Me and My friend Seth

Gangs of New York, 2002

My friend Seth is forty years old and has outlived at least half of the 9 lives allotted to even the feistiest cat. We now live a thousand miles apart, as we have for most of our adult lives. He has remained in our hometown, built a family and a life there around the seasons, while my husband and I came north fifteen winters ago. Our connection is sporadic but always warm and fraternal, like a big brother who has seen anything I'm about to show him but endures my antics anyway.

Seth's mother braided my hair and baked apple pies for all of our childhood. When his cat gave birth to kittens in his bed -- a handbuilt lofted bed perfect for forts and scary stories -- his stock rose exponentially in my five-year-old mind and has stayed there since. We played hide and go seek among the spruce trees and trailer parks of our densely forested, working-class Alaskan island. The snuggly rhythms of early memory gave way to some chaos in our respective homes, and we've also shared the messier milestones of adolescence and adulthood.  

Our parents are probably more surprised to see us raising ten children between us and baptizing them into a faith neither of us were raised in, than they were to pick us up from the police station together off and on in the early 1990s. Seth taught me about weed, subversive music and the delicate balance of supply and demand. We played F*ck the Police at top volume and did our best imitations of the bravado presented on MTV. His father was my only visitor when I was shipped to a nearby island for residential drug treatment. 


I will note here Seth's physical presence: he is massive. Foreboding, even. An uncle of mine who employed him as a commercial fisherman remarked that Seth is the quintessential gentle giant. He was a wrestler in high school and has always kept his strength in check; never bullying and even using his imposing physicality to defend would-be victims from teasing or worse. There's one particular story about the school bus that brings me near tears each time I tell it -- and the irony seems to be that the boy being bullied was of correct breeding and political class but wispy and nerdy, while Seth was the scrappy hero. That boy from the bus went on to some really prestigious East Coast college I can never remember the name of and now works for a Fortune 500 in the art dept (last I knew), while Seth put down roots in the same neighborhood from which the school bus shuttled him to & fro. When I watch the (glorious) movie Overboard I still see Seth in the oldest son. Noble and quiet but certainly not without spine. Perhaps his power lies in the suggestion of violence without having to deploy it. 


I thought of Seth in a special way after reading this piece. I emailed it to him, along with a half dozen other men and women, childhood friends all, with whom I often share banter about current events. We don't agree on every issue nor seek to convert each other -- we just like to stay in touch and rap about lifestyle and philosophy between diapers, work and errands. We're able to learn from one another without resentment or bitterness, pride or retribution. I see now that our unity may be a threat to those without agency in the present White House. Seth shared the piece on social media only to be accused of racism and effectively silenced. I would laugh if it weren't so sad and entirely missing (or proving) the point of the post.

Today, taking stock as if I were a raven perched in the treetops, listening to the foment of human pettiness in the wake of President No Good Really Bad, reading scribes from all corners, ruffling my feathers -- I see that the erudite leftist minds neatly bunch us all together. We are White. We are to be aggregated and educated, or at least ignored. Our varied opinions and experiences do not matter, for we share the embarrassing ethnicity of being Anglo-Saxon. Our immigrant stories are irrelevant, for we must absorb fresh wisdom, prostrate ourselves to the latest arrival. We're descended from countries that lack the exotic pedigree to grab the audience of National Public Radio with tales of victimhood. 
 
Never mind that Seth's children aren't even white, or that my husband is only second generation American, with grandparents who came as illiterate teenagers hoping to earn enough money to return to Portugal and buy a horse. If that hints at a certain pride, it's simply pride in the achievements and perseverance of someone else. It would never occur to me to ascribe pride to my race. I don't need census bureau stats to validate my existence, and I have 2,000 years of cultural heroism in Christ and His Bride to "fall back on" for identity. My kids attend a school with just seventy students. Laotians, Alaskan Natives, African Americans, Hispanic children from pockets of Central and South America, Caucasians. No one notices. We have families with foster children, families of truckers, clerks, engineers, physicians, pilots, families built by adoption and those with transient children. Our stated goal is to make saints. We look to martyrs, soldiers and scholars with equal fervor. We are not divided and we are not afraid.

As I said in the email scribbled to friends when I shared Dreher's post this morning, the weird alt-right thing gets no traction with me -- but the objective point being made by his commenter is quite illuminating.  Foreboding? We'll see. I do know this: the guidance of a nuanced gentleman who takes no guff is an invaluable force for children. Come what may, both Seth's children and mine have that in their fathers. 

If the American Left insists on fragmentation along lines of race, the carnage is predictable and its genesis rests squarely on them. They play with fire. Although the USA is unique, and this experiment of unity is worthwhile, we are all still human beings. I grieve the idea that men like Seth (who I use here without permission and not as a mythic hero; he's just a dude I know) are being trashed. Again to repeat myself --- white men are allowed to be anything except victorious. I would submit that the creepy racism of America was exposed, burst like a boil on Satan's ass, not with the election of a black man to the Presidency, but of a white one. Why is that?

my Blessed Mother Ship

"I know your Mom --- she's da awesomest." Those were the recent words of our four-year-old, and I might add to them today, in the spirit of parental odes and the month of May, which is special to my family in many ways.

Who can be objective about their own mother? Maybe that's a futile goal anyway --- since the unique status of mother and child means a tenderness that defies general description. My brother and I have felt the ferocity of our mother's protection in a hundred ways, giving us a timeless oasis of security. It was memorably expressed when he sought to deploy her talents on some high school official who had smited him: "Give them your Cruella Deville, Mom, I know you can do it." (She declined, as I recall --- and he got to sit in detention.)

Anyone who knows my mom sucks air if I mention that she's a twin ~ their disbelief is suspended when the clarification comes. A twin brother. Fraternal twins. We all know there's only one Margaret.

If Gilda Radner and Jacqueline Onassis commingled into one being, my mom would still be cooler. She favors Elle, Vogue and Vanity Fair: I'll be in the corner with Strunk & White. In hindsight, I realize she knew all about Dylan Thomas --- but she let me breathlessly share my discovery of his work and the companionship I found there. Ditto Marlo Thomas, St. Jude himself, Janis Joplin, romanticizing tragedy, Indian food, and the open road. She'd seen it all before.

From her I inherited my terrible driving, patience with weirdos, unflinching optimism, hunger for a storyline, and social groove. She never limited my interests or dictated morals, meaning there was no sting of judgment when heartbreak or disaster visited. I got to own it. Similarly, achievements and joy have been mine to savor, with her constant encouragement but never co-opting. My mom let me become the person I was meant to be. She seemed unthreatened by the emotional risks of raising children --- which I now know to be impossible --- today, I appreciate her allowances as trust, that God and goodness will prevail.

Even recognizing that freedom, each time over the past ten years I've thought I'd lost one of my children (in a water park, at a gas station, the bluegrass festival, and so on) my dominant fear has been disappointing my mother. Some things aren't real until you have to explain it to Mom, right? In every such brief, grave episode my brain seemed to illogically skip straight to remnants of my misspent youth: "My mom is going to be so pissed, you guys. She really liked that baby."

Parking lot derelictions aside, I've had to work diligently to shock her over the years. She did seem pretty mad when I worked in that Nevada brothel for a few months.

Moms imbue so many traits before we realize they're unique. If I am a little iceberg bobbing around the universe, my mom is the piece of Earth from which I calved ~ at once adaptable, immovable, and regal. If I've ever been fearless, dignified, unconventional, it's because I'm her daughter. My favorite compliments are when she compares me favorably to her own mother. I expect my daughters feel the same.

Happy 36 years of motherhood, Mom. Veronica is right --- you da awesomest. I praise God for the multitudes you contain, and for your continual willingness to sail me home.

* * *

(so Tori Amos is probably a little ponderous for my mom's tastes. She's more of a Chaka Khan lady.)

But, here we go -- nobody vamps at a piano with quite the same depth ...   

"Well I can't believe that I would keep
Keep you from flying
So I will cry 1000 more
If that's what it takes
To sail you home
Sail you home
Sail you home
Sail
Sail you home"

{{ for My Dad on the eve of his birthday }}

Happy Birthday, Dad. I love you and hope the day is great.

The complexity and beauty of our bond has been a model for all other close and complicated relationships in my life. Any man I admire today has at least one trait I first admired in you: strength of intellect, masculinity, gentleness of heart, intuition, curiosity about the world and her people, generosity, humor and perseverance.

I remember being seventeen years old, the way you inspired me not to conflate an adolescent urge for activism with love --- nudging me away from my first felonious crush with, "There are no shortage of women writing letters to men in prison. The world doesn't need one more and it doesn't need to be my daughter." When I think now of how you probably felt at the prospect of my devotion to that cause, your diplomacy seems heroic.

Aside from the countless expressions of love and adventure you filled my childhood with, the restraint you often showed as I neared adulthood turns out to be a most tender part of our story.

When I was incapable of continuing college and begged you, squaring off at some preppy fountain in downtown Seattle on that sunny Autumn day, to bring me with you --- you didn't add to my disillusionment by mentioning the wasted scholarship. The wasted child standing in front of you was your only concern.

Three years later, we circled that same city in a rental car as I looked for a meeting of the 12-Step group that continues to ground my spiritual life. Hours passed and we never found it --- if you were exasperated, you didn't let on.

I'm not a model of filial duty, and I regret that. I sense that I've disappointed you most intimately when I've been unkind or deceptive towards others. Thanks for loving me through it.

When I ponder stories of desertion by fathers, I'm pierced by imagining a child not knowing their Dad as life deals its mixed bag of joys and blows. My humanity springs from yours, my perception of authority forever echoes your authority, and I have no problem conjuring a celestial image of God himself as a loving Father, because of you.

And here I am, typing to you at the last minute, partially in awe that my Daddy is 67. Maybe this could've all been written in a card and sent privately, but I trust you've long known that my procrastination and spaciness are matched by my desire for an audience. I'm working on it. : )

Thank you, above all else, for the baby brother. He's a solid man and a natural Uncle. His enthusiasm and creativity showered over our children feels just like being with you. Almost.

+++

My life, it don't count for nothing.
When I look at this world, I feel so small.
My life, it's only a season:
A passing September that no one will recall.

But I gave joy to my mother.
And I made my lover smile.
And I can give comfort to my friends when they're hurting.
And I can make it seem better for a while.

My life, it's half the way travelled,
And still I have not found my way out of this night.
An' my life, it's tangled in wishes,
And so many things that just never turned out right.

But I gave joy to my mother.
And I made my lover smile.
And I can give comfort to my friends when they're hurting.
And I can make it seem better,
I can make it seem better,
I can make it seem better for a while. 

+++

Dear Larry

On Thursday a friendship of twenty-plus years came to an end when my mom called with the difficult news of death. My first pen pal (besides Lil and the foreign kids from the back of Archie comics), my first professional boss, and the first gift sobriety gave me: Larry King.

Do you ever picture a certain friend or relative, and just sense they'll never be an ailing 97 year old in a nursing home? This friend was like that, and I'm relieved he is no longer constrained by his earthly body. Larry was somehow ageless: eternally 55 or so, but in many ways a carefree 17-year old guy. He personified the gratitude a recovering addict carries with them --- to be aware of a generous universe, our rightful place in it, and the immutable hand of a loving Creator. And he was a good counselor. Maybe that's why he stayed in the chemical dependency field when he could've chosen a half dozen careers with relative ease and acclaim: music, activism, educational guru, and so on. But he remained a counselor, walking with lost souls trudging towards clarity --- witnessing all the pain and madness without being swallowed by it. He was a real shit disturber where it mattered, and a voice of perfect trust in God when life seemed too much.

Among the things he illuminated for me was an absolute riddance of self-pity and fear. As a clinical director he was patient, meticulous, and funny. As a friend he was endlessly comforting without losing his own serenity. He let me bring my dog to the office every day, wryly declaring her a therapeutic presence. He spoke highly of both of my parents, and had great stories from the 1970s and 80s about many people in our town. I think now about his monk-like existence, the confidences he took to his grave ~ he instilled in me the sacred trust (not to mention a near-holy fear of federal privacy mandates) of receiving another's pain or joy, which is especially vital in an isolated community.

Larry intentionally lived by the ocean, nesting and creating stability wherever he roamed. He was somewhat itinerant in his mission -- knowing when to move on, but fully immersed while he lived in a place. He really was the kind of personality that helps knit a small town together. His physical presence was fixed, immovable: keys jangling, quips exchanged, tie dye and denim blazing through. Spiritually, things settled a bit when he asked questions. The world slowed to a pace of wonder and hope.

He was alternately known as Easy Eddie and the Frog King, both nods to personas and passions. On any topic, he had a joke you saw coming but didn't hurry along to its conclusion, since conversation was an art in which he delighted and excelled. The currency he traded in was profound, sincere, and exacting of truth in himself and others. There was no pretension in Larry. To say he "looked for the best" in people would be trite, since I think his skill was a deliberate routing of the best in a person, inviting them to live better and do better in a most unselfish way.

While I reflect on the magnitude of his service, the tenderness of our bond, and the role he played in so many lives, I trust that my grief will subside while his impact will remain. My life has been fortified by a thousand tiny points of light that Larry delivered, always allowing me to claim the discovery as my own. It's sobering to learn of the hundreds of people who felt precisely the same way about him. May God grant eternal peace and majesty to his soul.

"We're on parole, not parade."

I'm sorry for turning my blog into a roving YouTube session lately!
Anyway, indulgence begged ~ but this video is the straight dope right here. My heart has been a little wobbly in the quiet moments since my husband told me of Philip Seymour Hoffman's death.

I'm not interested in the sentimental track, the populist screeds or the sensational stuff, valid as they may be. (Poetry? egad) I'm as unfamiliar with heroin as I am with diesel mechanics, but twenty minutes of bliss for which all other pursuits are traded, eagerly, is a language I know.

As for Hoffman, living the majority of his adult life clean & sober was a triumph against evil. Addiction is a terminal disease, and once contracted it progresses until death. I'm chastened by my reaction to his overdose, since I'm too often saying, "In the end, I just want to die sober and be useful to another alcoholic." Something about his death has allowed me to see how presumptuous I've been to characterize success that way. Serenity exists only in the present tense, and it's the result of gratitude. Happy people have the same life circumstances as unhappy people. I have no idea what life will bring or how I'll respond to it. Should I be granted 23 years clean like the actor was, and die with a needle in my arm, well, Soli Deo gloria. It will never negate the reprieve God has granted, or the life that has allowed me to build. I can't envision anything more foreign than returning to active addiction --- but the truth remains that 35 out of 36 of us do.

This isn't to dismiss the horrific grief and pain of the families of addicts. Quite the opposite --- drugs irrevocably conquered Hoffman's body, yes. But the goodness, truth and beauty of two decades of freedom isn't tainted by the sting of death. Satan can deform, but never create.

disorienting moments, a compendium

Here are times when the world feels foreign:
*    When I hear anyone rag on the Aerosmith/Britney Spears SuperBowl  halftime show.
*    When my eyesight is continually affronted with neon colors in fashion accessories.
*    When my older daughters tell me they've never been to a wedding or seen a kitten. (lies! but they hold this belief steadfast and know it makes me verklempt)
*    When surrounded by people who schedule events 6-8 months in advance.
*    When I remember my first obstetrician blithely offering to abort my baby.
*    Much more recently, the day my father praised the Seattle Seahawks.
*   When Sesame Street is just screaming Common Core interdisciplinary mediocrity at me, first thing in the morning.


Do your thing and do it well!

Okay, maybe seven things isn't really a compendium. But that's a word with a lot of syllabic harmony, so it stays.

Happily, there are many more moments that life just clicks, on a level of unmistakable harmony. I guess the pagans call it synchronicity. All the sweeter is to witness that universal "fitting" and know it to mean a loving God directs the galaxy. Faith really is a gift. May it be used to the maximum service of those who suffer.

Buon Natale

Dear Pope Francis (standing, second from left), who taught me the word Lampedusa, whose smiling face I felt beaming from Time covers all over New Sagaya last Sunday, and who is celebrating Christmas Mass in Rome this day --- Merry Christmas! May your earthly mother rejoice in her work being carried to such completion and your blessed Mother ensconce you in her mantle.

This is such a humbling, overflowing time of year. The cold weather (-17 this morning as I picked up one final gift) ensures that we'll probably stay parked for the next few days. I do not sled or stroll in single digits. We wish you a Merry Christmas. May your mug overflow and your public radio stay wired. Snuggle in! The miracle isn't dependent on us doing a thing, planning or preparation-wise. God is great.

I'm always in search of a resplendent Christmas(s), and regret that an impressive strain of stomach flu will keep me home tonight. I'll light candles and remember that Mary herself knew the resplendent Soul, with no need of the trappings I'm tempted to chase. It's the warmth of love, from one soul to another, that gives us security. So at this time of year I try to balance my sensory desires with the knowledge that God alone fulfills me. I've been reading a little bit of St. John of the Cross. He rivals Augustine in threatening the allure of my own appetites. Thank you to the friends who passed the book along. The guy is hardcore and I knew little of his biography until now.

I still like sparkly stuff.

 

sthughofcluny.org

 

 

Petersburg.

I am nine years old and trying to fake being impressed by the Redwood National Forest, since my Grandma brought me and all. Giant trees, springing from a moss-carpeted world that has no need of human aid?

I know a place like that.

I am nineteen and sitting in college. The professor speaks of Alaska's 'brain drain', and how often the same qualities that isolate and cheapen our view of hometowns while in our twenties will draw us back as priorities shift later in life.

I know a place like that.

I am thirty years old and enrolling my first baby in a school. A school which fosters interdependence among its member families, by drawing on their God-given talents to keep the lights on. Politics tone down when passions pour forth. Those who craft with wood and fiber will do so; the harpists will teach music because their passion is magnetic; the natural cooks will feed the children from the Earth's bounty, and the storytellers will entertain. Also, math.

I went to a school like that.

I am staring at my father in a foreign country. His friends are nice, they seem to love his company, and his wife is a born hostess in any hemisphere. I cry myself softly to sleep every night in Australia. These friends are nice but they don't have Grandma Neva, julebukking, or the contented pace of island life.

I know a place that does.

We are sitting in the forest on a rushed commuter's campout. The black birch trees frame the night sky like the ventricles of my heart. I am at home. My kids are visitors.

I'm from a place like this.

I am listening to an urban theorist, who expounds on the diverse talent, technology and tolerance that make a vibrant community. He claims it's unique to cities. I disagree. It flows naturally from love and necessity.

I'm from a place like that.

I am looking at my husband, who has hung the stars for me since the second day we met --- he's saying he wants to catch a fish, take a walk, grill some burgers, watch the children grow from right up close.

And I know a place like that.

 

 

 

 

Il Papa, Mi Papa, Il Papavero

I grant you a somber audience with Pope Benedict XV. We soldier on.

I watch the papal abdication with two hearts: first is that of a convert, the skeptic who still sees the fracas as it must look to the secular or Protestant world. Why the fawning, the tears? Why so much love for a man we only ever see waving from balcony? Why is it startling to see him waving from much smaller balcony in a castle just a few miles away from the previous balcony? Why will all of this love be poured out onto the new pope immediately, when most Catholics won't know a shred of his biography?

We recognize the teaching authority, the fate of tradition and our own pastoral needs to be a real and pressing concern to one man. We love Jesus and the church He built, without which we would be adrift in this world. (As an Alaskan kid I've adored all the nautical metaphor PBXVI has used, from the 'digital frontier' infographics a few years ago to the ship as a logo for this Year of Faith. His words yesterday were also peppered with references to the sea and fishermen. Dug it.) We are the children of God, who find not an austere or legalistic pompous parade, but a humble and diligent father who serves our wounded nature with his prayers and guidance. We will love the next pope just as soon as he's revealed to us, because of his awesome duties. We revere Mary because she said Yes. Any soul who echoes her stoic assent is a hero to us. 

The answers to these questions are real to me, at my core.  This second dimension of my heart finds solace in the two thousand years (and counting) of sojourn which doesn't slow down for anyone. I imagine variations of these questions are asked by many who observe the Catholic world during such a historic time. I know this much --- I wasn't emotional on this day, although my husband and I stood fairly frozen in our pajamas, watching the Today Show's coverage. It wasn't difficult to watch until I saw a rotund little Italian grandmother weeping under the balcony at Castel Gandolfo. She is my sister. She may worship in rags, without upholstered kneelers and perfect acoustics in her parish. She may bear sickness or health in her bones, and I will never know her name. But we're of the same heart, a pilgrims' heart that weeps for the loss of our Holy Father. And he's tired. It's impossible not to see the visage of our fading grandparents, in his face.

I called my own father this morning while running errands around my little city, feeling a bit like the bereaved who watch resentfully as the world keeps spinning around them. "Why do the traffic lights have the gall to just tick along when there's no Pope?" "The Chair of Peter has been vacated, and I'm going to the dentist?" Experience tells me there's comfort to be found in our vocations, and taking care of business --- so after Mass I set about the routine needs of personal healthcare. I was annoyed that the oral surgeon had a fancy inverted cabinet mounted on the wall, containing boxes of latex gloves in various sizes. A box for a box? I was relieved when the dentist entered the room and I saw his very mortal, jagged teeth. My mind flashed on churches without pews. Babies without medicine. I thought of Mother Teresa's words to the American people about our poverty. The poverty of loneliness. Maybe that's why I reached out for the voice of my daddy, which resonates like no other voice on earth to me. Time has not stopped if I can still get my dad on the phone. 

The work of a father is tiring, and obviously Pope Benedict XVI has had to contend with duties beyond that of holy shepherd. His administrative calendar has been riddled with difficulty these past few years, and he's kept the wolves at bay to the best of his abilities. That he surmises the demands now outpace his abilities and declares it necessary to step aside ---  it's a choice we can only respect.

From today's Mass reading --- so fitting as we take on the demands of praying for the new Pope.

Jeremiah 17: Thus says the LORD: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm, whose heart turns away from the LORD.
6	He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.
7	"Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD.
8	He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit."
9	The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?
10	"I the LORD search the mind and try the heart, to give to every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings."

Hail, Summer!

On a day which has the most vivid readings in honor of Mary's Queenship, we are frying dandelions and awaiting dinner guests. I'm embracing a new season of motherhood --- one with children who are old enough for conversation,  projects and giggling over secret birthday gifts for their sister. It's like a gift, these girls with ease and independence where once squalling babies resided. As if I've been driving a battered Dodge Dart for years, who needed constant oil changes and anxious maintenance with unknown results --- now my tiring steed has morphed into some sleek new model with automatic windows and shiny paint. They can go to tea! We can paint, and plant flowers, and pluck eyebrows! (Don't ask.)

But the most gripping and beautiful part, which I rightly attribute to the clear teachings of the Catholic faith, is that I have more babies coming up behind them. ("I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for the fresh supply of two-year-olds", my husband once toasted me during dinner.) I'm frank about my general discomfort with babies, and it will probably never change. It doesn't matter. My 34-year old self is essentially the same as my 26-year old self who greeted her newborn with unwarranted confidence and utter bliss. I fully expected to have two children, no more. I never considered full-time motherhood a choice that appealed to me. I had my own Visitation moment, great with child, as I confessed not wanting to deposit my baby anywhere but home once he or she arrived. My husband, quotable as ever (he never remembers these swoon-worthy moments) answered my fairly sheepish admission with characteristic verve. "That's what makes this nation great." His words surprised me, since I'd heard that sort of platitude about plenty of pursuits, but nothing so common and accessible as raising children.

I can savor my 12-month old son all the more because I can see around the corners. I know what precious milestones are coming. It also minimizes the angst over seeing the older ones grow, since their development aids the family. We bloom together. These children belong to God, who in His infinite wisdom has plopped them down with us. As long as they're entrusted to us, may the wind continue to change direction once in awhile and remind us of the joys surrounding us in the fullness of time. That our Lord and Creator sought a human mother for Himself never ceases to humble me.

My soul shall be filled as with a banquet. Indeed.

The Protected Sex

Fourteen year old girls are built for love. Well, everyone is, but the allegiance of this creature takes on an intensity that often lasts a lifetime. If we are fortunate, forces around us will direct this intensity towards matters eternal. The rest of us flit from social circles to cloying musical groups to PETA-like causes that are tepid and pointless compared to the fire inside of us. We should be invited to broader horizons. This, for instance. 

The Indefatigable Fr. Michael Shields

Father Michael Shields gave a retreat four years ago which he opened with the promise to share the definitive single thing a woman wants from a man. I was immediately rapt, and spent the day in shades of mild anxiety as I kept ducking in and out of the church to tend my newborn's fussing, worried I'd miss his mini-revelation. I didn't miss it. I still think of it when I'm frustrated by the disappointments my sisters on this planet suffer from the misused brawn and brains of our brothers. Fr. Shields posited that women want to be protected by men.

I won't spend long caressing any feminist hackles raised by this assertion, because they're obvious and irrelevant. The role of women is not diminished by the role of men, when both are rightly fulfilled. There are as many ways this protective role is made manifest as there are different human temperaments. Plenty of women live without a care for the willful protection of a man. That doesn't change the decorum with which men should behave towards women.

Father Shields' adroitly stated promise of Christ comes to mind again, cited from his work approaching homeless pregnant women in Russia, to offer them freedom and shelter: "Jesus doesn't want to take anything from you. He only wants to give."

Some examples of the protection a man offers a woman are clear cut and tangible. Earning money for a family's material needs and using physical strength to ensure another's safety, for instance. Others are nuanced and most evident when they're not met: sexual assault, abandonment and emotional cowardice. The effects of such dereliction are massive, capable of wounding generations and bleeding through society's fabric with little to trace back to its source. We have a beloved family member who, as a child during confession, confided to a priest ongoing incestuous attempts by her father. The priest casually responded that "some families do that."  Try telling my brave relative that she was wrong to look elsewhere for guidance from that day forward.

A bunch of Allison's men and one of mine,
tending the home fires.

Likewise, young men especially have the ability to heal these wounds before they're formed. Heroic virtue in boys begins with adults allowing it to blossom. Our power must not be threatened by their delicate formation, and I see hopeful sprouts of it in the simplest tasks. We have friends with a cadre of bouncing boys, some of whom I've already been privileged to watch grow through adolescence. The first dozen times we arrived at their driveway for parties, I counted it coincidental that their sons would beeline to my car and offer to carry babies and potluck dishes into their house. 

It was at least a year before it crystallized, and I was floored by my own oblivion and the careful instruction of my friends towards their sons --- they were sending them out! Of course I can carry a casserole, a toddler, a diaper bag and an infant carseat, I'm actually quite practiced at it. But I don't have to, in certain settings. More important than my own acrobatics are the characters of young men which I would trample on by dismissing their offer of help. Chivalry rocks. What are we here for in this life, if not to lighten the loads of those around us? No one soul reaches salvation --- or its opposite --- alone. Certain friends inspire us through their steady assistance more than others.

Upon reflection, I have such a friend. Rather ironically (he's an atheist), his friendship also foreshadowed Christian charity to me: no decision of mine, smart or foolish, seems to raise or lower my status in his eyes. My flaws have been received in grace at every turn for twenty years.


He has tempered my mania with his grounding sense of humor, objective wisdom, and a refusal to define me by life's worst moments. It's hard to be a seventeen year old drunk without seeking the company of lowly men (who's going to buy the beer, after all?). I have both witnessed and endured some extreme displays of this absence of good character. I also behaved badly, maliciously and without morals. He loved me anyway. Too many times, my behavior created imminent physical and emotional peril, which he would providentially appear and solve, usually by tossing my carcass over his shoulder and into a waiting pickup truck. He protected me.

Thank you, Jeremy.

Later in life, my histrionics were met with bored common sense, even on life-changing matters like leaving college, entering treatment for alcoholism and divorcing my husband. ("I don't think you're so bad off, but do what you gotta do." And years later, "So now you're going to trash your marriage; just don't do it in my living room.") 

My friend always comes to mind when I read various horrific reports of lively teenaged girls who meet their final match in the presence of so-called friends. It sounds like a pathetic endorsement of the human bond --- "I trust that you would help me if we overdosed on illicit drugs" --- but taken in layers of context and innate virtue, love is evident. I'm not painting him as a Boy Scout, and we probably wouldn't have spoken a second time if he had been. But if you have a daughter for whom you do everything right and she still goes wayward, pray that she is granted the profound blessing of a friend like mine for the journey. It's a wild world. It's hard to get by just upon a smile.

The Mystery of Mercy

My husband, who is an actual badass (not to be confused with the girl mouthing off online while ensconced in the comforts he provides by laboring twelve hours a day in the snow), first rolled out the concept of mercy to our then-six-year old daughter after I dispatched him to discipline her one evening. I stood at the kitchen sink, thankful he'd come through the door in time to do my dirty work. Instead of enduring the fallout from a well-earned swat, they both emerged from the next room in somber unity and began setting the table for dinner. Her sentence had been commuted.

Alaska has mild consequences for minors caught consuming and possessing controlled substances, or at least that was the case in the mid-nineties, during which whiskey and weed were my primary vocation. As I wrapped up a particularly busy summer of cannery work, beach bonfires and camping, I recall starting the school year with a tidy twenty hours of community service.



St. Monica and St. Augustine, Mother and Son

As fate and the magistrate would have it, I served part of this sentence at our local police station on an early Saturday morning.  Attempting meekness out of embarrassment more than manners, I arrived and asked the dispatcher for my duty. I expected to be mopping jail cells or scrubbing bathrooms, but instead was ushered up a narrow staircase to a small room and seated at a large, round table. There was a milk crate filled with cassette tapes at my feet, and on the faux woodgrain tabletop, an industrial strength magnet and a tape player. My task was simple and demonstrated by the gruff old lady who had booked me many times. "Put each tape on the magnet, both sides, to erase it. Make sure it worked by listening to them here." With that, I was left alone and began working.

The magnet hummed against the silence of the room, soon giving way to a stilted rhythm of plastic and metal: I'd grab a tape, flip it against the flat surface of the magnet and then into the tape deck, where its blank status was announced with an even louder hum. The ominous boredom droned on for less than a half hour before I reversed the order of these steps. And skipped the last two. Now, rather than erasing tapes, I listened to hours of police evidence and shoved a dozen of the best ones into the waistband of my (no-doubt high waisted, 1990s) jeans. I then set off like Miss America, waving goodbye to the policemen as I sought out my equally delinquent friends to bask in the awe of such ill-gotten treasures.

The tapes languished in storage for a year or two and were next used by a live-in boyfriend to scare a former boyfriend during a drug sale. Actual hilarity ensued (and was caught on tape) as Mr. Seller entertained himself by playing Mr. Buyer's old DUI interview tapes, implying that he had connections beyond the bucolic biker gang he trafficked for. Seller would not know for many months that Buyer himself had been arrested, worked a deal with the police and was undercover in exchange for leniency. At that moment. In true Keystone Kriminals style, we had unwittingly broadcast to the police that we possessed classified tapes --- through their own wired informant.

At least two years later, my desk phone rang and the chief of police asked for an appointment. My life had taken some  turns, and he was by then a professional contact of sorts. No instinct alerted me to the personal nature of the call until it was too late. He calmly asked about 'the issue of some tapes'. My bravado and dishonesty had been left in my teenage years, and I did not pretend an interest in recreating the juvenile standoffs I had once enjoyed in that building. I also had more to lose and sensed the possibility of mercy. After I admitted my brazen theft, he explained his reticence in pursuing the matter. Since it was unlikely the evidence could be recovered from my long estranged lover who now faced a moderate prison sentence for our activities, the matter of the tapes was let go. 

Why was I spared? The only answer is love. This love fosters mutual humility, which trumps the power imbalance between two parties. We can experience a spontaneous desire to insist on the good, the potential, and overlook grave faults in another. Not to be ignored are reasons of efficiency, a more philos application than the Chief's agape acceptance of my offense  --- as in the case of correcting children, we can exhaust ourselves with scrupulosity if we don't occasionally make use of mercy to our own benefit. Much like the exercise of charity, both souls are enriched and invited to grow.

Criminals and children are both opportunists, and this mysterious gift of mercy has to be selectively granted. If our kids never receive due punishment, our words lose weight and their character suffers. Had I not sat in the police chief's office ready for sentencing, the force of his unnecessary kindness would have been diminished. The more grandiose the offense, the deeper the gratitude when forgiven with ease.

Just as important as mercy's cause are her effects. Immediately following the spanking which never materialized, our daughter was helpful and cheerful, besides being grateful. At least twenty minutes of productivity was gained, and the bond between father and daughter was visibly strengthened. As for my meeting in the police station, it cemented my identity as a clean and sober adult and made good use of my progress so far. My debt had been paid by another.

Nowhere in my Christian travels have I found a sentiment broader than "the ground is level at the foot of the cross" (except maybe Peter Kreeft's "if we believe in a loving God, we must also believe in the possibility that Hell is empty"). Of this we can be sure, and of His mercy we can never be worthy.



Can Two Boys Be Married?

At fifteen years old I had to run away from home. I just needed a ride. I stood, defiant of the oppression and ready for sojourn, in our lush, sloping front lawn --- balancing a lit cigarette, a backpack and a cat. I must have summoned my friend Jamie Lynn by using our home phone, since even drug dealers and surgeons had only pagers then. No clandestine cell phone calls or silent texting was available to me --- such an escape had to be planned from the inside.

As I recall, Jamie arrived in quick order, parking her little hatchback and crossing the street to help with my self-professed emergency. I recited the litany of injustice that had driven me to this moment, calming as I awaited her aid. It came, but in a horrifying form. "So....you're running away from your family because you have chores, Tiffany Rose? That's silly. You can't come to my house. I mean, do whatever you want, but I don't have anywhere to take you."

Calling her had been a total mistake.

It sounds overblown and obvious now, but isn't that adolescence for you? I had some job to do, likely unglamorous but necessary like washing the windows or folding laundry. Diversion and melodrama being my currency, I spun this wild tapestry of victimization instead of just doing my work. I also pleaded for the confirmation that my actions were brave and smart, and I wanted it from the girl who was arguably my most virtuous friend. Her maturity and resignation to the facts were an exception among my confidantes; the rest of us being loyal not so much to one another, but to any opposition we perceived as threatening our freedom. (Vacuuming the living room, for instance.)

My friend was pastoral, practical, and I still find it valuable to reflect on the 'why' of her behavior that summer day. She wasn't spoiling for a fight or trying to win my allegiance. She was offering a true brand of friendship, to be prized highly over "confederacies in vice, or leagues of pleasure", as English essayist Joseph Addison called its lower, more counterfit forms. Her words carried no punishment, and because of her critical candor over the years, I've learned to trust her encouragement as being equally sincere.

We too often run away from truth and its gentle invitation, into the welcoming echo chamber of other liars. I don't remember how this short-lived adventure ended, though it's doubtful I went inside and did my chores. There was one voice giving mournful clarity to my woes, mirroring the quiet authority of my father. I could find louder and more exciting sources to validate my refusal of duty.

Such is the case against homosexual "marriage" and the hip chorus who clamors for it.  An often overlooked facet of Catholic teaching on such matters is that it is never the arbitrary decisions of men; it is rather a revelatory exercise which distills God's wisdom and love. There are the pastoral, the practical and the "nitty gritty" reasons why a same-sex union is in fact, false. The faith I profess has unlocked this epic agony, and it begins with a right understanding of sex.

It also ends there, for many. If we are not carefully instructed in virtue, there is little defense against the default catechesis around us. (If it feels good, do it. Lots. With a camera, once the novelty wears off.) I've watched enough primetime television in this decade to witness a marked uptick in the presentation of urbane, gay male lawyers as the sole champion of truth and integrity among their family and peers. This is significant not because it's unlikely in any given case --- hey, lawyers have been known to be honest ---  but because it grants inviolate status based on something as variable as human sexuality.

Suspending your opinion on so-called social issues, observe that a husband/wife/children situation is now the arena of carnival sideshows, peeked at through documentary-style TV shows about fruitful family life. (Yes, I'm talking about the Duggars. I have seen one episode. Her ice cream sandwich-cake impressed me.) Of course it's out of the ordinary for a family to grow quite so rapidly as the Duggars, and I suppose that allows for a viewing base. But ... is the daily lifestyle of a gay man given the same wide-eyed curiosity? Why not? Surely family life is just as diverse as any individual's, so to call this question promotion of a stereotype doesn't work. By its very definition, the core of the curiosity over the Duggar family is a curiosity about sexual activity and its effects.

We have normalized, sanitized and nearly canonized a behavior built of carnal sexual urges, all with a notable absence of the same meritless goodwill being extended towards a 'traditional' family. I dread being considered a bigot, but I refuse to be bullied into presumption of anyone's virtues based solely on their favorite vice(s). Content of character, anyone?

Pastoral
The Church does not dismiss same-sex attraction as contrived or even sinful as a condition, but neither will She elevate it to the charism the modern media and aggressively secular culture has ascribed to it.

A person is comprised of will, intellect, body and soul. We act either in harmony or violation of each faculty with almost every motion or thought. If we are not Saints, it's because that has not mattered most of all to us in our lives, as a precious friend reminded me just yesterday. Sure, not everyone is Catholic, or even hopes for Heaven, but I maintain that objective truth doesn't change because of our rebellion. (Wash the dishes, Tiffany Rose.)

We are created with this truth in mind, and we have a job to do. Those of us who understand earthly death as a beginning will describe this job with 'the end' in mind. Anyone else can agree that all people have specific talents, which cause them varying degrees of restlessness if unfulfilled. This is the essence of Satanic victory: lives of despair and self-loathing.

Practical
Recreational sex is not our job on earth. Pursuit of sex is not an identity. The methods an adult uses to accomplish an orgasm should be no more a topic of public discussion than any other private decision. That's not Puritanical, oppressed or small-minded. It's called manners.

Our frightful lack of a collective spine has allowed this debate to reach such a fevered pitch that we are now measuring 'equality' assigned by group affiliation. In the United States of America, rights are endowed to the individual. There are no 'group' rights.

The threat posed to a group is indeed real, but that threat is to any group who will not endorse and evangelize the homosexual cause. The Catholic Church would not forcibly seek to stop anyone from living a blatantly homosexual life; we simply can't say it's healthy, to the students and patients entrusted to our schools and hospitals. That's it. The crux of the stalemate resembles my own teenaged fit too well --- do whatever you want, but don't ask us for a ride. Again shines the American way --- we have the right to be wrong, in the world's estimation. Let us drive our private institutions into the metaphorical ground of our own volition. In such foundational matters of liberty, unanimity isn't useful or necessary. It is sufficient that we believe it.

Nitty Gritty
The natural order of sexuality having two aspects, unitive and procreative, is enough to show the disordered fact of same sex attraction. Since we hold that marriage must be open to both the unitive and procreative functions, the joining of two men or two women simply isn't a marriage. Even if we beg, demand and legislate it so.

I was raised by Good Hippies, who deserve all of my honor and gratitude for their insistence that we cherish the harmony created by differences. One of my parents' dearest friends was lost very early to the AIDS pandemic, and my mother still mentions how often and deeply she misses him. It's my hope that my young family will know of his humor and kindness. My elementary school education was, I realize in hindsight, at the competent hand of some memorable lesbians. Not because of their sex lives, nor in spite of them, but irrespective to such intimacies --- I'd drop off my kids to them today, were the same education available. An honorary uncle to our children has lived with HIV for nearly thirty years. We have all suffered the shock of suicide in young people who undertake a path which becomes unbearable. I reject any caricature of their lives. These are not tokens to me, these are people who took me as seriously and treated me as lovingly as I do them, even in memory. They're my brothers and sisters. 

For many years I could muster only tacit assent on this Church teaching, due to an immature understanding of it. My questions were answered by charitable hearts who took the time to share their experience, strength and hope. Here is just one of them. If you struggle against yourself in this area, let no one write your life's script for you. You are much more than your desires of the flesh. We have a job to fulfill with the gift of our lives, which can be recognized by threads of God's creative force, not the destructive roles many would cast for us.  The triumph of chastity is for every person, married or single, and worth exploration.

As with all of God's gifts, our effort is mostly one of becoming willing to receive it. And worth emphasizing perhaps above all else: it's never too late for grace through repentance. No shame can eclipse God's love, unless we stay in the shadows and insist on calling it a sunrise.

The Pill: No Big Whoop?

Your moon cycle is your friend.

Confronting a lie is tough, but confronting the behemoth pharmaceutical industry begins with squeaky, questioning wheels. I invite you to become one of them.

President Obama is currently at the helm of an unprecedented assault on religious freedom, fundamental liberty and conscientious objection. I will leave the legal and historical arguments to minds better trained than mine. Barack Obama and his cohorts are but a symptom of what ails us. I want to talk about The Pill.

Hormonal contraception is the cultural norm for American women and teens, with 2010 marking fifty years of rapidly increasing use. We have been fed a host of well-crafted lies about our bodies, our destinies, and the role we should expect to play in controlling both. Creepy scientific findings are rejected without much logic, as if platitudes about liberation are as far as our reasoning abilities have been extended. 

Catholics have embraced the pill at a rate equal to everyone else, so the tentacles of this artificial intrusion aren't unique to any group. Entrenched mass acceptance doesn't make it the best choice for women. Liberation from fear is simpler, healthier and enhances a relationship.

As a married woman who happily fumbles her way through NFP, my own point of view may seem overly pristine. Let me assure you that I couldn't have treated sex more cavalierly for a portion of my life, and we endured infertility for the first half of our marriage. The former is just biography, and making bad decisions doesn't increase my credibility. The latter gave a piercing clarity to our grasp of the full purpose of sex itself. When a trusted process doesn't work to our demands, its function often takes on a heightened importance.

Not to trivialize the subject at hand, but is this ever more stark than with computers? If I there's an infinitessimal delay in retrieving data, I'm peeved. If something actually breaks, I experience an interior defrag process, the depth of which is embarrassing to admit. I like to read. But back to my womb, your womb, and the wombs you love...

To suggest that women reconsider use of artificial birth control is a strike at the heart of postmodern feminism, to which I owe a certain gratitude. So be it. Hear me roar, suffragettes.

Or rather, hear the Boston Women's Health Collective do their own roaring. Compared to their magnum opus, Our Bodies, Ourselves (1970), Pope Paul VI's landmark Encyclical, Humane Vitae (1968) is a breeze. Let's examine both. The italicized passages are the words of the Catholic Church, followed by a corresponding section from Our Bodies, Ourselves unless otherwise noted.

First, on the origins of life:

"The question of human procreation, like every other question which touches human life,
involves more than the limited aspects specific to such disciplines as biology, psychology, demography or sociology. It is the whole man and the whole mission to which he is called that must be considered: both its natural, earthly aspects and its supernatural, eternal aspects." 

"By the end of the second month the growing embryo, by this time called a fetus, is a very fragile one-inch long mass of differentiated tissue acting as a parasite within the mother's body."

+++

On the holistic ingredients of Natural Family Planning:

"The right and lawful ordering of birth demands, first of all, that spouses fully recognize and value the true blessings of family life and that they acquire complete mastery over themselves and their emotions.

Self-discipline of this kind is a shining witness to the chastity of husband and wife and, far from being a hindrance to their love of one another, transforms it by giving it a more truly human character."

  

"The method requires a lot of self-control

and cooperation between partners."

+++

On contraception effectively
reducing women to  sexual objects:

"Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection." 

  

"The pill can bring increased pressure on a woman to have intercourse with any man who wants it, or to do it with her husband or long-term lover any time he wants to whether she wants to or not."

+++

On Discerning Family Size: 

"With regard to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised by those who prudently and generously decide to have more children, and by those who, for serious reasons and with due respect to moral precepts, decide not to have additional children for either a certain or an indefinite period of time."

"Lots of experts have lots of expert opinions on the number of children in the "ideal" family and the spacing of those children, but it is up to each of us to make our own decision about how many children to have and when to have them." Ourselves and Our Children, 1978

+++

Women's Roles:

"Also noteworthy is a new understanding of the dignity of woman and her place in society, of the value of conjugal love in marriage and the relationship of conjugal acts to this love." 

"We and what we did were as valuable as men and what they did. ...It still surprises me that I can create something other than a child." 

+++

On the necessity and value of chaste periods:

"With regard to man's innate drives and emotions, responsible parenthood means that man's reason and will must exert control over them." 

"Anxiety diminishes because being alone is a very positive experience. It has given us back our integrity, our privacy, our pride." (on celibacy)

++++

It appears we have some points to agree on, such as the general aim of human dignity. There are sympathetic themes, but we know the documents to be diametrically opposed. Our Bodies Ourselves was a manifesto against reproductive enslavement, filled with more militant emotion than science or direction. Humanae Vitae, in its compactness, addresses so much of life's difficulty and beauty. It opens with the strength of the arguments of the day for using scientific gains to rationally space births. The reader is then swept into a broader realm, away from temptation and self-centeredness.  Especially when contrasted to the cynicism of OBOS, the good Pope is a romantic poet.

"It is sad not to see the good in goodness."
Russian novelist Nikolai Gogol



To describe their work as cynical is not discounting their passion or humanity. Firstwave feminists are real women, who poured their lives into this work --- often neglecting their own children to champion the power of another mother (or not). But they were pioneers, not settlers. I have inherited the dystopian realm they envisioned, and it's gross.

It is immoral men who benefit most from artificial birth control, giving them dominion over women in a way so delicate and difficult to explain after it has been granted for decades. This is no accident, if some study is given to the forces behind this movement. (Hint: It didn't start in 1970) So much sexual mystery is destroyed when men and women's complementary desires are fragmented into opposing forces. Men are harmed, too.

A girl who has never been wholly accepted barely counts it as a loss. To young men, specifically, I would ask: How dare you look into the eyes of a girl you profess to love, while hiding from her life-giving force that you can't possess or understand? Fear of this power tells you to treat her like a pretty vending machine, perhaps extracting offspring at some later date. As humans, we are much more than machines. 

I contain multitudes, as the poet implores.

So do you.

I parcel myself out for no man.