when we got to iraq, we had time to talk to the people we were replacing. the company 1SG said that the army on paper was the perfect organization, it was the people that messed it up. there are very clearly defined rules and regulations and manuals that explain how to do or govern almost everything, and there are books that very clearly state the principles that soldiers should embody so that when they're in a situation that's not clearly defined, they would still take appropriate action. i've heard that sentiment about tons of stuff. "communism would be perfect if people didn't screw it up", democracy, and the various religions.

i grew up catholic. i'm pretty sure that i haven't seen in the bible that it's okay to cover up for priests when they abuse little kids. i'm fairly sure that the intent wasn't to have people stay in really crummy marriages and make both spouses and any kids involved miserable. or to start wars in the name of one God or the other. people have interpreted things they want to and run with those personal definitions. i'm guilty of this as well. some call it "cafeteria catholicism". i take what i like and leave what i don't. i haven't stepped into a denver area catholic church since i first got here and heard how intolerant they were of different groups of people.

i'm fairly comfortable with my religion, and the comfort of it has gotten me through some amazingly tough times. and as much as i've moved around, i love the sameness of the religion. in a weird way, it's like a chain resteraunt or store. no matter where i am, when i see a catholic church, i'm fairly certain that it's going to be similar to churches i've been at before. and when you're alone in a new place, that's comforting. so as much as i like the religion, it kinda bothers me when i hear about people who had terrible experiences growing up in the church, because someone perverted the teachings and made them or their loved ones miserable.

my mom is thai. when she was growing up her dad was well off and she went to french run private schools. i'm not 100% sure why, but her parents let her go through the catholic religious education in the school while they were buddhist. i don't know if that was a requirement of the school, or if they did that because they didn't want her to be different from the other kids.

my dad grew up catholic and was going to be a priest but had problems at the seminary. he joined the navy, went to vietnam and then ended up in thailand where he met my mom. he fell in love with both her and the country and started a life long study of buddhism. in his mind, catholicism is his religion and buddhism is the life philosophy he follows. he's studied both on his own in depth, and i just kind of go into sponge mode when he starts talking about both of them and listen to what he's learned without actually doing the studying myself.

one thing that's interesting, is that originally as i understand it, the catholic church was supposed to be less a priest in front preaching to the masses and more small gatherings of people, studying the teachings of Christ together, talking about the trials and tribulations of life and helping one another try and figure out how to live better lives and be better people. i kind of think about it as an a.a. meeting without the addiction. it's funny, because i think people kind of naturally seek these types of gatherings out. but i think that in today's twisted society, it's become harder to actually have those kinds of discussions. well, maybe not to have them, but to start them. whether it's fear of being ridiculed that keeps us quiet, or if we'd prefer to think pretty happy thoughts instead of dwell on bigger, deeper ones, i dunno.

we've joke around about having a little mutual blog incestuous love fest going on here. it's funny reading some of the blogs and some of the comments going back and forth between bloggers and seeing some of this happening without people knowing necessarily being concious of it. bloggers inspiring other bloggers to be better people, to achieve heights that they might not have tried to reach on their own, to explore new things....