The Devil is the Detailer *

In which our Hero discovers that the answer to the question of “Who the hell creates this crap?” turns out to include his own self, with duress no excuse

I’m an only child in a culture that makes the condition mildly remarkable. I come from a Catholic family that harkens back to a place where Catholicism has been a way of life for centuries. My parents are faithful but not nearly so religious as the rest of the larger family tree. And having been raised to a more pragmatic standard, I’m often surprised when older traditions come into play.

One such tradition that seems to have come about with the access to low cost print production is the curious business of communion cards. (I don’t think that’s their actual name but it’s what I call them in my head.)

Communion is one of the rites of Catholic and many (I think most) Christian faiths, Gentle Reader, and thus one of the coming-of-age ceremonies is the “First Communion,” when a child joins the congregation in this rite. And afterwards, there’s usually a family celebration, which I guess scales according to the family involved. In our family these things can be small or big.

But that’s where the communion card comes in. Technically, it’s a nominal thank-you card. Or a commemorative card. Except that instead of a photo or drawing on card stock, now we have custom, personalized nightmares cards that usually feature various religious symbols, flowers, birds, a ceremonial chalice, and the photoshopped child in question in a prayerful pose before the photoshopped from a painted image of the Shepherd of Salvation, the Carpenter on the Cross, the Saviour so nice he died to live twice, that’s right all the way from the center of Christian theology, Jeeeeeeeeesus Chriiiiiiiist!

(I’m sorry, I get this way when I’m talking about this stuff. There’s just something about over-reliance on symbology that somehow hits a nerve deep inside and makes me a little cynical about that kind of faith, even though it’s probably more earnest than my own. But I mock with affection, and I do find great beauty in the bowed and worn steps that have eroded from the knees of the penitent faithful as they prayed. Hopefully this will balance my sense of humour.)

I’m not sure if I’m offended by these cards or not. At the minimum, though, I find them tremendously tacky. And funny because of the cartoony Jesus image in the midst of a photorealistic collage. And they’ve been omnipresent from certain branches of the family, and I take the little card and drop it in the recycle bin at another location so that they don’t have to see my disinterest.

And I turn my face to the heavens and ask with bafflement… “Who does this!?”

It’s not such a big deal, a First Communion. It’s a family event, it has a certain significance, and so as a rule of thumb, it merits a little extra effort towards attending. But only a little. We’ll drive for a few hours for a first communion where we’d skip a birthday party. There, maybe that calibrates it.

I’ve made a point to be there for the kids I consider mine. Sometimes it’s to please the kid. Sometimes it’s to please the parents because the kid will remember almost nothing of the day anyway, and you least of all. It’s nearly pointless and yet I think it’s important to try to be there. Call it a grumpy, reluctant admission of love.

That’s why I needed a passport two weeks ago. I needed to go to the US, to go to my cousin’s kid’s first communion. Which is a long way to go for a relatively minor event but as much as I hide from the kid’s mom, I do love her a lot more than I admit to her. To anybody really.

The weekend before the event, my mom told me she was struggling with something and asked me to help. And with dawning horror, she outlined the issue weighing heavily on her mind… that she was having an impossible time putting together a communion card for her daughter. And can I put something together?

I was given words, a few pictures of the kid and a request to fix her necklace. Which is how I found myself searching google for images of Jesus. Have you ever googled for images of Jesus. I found pictures of Jesus holding a dinosaur, Jesus with a beer and cigarettes, Buddy Christ from the Dogma movies and all kinds of fodder for my slightly irreverent mind. Personally, I’d have gone with a photorealistic Jesus, because I just think the paintings look even more wrong, but it’s a card with some kind of design tradition, and a painted Jesus is expected to be interpretive, right?

The final result was not awful. I think it probably needed one or two more elements collaged in just to fill the space. And I took my parents advice to make the text read as given, rather than the greeting-cardified stanza I’d edited together. And it’s pink (or maybe lavender) because that’s the kid’s favourite colour and it seemed no less offensive than the other options.

I feel a little dirty for having done it. I’m also just a little curious how it turned out.

And now I’ve seen the result. It’s nothing special. But they might be visiting and sent one for me specifically, so we’ve got it on the fridge for a while. (sigh)