army Faction? **SPK**?

shieldforyoureyes (shieldforyoureyes), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:24 (seventeen years ago) link

i went through a phase where my chosen answer to "what do you want to be when you grow up?" was "a ninja for the CIA."

mahalo 4 ur kokua (grady), Saturday, 6 January 2007 01:44 (seventeen years ago) link

we could have grown up and fought eachother in secret wars.

mahalo 4 ur kokua (grady), Saturday, 6 January 2007 01:45 (seventeen years ago) link

My dad left the seminary to foment left-wing revolution.

jimn (jimnaseum), Saturday, 6 January 2007 02:14 (seventeen years ago) link

I don't think Protestants have bishops and arch-bishops. So it might be more of a "Nearer My God To Thee" thingy.
I don't know that much about the governing body of UCC. That's the problem with Episco-Prots, in general. Lost between two similar, but very different, forms of faith!

Discussions of hymns are sort of de rigeur in my family. It can be very off putting to an interloper. Singing the doxology, in three or four part harmony, is expected. (or, maybe, graciously encouraged.)

"The Churches One Foundation" was one of my first memorized hymns - and it still haunts me because of the marriage part. I get it now, but at the time I could not figure out how Jesus got married and died for his bride. Mary confusion! Plot summary please!

I'm a HUGE fan of "Come Labor On".

aimurchie (aimurchie), Saturday, 6 January 2007 05:10 (seventeen years ago) link

Hymn recognition happens to me all the time -- some movie character like the cleaning lady will start singing as she works and I'll have "O for a Thousand Tongues to Praise" or "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" stuck in my head for the rest of the flick. I don't mind that much, the old Covenant & Methodist hymnals have such rich arrangements. New ones are almost always stripped down and musically poorer, which is frustrating.

Laurel (Laurel), Saturday, 6 January 2007 05:20 (seventeen years ago) link

Laurel - did you grow up in a Covenant church?

mahalo 4 ur kokua (grady), Saturday, 6 January 2007 05:22 (seventeen years ago) link

I did!

Laurel (Laurel), Saturday, 6 January 2007 05:27 (seventeen years ago) link

I went to CHIC twice and everything.

Laurel (Laurel), Saturday, 6 January 2007 05:28 (seventeen years ago) link

omg. i was at chic 1980 when i was one week old.

mahalo 4 ur kokua (grady), Saturday, 6 January 2007 05:28 (seventeen years ago) link

Hah! I went in '91 and '94 (as CHIC-plus). Where are you from?

Laurel (Laurel), Saturday, 6 January 2007 05:30 (seventeen years ago) link

haha. my dad is a cov. pastor. he's been at every chic since 1980. if you went to "swim-in theatre" or "block party" at either of those, you have his genius to thank.

he was a pastor in kansas and mass. when i was younger, but we moved to AZ 15 years ago and he's still a pastor there.

i graduated from NPU and everything.

where did you grow up?

mahalo 4 ur kokua (grady), Saturday, 6 January 2007 05:33 (seventeen years ago) link

West Michigan, town of Whitehall. I went to CHIC with Forest Park, though, cos they were bigger than us and could rent buses and plan bike trips and everything (I was in a group that biked from mid-Michigan to Bloomington, IN in '91!). And oh fuck yeah, the "block party". This is hi-larious.

Laurel (Laurel), Saturday, 6 January 2007 05:34 (seventeen years ago) link

BUT THEN I SPOILED IT ALL BY GOING TO CALVIN COLLEGE OMG.

Laurel (Laurel), Saturday, 6 January 2007 05:36 (seventeen years ago) link

jesus forgives you, laurel.

mahalo 4 ur kokua (grady), Saturday, 6 January 2007 05:38 (seventeen years ago) link

I have so many pictures from both trips! Somewhere. But no scanner.

Laurel (Laurel), Saturday, 6 January 2007 05:38 (seventeen years ago) link

Jesus better fucking forgive me, I lived on a dry campus with opposite-sex visiting hours for two years and took the theology requirement. If Protestants believed in Purgatory, I'd have it out of the way already.

Laurel (Laurel), Saturday, 6 January 2007 05:39 (seventeen years ago) link

i'm a bit younger. i did chic 97 and was on staff (at the skatepark) in 00 and 03.

mahalo 4 ur kokua (grady), Saturday, 6 January 2007 05:40 (seventeen years ago) link

Were they both in Ft Collins? Or where? CHIC+ was technically sold to us as "staffy" but when we got there we didn't have anything extra to do that I can recall. I'm not sure why they went back on the idea that you're only supposed to go once, unless it was just the popularity of the event. We DID get to stay in really nice hotel rooms, though, because they ran out of on-campus housing.

Laurel (Laurel), Saturday, 6 January 2007 05:42 (seventeen years ago) link

I snuck onto your thread under cover of night, though -- I am not a PK of any stripe.

Laurel (Laurel), Saturday, 6 January 2007 05:46 (seventeen years ago) link

i went to chic at ft collins but the two i worked on as staff were in Knoxville.

i think that chic plus thing only lasted one year.

i was going to go back and work the skatepark with my dad this past summer but moving out here got in the way.

the big scandal in 03 was that they were going to change the name starting in 06 but i think they got talked out of it. one of the main reasons: at the time, chic.com was registered as a porn site. i'm not sure why they ended up keeping it.

mahalo 4 ur kokua (grady), Saturday, 6 January 2007 05:47 (seventeen years ago) link

It's kind of adorable that they opened a skatepark at some point. When I was going the skaters were still the bad boys, and were going out at night to grind curbs an' shit.

Laurel (Laurel), Saturday, 6 January 2007 05:50 (seventeen years ago) link

it was my mom's pet project for four straight chics! they call her the skatepark lady.

mahalo 4 ur kokua (grady), Saturday, 6 January 2007 05:53 (seventeen years ago) link

also, getting back on topic: my mom plays drums in the church band.

but i miss the organ n' hymn church music of my youth. all this praise chorus, read the power-point screen shlock doesn't do anything for me. (though i still enjoy hearing my mother play the drums).

mahalo 4 ur kokua (grady), Saturday, 6 January 2007 05:56 (seventeen years ago) link

I agree, my parents went to a church called "Celebration" for a while, in a converted elementary school, and I hate that powerpoint schtick more than I can express at this hour (and on wine). Praise choruses are for Portage Lake Covenant Bible Camp and campfires on hiking trips AND THEY SHOUDL STAY THERE.

Laurel (Laurel), Saturday, 6 January 2007 06:04 (seventeen years ago) link

portage lake is on the list of covenant camps i have not been to. i've been to about half though.

mahalo 4 ur kokua (grady), Saturday, 6 January 2007 06:08 (seventeen years ago) link

More hymns please.
i recall some warbling of "Onward Christian Soldiers" during the UCC years.

aimurchie (aimurchie), Saturday, 6 January 2007 06:31 (seventeen years ago) link

two months pass...
My mum just sent me this:

Garrison Keillor on Episcopalians
(Adapted from an essay by Garrison Keillor)

We make fun of Episcopalians for their blandness, their excessive calm, their fear of giving offense, their lack of speed and also for their secret fondness for macaroni and cheese. But nobody sings like them. If you were to ask an audience in Des Moines, a relatively Episcopalianless place, to sing along on the chorus of "Michael Row the Boat Ashore," they will look daggers at you as if you had asked them to strip to their underwear. But if you do this among Episcopalians, they'd smile and row that boat ashore and up on the beach! ....And down the road!

Many Episcopalians are bred from childhood to sing in four-part harmony, a talent that comes from sitting on the lap of someone singing alto or tenor or bass and hearing the harmonic intervals by putting your little head against that person's rib cage. It's natural for Episcopalians to sing in harmony. We are too modest to be soloists, too worldly to sing in unison.

When you're singing in the key of C and you slide into the A7th and D7th chords, all two hundred of you, it's an emotionally fulfilling moment. By our joining in harmony, we somehow promise that we will not forsake each other.

I do believe this, people: Episcopalians, who love to sing in four-part harmony are the sort of people you could call up when you're in deep distress. If you are dying, they will comfort you. If you are lonely, they'll talk to you. And if you are hungry, they'll give you tuna salad!

Episcopalians believe in prayer, but would practically die if asked to pray out loud. Episcopalians like to sing, except when confronted with a new hymn or a hymn with more than four stanzas.

Episcopalians believe their rectors will visit them in the hospital, even if they don't notify them that they are there.

Episcopalians usually follow the official liturgy and will feel it is their way of suffering for their sins.

Episcopalians believe in miracles and even expect miracles, especially during their stewardship visitation programs or when passing the plate.

Episcopalians feel that applauding for their children's choirs will not make the kids too proud and conceited.

Episcopalians think that the Bible forbids them from crossing the aisle while passing the peace.

Episcopalians drink coffee as if it were the Third Sacrament.

Episcopalians feel guilty for not staying to clean up after their own wedding reception in the Fellowship Hall.

Episcopalians are willing to pay up to one dollar for a meal at church.

Episcopalians still serve Jell-O in the proper liturgical color of the season and Episcopalians believe that it is OK to poke fun at themselves and never take themselves too seriously.

And finally, you know you are an Episcopalian when:
-It's 100 degrees, with 90% humidity, and you still have coffee after the service.
-You hear something really funny during the sermon and smile as loudly as you can.
-Donuts are a line item in the church budget, just like coffee.
-When you watch a Star Wars movie and they say, "May the Force be with you," and you respond, "and also with you."
-And lastly, it takes ten minutes to say good-bye . . . .

Masonic Boom, Friday, 9 March 2007 11:30 (seventeen years ago) link

(I didn't just have the urge to say "...and also with you" but to sing it. In four-part harmony.

Masonic Boom, Friday, 9 March 2007 11:31 (seventeen years ago) link

I think the weird part for ministers kids is growing up in a house your family does not own.

A friend of mine was the Lutheran pastor's daughter here (bad grammar, sorry). The biggest wrench for her was them leaving the amazing house they had in the city Centre (opposite the Eye & Ear Hospital) to move home. She had moved out by then but it was definitely Home.

kv_nol, Friday, 9 March 2007 12:19 (seventeen years ago) link

Protestants most definitely do have bishops!!

Tracer Hand, Friday, 9 March 2007 12:25 (seventeen years ago) link

I think the weird part for ministers kids is growing up in a house your family does not own.

Mister Monkey is a bank manager's son, and they do this too. It does seem strange.

accentmonkey, Friday, 9 March 2007 12:32 (seventeen years ago) link

one month passes...
Whoa, this is one I did not know.

http://www.leica-camera.us/assets/media/img9504.jpg

Masonic Boom, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:46 (seventeen years ago) link

Thread about preacher's kids? Me to thread.

My parents bought a house at age... 45? Because the new church gave them a housing allowance instead of a manse. They're paying the mortgage until they're well old.

What's weird is how my dad treated religion and church as less of a lifestyle and more of a job. Like, we only ever said "grace" when there was company from church, to keep up appearances or something. It really made me realize how church is more of a community thing and less of a god thing (at least, to canajun presbys)

Will M., Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:51 (seventeen years ago) link


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