At Least We (They?) Have Fun

I joined a new church last summer. And really, we joined a new religion entirely. I was born and raised Catholic. I was married in a Catholic church, and the wee ones are baptized Catholic.

We left the Catholic church though for a number of reasons, the final straw being the unacceptable (and unavailability) of religious education for the wee ones. We landed in an Episcopal church that is very different from any church I've been a part of before, and not only because of its very small size and tight-knit community.

The Sunday School for this particular church happens between the morning services, wich is different from what I was used to. It occurs in the hour or so before the service that my husband and I would attend. And adults are urged to attend the adult formation classes that occur simultaneously. Yeah... I'm not really into that. Being such a small church though, it would be obvious if I weren't there.

Then I found out that the choir practices at the same time as Sunday School. I enjoy singing, although I'm not a great singer, and they were happy to have another member -- especially a soprano, since there were only one and a sometimes member at the time.

I didn't quite realize what I was signing up for, but I'm in now. Not only do we practice on Sunday mornings, but we have a weekly practice on Wednesday evenings for a couple hours. And once a month or so, we have a couple hour practice on a Saturday morning.

Yesterday is a good example of such a practice, as we have a multi-church choir concert that we're performing in next Sunday (yeah, apparently kids aren't the only ones with choir concerts -- who knew?). In fact, we're performing in Navajo, English and Latin. Memorized.

Shockingly, I actually have the songs down pat after yesterday's almost three hour rehearsal.

Yep, I said a three hour (straight) choir rehearsal. Needless to say, we were a bit slap happy near the end, and me being the new one to the religion, they started pulling out their Episcopal jokes to tell me.

How many Episcopals does it take to change a lightbulb?
Two and a fifth.

In most relgions, whenever two or three are gathered in His name, he is present. For the Episcopals, whenever two are gathered, there's always a fifth present.

Or, as another choir member pointed out, for every four Episcopalians, you find a fifth.

Why do Episcopals all sit in the back of the church?
Because there are no pews in the parking lot.

Episcopals believe they are the only people God trusts enough to take summers off from Church.
What's the best part about being an Episcopalian?
Being Episcopalin never interferes with your politics... or your religion.

Yeah... and apparently they refer to themselves as Whiskey-palians. I just can't quite see having this kind of a conversation in a Catholic church. Maybe it's the churches I ended up at, but this denomination is definitely more my speed!