We ventured to St. John’s in the Baltimore twilight, past the mural of alligators and the rows and rows of red brick townhouses.

I have a semi-complicated past with religion; c. age eleven, my Sunday afternoons were wrenched from me in order to go to my then best-friend’s family’s church, a one time endeavor turned weekly. And that’s what I associated church with, the loss of sunny Sunday afternoons. I hated church like most children do in the sense that I heard the same stories over and over, the sermon’s were painfully long, and I didn’t like the pastor at the time. We started attending right around the time a famously amazing pastor was leaving the congregation; he took with him 80% of the regular attendees. The next pastor I can only define as a person who believed that you didn’t have to tip servers at buffet restaurants, and would take communion before, not with, the rest of the congregation. When he was finally transferred to another congregation, the parsonage was left a ratty mess of water damage and peeling wallpaper, as well as the fact that a few of our churches’ computers mysteriously left with him.

After that we had an amazing, amazing pastor who almost made me glad to go every Sunday. His wife was like a mentor to me at that point, and he had a very good attitude towards including the children (or at that point, mostly teenagers) in church activities. Then, he left too. He was only a part-time pastor at that church, and felt pulled towards other directions. I was devastated to have such influential characters in my life be taken away from me; they were what made my church going at least bearable.

After that was Ann Gordon, now Drew Phoenix, which is how my family started going to St. John’s. I stopped going to church at this point, citing my need to consider other religious paths.

Enough religion background, all I mean to say is that I feel conflicted in going to St. John’s because, well, even though they (accurately) define themselves by the saying, “This ain’t your daddy’s church,” it’s United Methodist and I’m not. I mean, somewhere it’s recorded that at age 13 I was confirmed a United Methodist; I stood infront of a congregation of family and friends and declared Jesus Christ as my savior. It’s not necessarily what I believe anymore. Is there a confirmation procedure for, “I changed my mind?” Life is too short, I think, to declare any one answer right and stop searching for a more definite conclusion. That’s my way of seeing things.

Religion is one of those topics that you should stay away from if you’re not looking for a fight, so I disclaimer all of this by saying I don’t want to say my beliefs are right (that is to say “right” being both in terms of a universal truth, or right for any one person.) My beliefs work for me, and that’s all really matters.

So this is all a round-about way of getting back to my main point, that I love attending St. John’s when I’m home, even though I don’t sing the hymns or say the prayers.

Last night’s service was interesting though, a meditation based on the ancient Ukrainian art of Pysanka .

I can assure you, our attempts were not nearly as delicate as the samples the woman who taught us brought in. She had been doing this for years.

The process is meditative in that you take a tiny tool, a kystka, or a tiny copper funnel wrapped around pencil-like wood, and heat it up over a flame. Once it’s heated, you dip it into a wedge of beeswax, and draw the wax on the hollowed egg shell. The dyeing process was what confused me a little bit in that it is layers of colors, and I can’t think that far ahead. Each part you block off with wax is what stays the last color you dyed it. Thus, the first wax design you draw onto it will be white, then you dye it the lightest color that you are going to use. You then block off what is going to stay that light color, and dye it the next darkest color. This goes on until you are done with the design. To reveal the design you’ve created, you hold your shell over the flame and let the wax melt off each layer.

This is the one I made. A noble first attempt, I think. (Spoilers to whom this is being given to, I guess )

This is me holding mom’s up to the candle, and heavily abusing the macro feature (my new love.)

All in all, squinting in the fading twilight over wax, shells, copper and candle-light, it was spiritual. I regret not attending St. John’s more, not appreciating the times I have visited more.

And I regret even more my lack of pull in my spiritual life. I am contented to believe that everyone is right in their own way, but not feel a certain way myself.

Oh well.

Tonight I went out with mom, bought a new magazine: Bust, because it featured some of the cutest crafty ads, a feature on Flight of the Conchords, New Zealand’s Fourth Most Popular Folk Parody (if you haven’t seen any of their stuff, I recommend If You’re Into It as a perfect introduction — the part with the maraca never fails to make me giggle,) and a brand of friendly, amicable feminism that I can get into. It’s the first magazine I’ve seen in a while that I’ve honestly thought about subscribing to. We went to a delicious sushi restaurant and had mom-daughter bonding. It’s been a nice day; unfortunately this was one of the last days of my break, and the first of my family’s. I didn’t get to spend much time with them.

And that’s been spring break so far. (Somewhat) more to come, I guess. We’re having a dinner party tomorrow night to celebrate our family (and friends of family’s) propensity to take artistic photos, complete with a multimedia slideshow. Then, Sunday, after I get pictures of my thyroid taken (fun fun) we’re having a sort of Bon Voyage lunch at my grandmother’s house before I take the long drive back to Roanoke.

Here’s a picture of my cat Chloe, and my car, for good measure.

I am being wholly lax here, but to be honest nothing has happened this week. That’s right, I’ve slept until noon every day and enjoyed it. I’ve played The Sims, I’ve caught up on my Stewart/Colbert viewing, I’ve picked my brother up from school every day. Tomorrow I am going to an Easter thing at my parents’ church. Perhaps I’ll have more to say tomorrow, every visit to St. John’s is worth writing about. The pastor, Drew Phoenix, is a mtf transgender, which raised a bunch of issues in the United Methodist Board. Ann Gordon used to be the pastor at our old church, and then when she moved to this one, decided to have the surgery. This church is really cool, it’s half owned by Red Emma’s the communist cafe down town. It’s also a homeless shelter during the winter months. I’ll have more to say tomorrow, I feel really tired today, mostly because I’ve done next to nothing.