God's men against the "norm".

I just read a post on ...Petty Witters blog, Pen and Paper, about a vicar dressed as a tart. I feel sorry for the vicar. Fair enough, we don't know the whole story, but shouldn't vicars be allowed to let their hair down as well? They're just regular people like everybody else. Some people can be very judgmental. 


We have a local priest here that kind of goes against what most people think priests should be like. It's not as "major" as the vicar on ...Petty Witter's blog, but anyway. 


This priest teaches Krav Maga, which is a hand-to-hand combat system developed in Israel. I went to a self-defense weekend for women a few weeks back, which he was teaching. I would not have known he was a priest if I hadn't already been told.


Most people, myself included, think of priests as very anti-violence, turn the other cheek and all that, yet the KM-priest told us to strike our attacker as hard as we could (which is of course what we women need to do if we are attacked by a big burly man) so hard that they wouldn't be able to get up for a while. He doesn't just teach self-defense for women either, he has regular KM classes too... Although I guess (or hope) that he tells people to just use it as self defense then too, or just as exercise.


In other words: He's a "cool" priest. I wonder what his services are like. 


Another thing is I've always imagined priest and other "men of God" to do is talk a lot about God, religion and those kind of stuff. I don't know why, I've got plenty of Christian friends, and they don't bring God into every conversation. But when I went on the KM weekend I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to go, I was worried that since the instructor is a priest, that he would say things like "God want you to do this." and almost make it in to a sermon. I've got nothing against religious people, I just don't like to get religion "forced" onto me. I needn't have worried, I don't think he mentioned God at all those two days, and he didn't say anything else that sounded specifically religious in any way either. 


I was also worried that I would swear during the KM class. I don't usually swear, I used to do it a lot when I was a teenager, but then I grew up and realized that lots of swearing just means you've got a limited vocabulary, and I stopped swearing. But, and that's a very annoying but, the few times I'm in church, say at a wedding or christening or something, I suddenly almost swear. I've managed to stop myself most times just before I've said the swear word most times. One time I was standing just outside the church doors after a wedding when I realized I had forgotten something inside.
Me: "Shit! Oops, I mean Fuck! No, oh, ARGH!!! I left something inside." Then I practically stomped back in (because I was mad at myself for swearing).


I don't know why it's like that, maybe it's the stress of trying not to swear? But even if I'm not a religious person I don't want to swear, especially not in church, in front of priests, vicars etc or in front of children. It's just rude and disrespectful, and it's not like we actually need swear words.


Anyway, the KM priest has received loads of complaints from people that think he's not acting like he should. I shudder to think what would happen if we got a vicar like the one in Witter's post... People would probably get their torches and pitchforks and hunt him out of the village. The small minded people that can't handle anything different anyway...


I found a great quote the other day: Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.