Churcheesus

My daughter's new favourite word is:

Churcheesus.

We were on our way to a party at the home of a family that runs the Church nursery last night, and we were telling her all about the party, that these people are from Church, the nursery people.... "Abby? Remember little Joey at Church? Well we're going to Joey's house!"

On the way to "Joey's house" she came out with the word:

"Churcheesus".

Abby loves Church, Abby loves Jesus, so I guess in her stage of learning language, she decided to combine the two, just as she did for her other new word "basu-shan" (short for Basil-Parmesan - a wonderful new salad dressing from President's Choice).

Now before you think that my daughter is a super spiritual two year old, remember Church also has a nursery full of kids and toys to play with. And when you actually ask my daughter "do you like Church"? She responds:

Yes!

Toys!

Jesus!

Its refreshing to see that for a two year old, Church and faith is not about discipline, or ethical dilemmas, as my faith had been for me since I entered my teenage years. I stopped going to Church once I left home in the 1980's as I just couldn't see how it could possibly relate to my life. I had so many issues and concerns I felt like a hypocrite attending Mass. I started going again when I turned 30, as my life had hit an all time low. I had just broken up with my live-in boyfriend of 5 years, had no job, no income and nowhere to live. I moved in with my brother and lived on his couch for 7 months as I tried to sort out my life. At that time, I started going to the Church that I still attend - Blessed Sacrament. Since that time, faith has been all about finding a way to wrestle with crushing loss and pain. It's not been easy, but it's really been a life saver for me. I'm glad my parents pushed me to go to church and to Catholic school. Without that, I'm sure I'd be completely lost today.

However, for my two year old child, Church is just about the toys. And the kids. And the cool picture of Jesus on the wall of the playroom.

But maybe she's on to something. God does speak to us through our children. Shouldn't our faith just really be about bringing us joy?

And despite my overwhelming pain and difficulties these past few years, I have had moments of joy brought to me by faith. Knowing that our time here on earth is just a blip and we WILL be reunited with our lost loved ones someday. That our pain and our struggle here on earth WILL end someday. And also that being here on earth really is a gift - a temporary gift of exploring all that is beautiful and wonderful on this planet. And there really are some amazing things here.

I hate language training

Out of commission recently, spending my time pratiquer la langue francaise....

J'ai mon examen orale demain matin. Bonne chance a moi!!!!!!!!