Responding to Comments

Recently Dykewife pointed out a link to a book on Natural Family Planning. I've been thinking about trying NFP for some time, but I've been having a tough time finding good information on just what it entails, and not simply why it's right. My body rarely cooperates in the schemes I have for it, and I think it might rebel if I ditched my birth control pills and just tried to anticipate my periods the natural way.

Anyway, the book she found is here. And it costs over two hundred dollars. Now, I'm curious, but not two hundred dollars worth of curious. Luckily Amazon came to the rescue with this listing. Twenty bucks is much more managable. And I did my grocery shopping at a new store this week, which saved me twenty bucks off my normal bill. So perhaps I can get it.

She also asked me what I'm giving up for Lent. I'm not really giving anything up, I guess. When I was in college I had a priest who said that the Lenten sacrifice was supposed to increase your spirituality and faith. You could do that just as easily by doing something as by giving something up. Last year I covered both sides by giving up Cadbury Creme Eggs (a real sacrifice, believe me!) and also reciting the Prayer of St Francis every day before work as a reminder about how to be.

This year I've decided to do something different. One of my big personality flaws is my tendency to worry. I worry about everything, and I feel the need to take care of everything and everyone. Oftentimes I feel like I have to not only look out for myself, but also for Mike, my students, my friends and family, the environment, and everything else. I know it sounds quite self-centered, but it's not, really...it's just that I want everyone taken care of. So this Lent I decided that whenever I worry, I'll say a little prayer to God asking for His help and guidance. It's a little reminder that not only am I not personally responsible for the well-being of the world, but that there's a plan for me besides the one I've thought up, and I have to be aware that things won't always go my way.

It's a surprisingly difficult resolution to keep. Luckily I wasn't like Mike, who gave up both french fries and using the internet at home. I don't know what he was thinking.

Grandpa & the Card

My grandfather recently had a total hip replacement and I wanted to send him a get-well card. I drew him a cartoon of a surgeon exclaiming, "Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better than he was..." Next to him one nurse was saying, "Does he say that during every joint replacement procedure?" and the other nurse was rolling her eyes and saying, "Every single time."

I decided that a handmade card was a little bit elementary school, so I wanted another card to send. I figured I could fold up the cartoon and place it inside. At the store I selected a religious card that said something about God guiding his recovery, and inside I wrote, "We lit a candle at church for you and we're praying for you. Feel better soon!"

After I wrote it I was a little bit torn. Whenever someone's having a tough time medically I do pray, but it's not my first instinct. I'll pray before bed that night, but that morning I'll be making food or cleaning the house. I'm pretty practical. Sending this religious card was making me feel like I was making myself out to be some uber-Catholic, and I knew I wasn't.

My grandparents, however, are uber-Catholics. I knew that my Grandpa would appreciate my offer to pray more than anything else I could do. This was less about my own self-image and more about offering my grandfather comfort in the way that would be most meaningful to him.

So I sent the super-religious card. I hope it makes him feel better.

Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday, which is the first day of Lent. I actually really enjoy Lent. Part of the reason is because Easter is my very favorite holiday - the weather's getting warmer, it's the biggest day of the church year, I get to see my family. And while it's starting to catch up with Christmas in terms of commericalism all of the Easter stuff is pastel, which is soothing, at least. Lent is a reminder that Easter is coming.

I also like Lent, though, because of the sacrifices we make. During Lent I have to be extra-vigilant to keep up with my Lenten promise of whatever I'm giving up. I have to plan my meals to be vegetarian every Friday. Every night I read the little black Lent book I get from church. It sort of forces me to arrange pieces of my life around my religion, and it makes my religion that much more tangible. Too often I force religion into the spaces that aren't occupied by my job, or my relationships, or my hobbies, and after awhile it seems to diminish the presence of my religion. But having to go out of my way to honor Lent makes me realize just how important it is.

So while most people are either annoyed at or ignoring the idea of going to Mass tonight, I'm looking forward to it. I'm hoping it'll be a good Lent.

For Better...Forever! - Part III

So I’ve finally gotten around to finishing my review of For Better…Forever! This is the stuff I didn’t like, and I wanted to take my time on it so I could deal with it fairly and evenhandedly. I know the author is never, ever going to read this blog, but I still want to be fair.

One thing I didn’t appreciate was his tone. When he got to the chapter on sex he began talking a lot about how pagans “stole” sex and twisted it around and perverted it. After re-reading the passage a few times I still couldn’t decide if he was using the term pagan to mean actual pagans, or if he was using it in the obnoxious way some people do, to refer to all non-members of your religion. For example, some Catholics will refer to all non-Catholics as pagans, some Fundamentalists will refer to all non-Fundies as pagans, etc. I find that to be distasteful. There was also a point where he said that he would personally come to the house of anyone who read his book and still used the threat of divorce in an argument and cut out their tongue. Which, if you think about it, is kind of silly, since that type of violence is as much of a sin as threatening to end a marriage. But yeah, the cutting out my tongue thing made me lose a lot of love for this author.

The biggest thing that irritated me about the book, though, was the following passage. It’s from a section of the book where he talks about couples that are truly unified and truly equal, and how they resolve conflicts.

…all decisions that affect the family should be made with the full cooperation of the husband and wife (and possibly the children). Further, decisions must not be made on the basis of who has more power, or whose turn it is to “win”; rather, they should be made on the basis of whose idea more clearly benefits the general good of the family. Therefore, in most instances, the husband and wife will be just as willing to defer to each other, just as Christ demands (cf. Eph 5:21). However, there will be times when either emergencies occur, or when consultation among the family members yields no clear winning answer. In these times, assuming the man is deferring to Christ (cf. Eph 5:21) and has the good of the family foremost in his heart and mind, the man would cast the deciding ballot. This designation is a result of the qualities God ordained Adam to emphasize, qualities that, assuming he is acting in deference to Christ and truly has the good of the family as his foremost thought, make him more likely to be able to discern God’s will for his family.

As funny as it sounds, I prefer people who blindly say, “The Bible says the man is the boss” because they only have a basic grasp of the message. This guy, though, is saying that the man is more likely to understand and relay the will of God. What makes Mike more able to understand God than me? Would a female saint married to an oblivious man be less able to understand God’s will just because of her femininity? It bothers me, especially when he’s not able to pinpoint just what these “qualities” are. For some reason, saying I should just submit is much less abrasive than saying that I should submit because I have a lesser relationship with God.

Overall it was an interesting book. However, it wasn’t written by a priest or a theologian. With this book I have a luxury that I don’t have with really religious teachings – I can take the parts that I agree with and just ignore the rest.

For Better...Forever! - Part II

Even though I found For Better...Forever! to have some creepy parts, there were some good parts too. There were the usual things about how to fight fair, how to keep romance alive, but there were two things that especially stood out in my mind.

The first thing was talking about love languages. I'm sure you've heard of it...it's all about how we express and take in gestures of affection. The three love languages in the book were visual (someone who likes written letters or tokens of someone's love), auditory (someone who wants to hear, "I love you") and tactile (someone who wants to be held). The other place I read about this identified five love languages, but the five seemed to overlap some and it confused me. Having three was more clear-cut. I took the quiz in the book and found out that I'm primarily visual and secondarily tactile, while Mike is primarily tactile. I'm going to try to keep this in mind when I pick out the last piece of his Valentine's Day present.

The other thing I liked was the discussion on Natural Family Planning. NFP is something I'd love to try, but I'm not sure I can. I know that it entails more than just the calendar rhythm method, but I still think that my cycles are too irregular to predict (normal cycles are 28 to 32 days long, and before I was on birth control my cycles were anywhere from 20 to 75 days long). Plus my birth control reduces my cramps and nausea, which was the original reason my doctor put me on it. However, NFP sounds like such a cool thing my body can do so I'd like to try it. I'm going to send away for some more detailed information but I'm not sure I'll ever give it a go. This is a decision that concerns Mike too, and I don't think he's so sure of it yet.

Tomorrow I'll discuss the things in the book that made my temper rise.

"For Better...Forever!" Discussion, Part I

I recently finished reading For Better…Forever! A Catholic Guide to Lifelong Marriage by Gregory Popcak. Mike and I registered for a few books when we got married and this was one of them. It was a pretty easy read and I wanted to discuss it in three ways…by summarizing the good points, the bad points, and what I found to be as creepy as heck.

Since the creepy part is the easiest and most subjective, I’ll start with that. The book talked about sex quite a bit. I wasn’t too surprised, since it came up quite a bit in our FOCCUS questionnaire, in our pre-marriage discussions with the priest, and in our diocese-sponsored Engagement Enrichment Day. The idea that the Catholic Church disapproves of sex is kind of a myth, and I had gotten over the initial shock of it. And actually, the parts of the book about Natural Family Planning were what I was going to discuss in the good points section. But eventually, as the book delved more and more into the subject it got creepier and creepier. Popcak described the three-way orgasm that should occur between you, your spouse, and God, and how God is intimately involved in lovemaking. I was slightly uncomfortable but sticking with what I thought was a long, long analogy until I got to Popcak’s lovemaking prayer:

Lord, let me kiss her with your lips, love her with your gentle hands, consume her with your undying passion so that I may show her how precious and beautiful she is to you.

That was just too much and I got completely skeeved out. I was all fine and good linking sex and spirituality, but this gets a bit too much into the…mechanics of it all, I guess. It shouldn't freak me out, but it does. I mean, I can’t even go to the bathroom if someone’s standing outside the door. How am I supposed to have sex when God is standing that close?

One of the other notes the book made was that sex needs to be a celebration of marriage, something that’s indulged in frequently and joyfully. It shouldn’t be just something to do at the end of the day if you’re not too tired. And since I’m tired a lot, that’s what it had become for me. So in the spirit of the book I enticed Mike last night. But halfway through I remembered that prayer and kind of froze up. I even considered turning off the lights or pulling the sheet over us, but I thought that would disturb Mike who was still busy. Plus, God can probably see in the dark. When we finished up it wasn’t quite the joyful celebration I meant it to be.

I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do about this little mental block, but I’ll have to work on it. Mike hasn’t read the book yet, so he’s still feeling pretty normal about the whole thing.

The Deacon

Yesterday when Mike and I came into church we sat on the side next to the wall, and I was able to look into the room where the priest, altar servers, cantor, and everyone else meet to put on vestments and get organized. I saw someone that made me gasp.

"Is that the deacon?" I muttered, nudging Mike.

"Looks like," he murmured back.

I grumbled a little and he said, "It's not too late to go out the side door and just watch Mass on TV," he said.

"No, no, we're already here," I said with a sigh. It bothered me because I really don't like our deacon too much. Well, I shouldn't say that...I don't really know him as a person. But after a few of his homilies now I've wondered whether he really meant his comments to be vaguely sexist. Did he really mean to imply that the older daughter in that story was less loved and less worthy because she left home? Did he honestly hint that women were meant to be just mothers and homemakers? Or am I just too sensitive?

Now, if the deacon were just a guy at work on on the street I'd dismiss him with a shake of the head. However, I feel a little different when he's speaking as a deacon, because it's like he's representing the beliefs of the Catholic Church. When he's up there he's their spokesman, and suddenly it seems like the nuances I detect in his sermons are nuances in Catholic belief.

I know that deacons, nuns, and priests are just people, and they come to church with values, beliefs, experiences, customs, and personality flaws that are independent of our faith, just like I do. I really should learn to sift between Catholic doctrine and some old guy's prejudice. At least it'll make listening to the deacon's homilies less painful.