At the Catholic church I attended as a child I would:
see how long I could hold my breath
doodle on the back of the church bulletin
think filthy thoughts about the altar boys (this stopped when I was around 13, thankfully)
memorize all the Latin in the back of the missalette (Adeste fidelis, laete triumphantis!) and try to translate it into English
memorize all the Beatitudes on the stained glass windows, and which saints were listed with each phrase (St. Monica was “blessed are they who mourn”, St. Thomas More was “blessed are they who are persecuted for justice’s sake”, etc.)
when we had a cute priest come in from out of town, think filthy thoughts about him, too!
Watch people’s shoes as they went up for communion.
Daydream the entire service.
Read my picture book of saints and trying to decide the method of death that would be most becoming to me in order to be made a saint. ( Shot with arrows seemed the most painless and left my face looking good and unmarred.)
look around for the hot boys that I lusted after in school.
Wished to be an altar boy at the same time pitied them.
Started my own religion based around Mary. Called The Mary Society. ( I was a little feminist even then and because Catholicism and all of Christianity were all a males in charge religion, I decided that *The Mary Society * would have the number one rule of *No Boys Allowed. * )
This is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard and I shall partake in more catholic version ( read: uptight) the next time I attend church ( which will probably be a funeral anyways.)
You need 2 hymnals and a friend. You either try to match hymns together to make sentences or to the sermon saying only the hymn number. (#289 - How many stars in my crown shall there be… #312 - No, not one, No not one)
A current thread dealing with one’s post-apocalyptic skills made me want to mention facetiously my ability to hold my breath for upwards of two minutes – when I was a kid. I’d probably either pass out or keel over after a minute nowadays. But that’s the only skill I can think of to last me any time after the apocalypse.
Anyway that thought reminded me of this early (for me) thread where some fun was had. If it dies the zombie death, so be it. But rather than link to it in the new thread, I figured I’d just nudge it awake for a moment.
How did you (do you?) while away those boring minutes of captivity in church, when you just have to be there?
–Daydreaming about music projects
–Daydreaming about other stuff
–Reading the hymnals, trying to find hymns with interesting words or music
–Pretending to take notes on the sermon, when I was really writing notes for my own projects.
Atheist kid here, I went along to church with parents of a religious friend a couple times.
When I was a kid, we each got two pieces of peppermint candy to keep us occupied. The sport was to make the candy last as long as possible.
After age 12, I usually listened to the sermon and the psalm lyrics, while coming up with rebuttals, counterarguments, and better ways to make the point the reverend was trying to make.
My usual method was to just ignore the sermon and read the Bible. A a piece of historical-based fiction, it’s actually a pretty great read! This usually passed the time quite well, intersped with various entertaining episodes of people “catching the Holy Ghost” and engaging in various athletic exhibitions in the aisles.
If confession was going to be afterwards I would usually spend my time making up a list of ‘sins’ to tell the priest (really, just how much bad crap can a kid get up to that they need absolution for?). The trick was to have enough things to admit too to keep the priest happy and balance that with calculating the shortest time you would need to fake repetitions of the Our Father or Hail Mary when you got out.
At least I could always include telling lies as part of the deal.
Other than that once I got older (and wasn’t on duty as altar boy) I would be checking out the girls.
When I was very little, I got a baggie of cheerios to pass the time away but as soon as I was not considered a baby my only respite was counting the number of songs until the end. I would never have gotten away with 90% of the stuff in this thread. After a while I used the homily to get a good righteous anger fume going.
I would never attend a Church unless I found the minister’s sermon interesting. There are plenty of dry, boring sermons on Sundays. I avoid those guys at all costs. We visited quite a few churches before finding one that we liked.
I was fortunate enough to have a brother to “enjoy” church with. We would try to get each other to laugh, and many a fart was farted. Grandma often had to separate us.
Church pastimes included picking fuzzies off our socks and blowing them into the air, where they would float for some time before landing in someone’s hair. We would also make mean faces at babies and little kids to make them cry. Then there was mining the hymnals for song titles that were funny if your mind was in the gutter (anything with the word “come”, obviously). We played cards and scratched our initials on the back of the pew. When we were older, we’d step out for a smoke in the tiny bathroom (a good way to get busted if you were lacking drama in your life).
For the first 17 years of my life I was forced to attend Catholic mass, every . . . frigging . . . Sunday.
I refuse to answer this question as it would force me to relive that nightmare.
In fact I’m not even sure I could answer it. I’m not sure the time passed at all. I guess logically the time must have passed, because I’m not sitting in mass right now, and I’m not 17 any more. (No indeed.) But it sure didn’t seem like it passed.
If it would make better sense in your case, imagine another place or setting where you are held against your will and wishes for what may feel like an interminable period and where your activities are limited.
Jail?
Surgery?
Jury duty?
It’s just that church seems so counter-productive to younger people. At least it was for me.
