christmas eve, we went to mass at san vicente church in barrigada. we had a priest visiting from spain a week earlier, and i really liked him. he looked like a marine, a total jarhead, and he was sweating like a pig, but he was super funny and very personable. his homily was about how christmas and thanksgiving should be about things that we should celebrate every day--thanks, joy, love, forgiveness, grace, praise. we should wake up every day and the first thought should be to rejoice. of course, no one ever does that, and believe me, i go to sleep every night thinking that i would like to wake up and have that be my first thought but it never is. the priest (oddly, i never got his name), also said that it was a wonderful thing that god sent down a little baby to be our saviour. a tiny, helpless thing. i think that was meant to make us feel better--i mean, he could have rained fire and brimstone and sent an overlord with a sadistic streak, right? but no. he sent a child to live with us, grow with us, be one of us, and to teach us. ours is not a vengeful god. anyway, it did make me feel better. after the mass, i went to say hello and wish him a merry christmas, and the guy had the most piercing blue eyes, and the weakest effing handshake i've ever experienced. like a moist, clammy, lump of flesh that i think was human. i'm not sure.

oh so, anyway, christmas mass we got a different spanish priest. short sermon, he seemed to be not altogether there. but the church was beautiful. i usually hate how they decorate it. it's a beautiful modern church built in the 'sixties, i think. it's circular, with fantastic detail like a wall of metal discs behind the altar, and very sculptural, spare white pieces. but it's been marred by trying to make it more comfortable and sort of homey, bleah, just bad eighties accents. however, this christmas the altar was filled with fresh poinsettias and fresh christmas trees filled with fairy lights. not particularly guamish, nor particularly modern, but really festive and lush all the same. there wasn't a choir at this mass, but there was one guy and three girls singing, with one girl doing most of the singing work, and one girl being an awesome one-man band. LOVED her. did a bongo version of "god rest ye merry gentlemen" which rocked the house--all that stark, white, open modern space, the traditional statues of all the saints, the deep blue of twilight setting in the background with jungle-y deep red and green foliage, and bongos banging....very ritualistic, tribal, and sort of primeval. very cool.