The View Up Here

A few days ago on Facebook, I posted a video by a Scottish guy sitting in the front seat of his car, his 4 year old daughter in the back, her telling him that if she wants a boyfriend, she's gonna have a boyfriend, and him telling her he's going to commit violence to said boyfriend and his da. Then he tells her she's going to be a nun (as in, not have a boyfriend or husband), and shows her his cross pendant to let her know "who she'll be working for." I have since deleted that post (the video) along with the comments that people posted (unavoidable if I was to take down the video in the original post). To those I offended by reposting that video - I apologize to you.  When I first saw this video, I thought it was funny and not at all to be taken seriously. The guy was clearly (to me) being over the top and tongue in cheek in his role as the over-protective father. I got the feeling that this was a routine or skit these two might play out, as the respo...

I'm at school right now, subbing for a religion class of Senior girls. I decided to conduct a little informal research in the form of an oral questionnaire. There are 34 girls in this class today, and of those 34, only one had heard of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Then I explained to them what the image was, and most of then nodded as if they'd seen the image before. I asked them if they knew anything about it. Only this one girl could respond. Here's what she said: Oh, isn't that where there is blood and water coming out? The water is because wasn't he given nasty water to drink? And the blood.... symbolizes something else. I asked them where they had seen this image. Almost unanimously, they reported that they'd seen it at their grandmother's home. Many of these girls are being raised by their grandmothers, in fact, so it only shows that religious art and symbols, while present, may mean nothing to them. I didn't lecture them on the Sacred Hea...