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cimoreneWe saw our eldest niece's confirmation in the cathedral today at lunchtime. I've never seen a service in this cathedral even though I've visited it a bunch of times. In fact, I still haven't seen a service, because we sat in a row where the pulpit - which is a sort of tiny balcony attached to a short spiral staircase in our, as many other cathedrals - and its pillar were between us and the altar at the front of the church. In fact, all we could really see was a lifesize stone statue of a dude who looked like Shakespeare in the right front side altar thingy (apparently it is Åke Tott, 1598-1640).
This ... pastor? (Is pastor really what they call them in English? That's such a humble word for a religion that's still using gold-leafed pulpits and giant iron crucifices that parade down the aisle on the end of a 10-foot pole? Anyway)... had the distinction of being the most unintentionally amusing priest of any faith I've ever heard, with the exception of the Wiccan-influenced pagan wedding of a family friend (officiated by a UU minister, though) at which I was the West anchor in a magic circle around a bonfire when I was 15. This child, who told us she was baptized in 1989 so she can't be older than 31 (okay, she's a young adult, but anyone who's young enough for me to have babysat as a teen gets a mental 'child!' tag), was just so enthusiastic about the apparently marvelous fellowship offered to her by the Finnish Lutheran Church. It was a palpable enthusiasm and joy, reminiscent of the host of a children's tv program. And it also kept the sermon, or what there was of it, from being boring, which is more than any of the pastors at Finnish weddings and funerals I've been at have managed to do.
But in a historic landmark as beautiful as our cathedral, which is considered the most valuable and important historical building in the country according to my googling about Åke Tott just now, I could easily sit through a much longer sermon without paying any attention because it's so beautiful, even with many of the original frescoes still hidden under their Reformation-era plaster. And as always, the tragically empty alcoves meant to contain shrines and reliquaries look... tragic, but also really funny. Some of them are just empty, which is funny enough, but even more hilariously, there's one the size of like, a queen bed at chest or shoulder height, and somebody has put a comically small vase of flowers in one side of it along with a very plain white marble cross the size of a small movie poster, and these somehow only serve to emphasize its emptiness and make it look rather embarrassed.
Our niece had a confirmation party after that, in the back of a bar which I didn't realize is owned by our neighbors and distant relatives (SIL's first cousin and Wax's fourth cousin) who moved to Pargas at the same time we did (like we didn't know they owned any businesses at all, let alone a themed bar on the market square). And the party was like... almost everybody was dressed up and our niece was wearing a red glittery homecoming dress and four-inch heels? This was like fully some bat mitzvah, quinceañera shit. They had it catered with so much sushi that it didn't all get eaten even though there were also two layer cakes and a table full of pastries! Her bro's award-winning band played and I continue to be astonished at how talented they are for 11-year-olds. "My people don't have anything like this!" I said in wonder, but really it's just because my mom dropped out of Catholicism (Catholics are confirmed earlier but they do have parties, just not like, quinceñeresque ones) and my great-grandmother dropped out of Judaism. More relevantly perhaps, my peers and my parents' peers didn't have anything like that, because there were almost no jews in Alabama and there was no comparable coming-of-age big deal tradition in any of the protestant strains my friends and acquaintances belonged to. I did go to a giant backyard 16th birthday party with a dj once, but it wasn't that formal.
She's so big! She's nearly as tall as us! She's a competitive dancer! And I never got around to sitting down and trying to become closer to her and ran out of time! It's not that bad, I mean, we babysat plenty when they were younger and I used to bring art supplies so we could draw together, but most of that was over ten years ago and it does seem like now they're teeny-sized they change so fast that one can't keep up, and I haven't got to know her as well as I wanted to. I mean, it will probably be easier now that she's approaching adulthood, I guess it's not tragic, but I am experiencing some self-recrimination about having missed opportunities to have kept up.
Wax is one of her godmothers (she was baptized before I moved to Finland), so I made sure to pick out a necklace for a confirmation present, because that's a godparent task. (Wax never picks out the presents.) I think usually it's a cross for obvious reasons, but it would just be weird from two bitter atheist disestablishmentarians. I agonized for about a week before finding a nice small phoenix pendant, which she should like because she's a Harry Potter superfan. And she has like three other (six other?) godparents so she's bound to have a cross in there somewhere if she wants one.
This ... pastor? (Is pastor really what they call them in English? That's such a humble word for a religion that's still using gold-leafed pulpits and giant iron crucifices that parade down the aisle on the end of a 10-foot pole? Anyway)... had the distinction of being the most unintentionally amusing priest of any faith I've ever heard, with the exception of the Wiccan-influenced pagan wedding of a family friend (officiated by a UU minister, though) at which I was the West anchor in a magic circle around a bonfire when I was 15. This child, who told us she was baptized in 1989 so she can't be older than 31 (okay, she's a young adult, but anyone who's young enough for me to have babysat as a teen gets a mental 'child!' tag), was just so enthusiastic about the apparently marvelous fellowship offered to her by the Finnish Lutheran Church. It was a palpable enthusiasm and joy, reminiscent of the host of a children's tv program. And it also kept the sermon, or what there was of it, from being boring, which is more than any of the pastors at Finnish weddings and funerals I've been at have managed to do.
But in a historic landmark as beautiful as our cathedral, which is considered the most valuable and important historical building in the country according to my googling about Åke Tott just now, I could easily sit through a much longer sermon without paying any attention because it's so beautiful, even with many of the original frescoes still hidden under their Reformation-era plaster. And as always, the tragically empty alcoves meant to contain shrines and reliquaries look... tragic, but also really funny. Some of them are just empty, which is funny enough, but even more hilariously, there's one the size of like, a queen bed at chest or shoulder height, and somebody has put a comically small vase of flowers in one side of it along with a very plain white marble cross the size of a small movie poster, and these somehow only serve to emphasize its emptiness and make it look rather embarrassed.
Our niece had a confirmation party after that, in the back of a bar which I didn't realize is owned by our neighbors and distant relatives (SIL's first cousin and Wax's fourth cousin) who moved to Pargas at the same time we did (like we didn't know they owned any businesses at all, let alone a themed bar on the market square). And the party was like... almost everybody was dressed up and our niece was wearing a red glittery homecoming dress and four-inch heels? This was like fully some bat mitzvah, quinceañera shit. They had it catered with so much sushi that it didn't all get eaten even though there were also two layer cakes and a table full of pastries! Her bro's award-winning band played and I continue to be astonished at how talented they are for 11-year-olds. "My people don't have anything like this!" I said in wonder, but really it's just because my mom dropped out of Catholicism (Catholics are confirmed earlier but they do have parties, just not like, quinceñeresque ones) and my great-grandmother dropped out of Judaism. More relevantly perhaps, my peers and my parents' peers didn't have anything like that, because there were almost no jews in Alabama and there was no comparable coming-of-age big deal tradition in any of the protestant strains my friends and acquaintances belonged to. I did go to a giant backyard 16th birthday party with a dj once, but it wasn't that formal.
She's so big! She's nearly as tall as us! She's a competitive dancer! And I never got around to sitting down and trying to become closer to her and ran out of time! It's not that bad, I mean, we babysat plenty when they were younger and I used to bring art supplies so we could draw together, but most of that was over ten years ago and it does seem like now they're teeny-sized they change so fast that one can't keep up, and I haven't got to know her as well as I wanted to. I mean, it will probably be easier now that she's approaching adulthood, I guess it's not tragic, but I am experiencing some self-recrimination about having missed opportunities to have kept up.
Wax is one of her godmothers (she was baptized before I moved to Finland), so I made sure to pick out a necklace for a confirmation present, because that's a godparent task. (Wax never picks out the presents.) I think usually it's a cross for obvious reasons, but it would just be weird from two bitter atheist disestablishmentarians. I agonized for about a week before finding a nice small phoenix pendant, which she should like because she's a Harry Potter superfan. And she has like three other (six other?) godparents so she's bound to have a cross in there somewhere if she wants one.
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Date: 13 Jan 2020 12:50 pm (UTC)