For books. And lovely libraries.

For clothes drying racks. Saving money and the environment? Yes, please.

But I always find myself a little repulsed when I encounter someone writing about cervical mucus.

Gross, no?

And unnecessarily so.

The only thing gross about cervical mucus is the term “mucus.” Mucus is nasty snotty stuff associated with mild sickness and two-year-olds in need of having their noses wiped. In fact, I plan to encourage my children to avoid sex by teaching them about “seminal mucus” and “arousal mucus.” That is how gross mucus is.

There is nothing gross about cervical fluid. It is clean. It is an amazing source of life and aid to conception. Cervical fluid is beautiful.

Words matter, and we should try to use them to reflect the fact that a woman’s fertility is beautiful, not disgusting. So why on earth would we call something as amazing as cervical fluid “mucus?”

Over the past few months I have sloooooowly returned to “running” and still prefer several miles at a slow pace to any attempt at really running. But I needed to know what I could actually do, and to push myself to really run more regularly.

I timed myself for a mile. I told myself that it didn’t matter how out of shape I was, I really, really had to run the mile in less than 10 minutes. I simply had to, or I was never going to be fit again.

So I ran. I did not let myself go too fast because it was important that I actually run the whole way, but I tried so very hard to finish the mile in less than 10 minutes.

I was so out of breath at the end that I barely noticed the time, but a few seconds after I stopped I looked down to see 7:55. Huh?

Apparently I had been running 10 minute miles for months, but still saw myself as nowhere near able to run. So I did not push myself. And when it came to setting goals, I kept them quite small. 3 miles in 25 minutes? Impossible.

Or not.

It does not really matter that I underestimated myself in terms of running. The real problem is that I tend to do this in just about every area of my life. And it is difficult to set appropriate goals without an accurate assessment of one’s own abilities.

Last October I took down the page that had my 101 in 1001 list because it was depressing. The list did not seem impossible to accomplish, it seemed pointless. It was the careful calculation of underestimation. The first item on the list is “run a half marathon.” Great, right? Except that what I should have put was “run a marathon.” Two and a half years is plenty of time to train. But I did not know for certain that I could complete a marathon. And while I’ve never run a half-marathon before, there was that one hot Sunday afternoon in July where I would have run 15 miles had I not walked the last 3 because I had no water. So a half-marathon was reasonable. And boring.

While it is great to have realistic goals, it is not great to have goals that are so realistic that they are mere mile-markers rather than actual goals. What is the point of having a list of things to accomplish if I do not even care about achieving the goals because they are based on a low estimation of my abilities?

So I am reviving my 101 in 1001 list because it is good to have goals, but I am also copying Kathleen and editing the list. I do not just want to have a list of items to cross off, I want to have goals which reflect lofty dreams combined with  realistic self-assessment.

How do you set appropriate goals for yourself? For those of you more tempted to underestimate than overestimate yourself, what tricks have you found to push yourself to your full potential?

When I was a senior in high school, my period got really out of hand. For several months, I would come home sick the first day of my period. I would get so sick that I would vomit the entire day. Everything I ate, everything I drank, I eventually would dry heave the rest of the night. It was bad. It would be so unbearable and I was pulled out of school several months in a row. It wasn’t Toxic Shock Syndrome because my period was so heavy the first day that I couldn’t even wear a tampon. I would soak through a jumbo tampon in an hour easily. Instead, I would wear an overnight pad and change it every two hours. Like I said, it was unbearable. After several months of this happening my mom set up an appointment with a gynecologist.

He had a solution to the problem and it came in the form of a pill. It was the birth control pill but he said it also worked to help women who had issues with their menstral cycle. The only catch was that I had to make sure to take the pill every single day at the exact same time. No problem at all.

I started taking the pill and it was magic! My periods were no longer heavy and my sickness went away. That pill was my lifesaver and I was so thankful for it. It turned out, the pill came in handy for other reasons. Well, maybe it became a little too handy too. I mean, I had to take it for my female issues, so I might as well use it.

Fast forward seven years later when I meet the man of my dreams, Francis Wayne. I knew right away that he was the one and I even nicknamed him, “The One” to my friends. He was absolutely everything I wanted in a man and I was beyond Cloud 10.

He knew I was on the pill for female issues and it never really came up that I could use it for other reasons. But after we were dating for nine months, we started using it for other reasons. It just happened, something we really didn’t plan and both felt awful about. But the pill kept us safe and we just pushed the issue to the side. This went on for months and we both felt bad about what we were doing and knew we needed to stop, but neither one of us talked to the other person about it. Finally, a year had gone by, and one of us spoke up. I still don’t remember who it was, but thankfully that person did. I guess it was such a hard subject to talk about, even though it was a very important subject, that both of us were afraid to hurt the other person. But someone spoke and we decided it wasn’t right. We practiced our faith together, always attending Mass on the weekends, but we weren’t living what we were preaching. We kept thinking about God looking down on us and being ashamed. And then we were ashamed.

But words are weaker than will power and we all know how powerful the gift of will power is. So to keep to our word and know that there was no way to fall back on what we agreed, I stopped taking the pill. I knew that there would be a chance that my periods from hell would return but I weighed my options: periods from hell or feeling like I was in hell? I took the periods from hell.

And to my surprise, my periods were fine. All together I was on the pill for eight years. Gosh, that just makes me shiver to think how long I relied on that crutch to “cure” my female issues. When I look back at my life, I realize that when I was a senior I had stopped playing soccer and was no longer a cheerleader. My eating habits were disgusting as well. If I would have taken better care of my physical well-being then I may never have had the issues I had. Five years after starting the pill, I started to workout. (It is so gross to think that I went nearly five years without working out consistently!) I started taking kickboxing and was started my love for running. I started to watch what I was eating and was more conscience about making healthy choices. Two years later, when I met Frank, I ran my first marathon and was continuing with my healthy lifestyles.

So my female issues were solved by diet and exercise. The eight years of paying anywhere from $3 to $30 a month for the pill, depending on which insurance company I was with at the time,were fruitless. It not only robbed my bank account, made me believe it was fixing my issues but it also gave me the ability to do things I might not have done otherwise. The pill gave me power and honestly, I didn’t deserve that kind of power.

After I quit taking the pill, which led to us quiting another part of our life, we dated for four more years until our wedding day. And let me tell you, the wedding night was amazing. I’m thankful for the mistakes we made in our relationship because those mistakes only brought us closer to God and each other. We learned to trust in God’s Word deeper and practice what we preached. We learned to open our communication lines and trust each other, 100%. The pill did that for us by allowing us to give into pressure. But removing the pill, or I should call it, the band-aid, set us free.

More of Trena’s writing can be found at The Third Prayer. Please check it out!

But it was quite real for me at 6:00 this morning as I lay in bed trying to remember the details of almost getting kicked out of college.

I remember that I had only been at school for a few days when I was emailed instructions to come into the office of the Dean of Students. But I cannot remember whether the email said anything about the reason for the meeting. I do not remember being distraught.  But it is difficult for me to imagine being so calm now if such a request was made with no explanation. Perhaps the righteous are bold as a lion and I was confident in my goodness, but it still seems odd to me. I wish I could remember…

Anyway, I do remember waiting in a large office area. Eventually the dean came in and I do not remember exactly how the discussion went. But she kindly made it clear that I would need to leave school if my vaccination situation were not resolved. I had never received any of the typical vaccines and the school had contacted my parents since I was 17 and not allowed to be vaccinated without parental consent. And without the vaccines I could not legally remain at the college.

I remember that I was quite calm and matter-of-fact when speaking to both the dean and my father. I left the dean’s office with nothing resolved since the school had to wait to see what my parents would do. My father ended up deciding that I would be allowed to have the vaccines since it was so important to me and since I “had such a good attitude” and was apparently calmly submitting to his authority. I remember thinking that I was not submitting at all, I simply recognized that there was nothing that I could do to change the situation.

I do not remember whether I actually received any vaccines. I know that my parents were willing to ultimately give in, but they also came up with the doctor’s note saying that I was exempt for religious reasons. Working it out based on logic rather than memory, I am actually confident that I was not vaccinated. After all, it seems likely that I would remember receiving shots since it would have been the first time in my life. And I remember that a year later the nurse thought that I would not take something related to another issue due to the note on my medical history and I had to explain to her that I did not oppose it and was now old enough to decide for myself.

It is odd to not be able to remember something that must have been so very important at the time. I suppose that I can now comfort myself during future troubles with the knowledge that I will not remember them after only a few years. But now that I do remember this I realize that I need to get a copy of my medical history and figure out what vaccines I should have. Forget research to decide what to do with future children, I must research what vaccinations I should have!

I would love to know your thoughts if you have an opinion on vaccinations, thoughts on memory problems, or remember the details of me almost getting kicked out of college .

St. John the Baptist had a most difficult office to fulfil; that of rebuking a king. Not that it is difficult for a man of rude arrogant mind to say a harsh thing to men in power,—nay, rather, it is a gratification to such a one; but it is difficult to rebuke well, that is, at a right time, in a right spirit, and a right manner. The Holy Baptist rebuked Herod without making him angry; therefore he must have rebuked him with gravity, temper, sincerity, and an evident good-will towards him. On the other hand, he spoke so firmly, sharply, and faithfully, that his rebuke cost him his life.

We who now live have not that extreme duty put upon us with which St. John was laden; yet every one of us has a share in his office, inasmuch as we are all bound “to rebuke vice boldly,” when we have fit opportunities for so doing.

John Henry Cardinal Newman

Today the Church remembers the death of the Forerunner of Christ. Newman’s thoughts on St. John’s example of rebuke strike me as especially pertinent for today. But what a challenge it is to rebuke sin correctly! It is so very easy to whine about politicians with whom we never have personal contact. It is so very difficult to speak well to those whose lives we do impact, and most importantly, to pray for all.

Older man 1: …Save yourself a lot of money. I will tell you what to do. You get the grandmother’s ring and change the setting around.

Young man: What why would grandmother give the ring?

Oder man 2: Which grandmother?

Older man 1: Her grandmother, when she is deceased.

Young man: And if the grandmother is still alive?

Older man 2: So is the grandmother scheduled for deceasedom sometime mid-July?

Young man: So your plan involves me knocking off the grandmother?!

The thing is, things are different with my generation. It is not like that anymore with rings. It is not a surprise. They look online and know all about these things. They pick them out for themselves. It is  a sport! And you’ve got to get her the ring that she wants or else she is not marrying you!

Older man 1: Well, you’ve got to start working her now…

Older man 2: He (younger guy) is right. I started looking with $5,000.00 and ended up -$15,000.00.

Older man 1: The price of gold is going up. So sell it to her that way. Explain that she can have a large gold ring rather than diamonds. She will get a large ring and you will still save a ton of money.

Older man 2: ::smirking:: And then when her grandmother dies she can put the diamonds in the large ring?

The other older man didn’t say much of anything during all of this. The conversation continued until it got to the point where the two talking older man began advising the young man to tell the girl about what his priorities really were. He should not devote himself to a girl while still in college.

Older man 2: “I remember the guys devoted to relationships in college… all the lover boys never really got anywhere.”

Older man 1: Right. They turn into 65-year-old beach bums.

At this point the two older men are so busy agreeing with each other that they don’t notice what I am pretty sure is the young man texting underneath the table. I watch as he slides his phone into his pocket, and I hope that he is ignoring the advice of the older men I imagine to have no greater fulfillment in life than in advising young men to follow in their steps and live for business rather than family.

This is hilarious mostly because I find it sad. And, given my views, I shouldn’t really. I am generally opposed to the mass stupidity associated with diamonds. They aren’t a girl’s best friend. They are De Beers best friend. And yet I hate it when men cannot accept something simply because it is of value to their partners. Hey, if diamonds=love for her, then either accept it and give her many valuable diamonds, or else find someone else a little less Lily Allenesque!

The second problem is that I am generally opposed to super-young marriage. And, in New England, engagement during college counts as super-young, particularly for boys men. But why on earth would you advise a young man– who is clearly serious about both work and his relationship– to break up simply so that he could be more free for work?

I have got to side with young love on this one: even if it does come in the form of needing diamonds for validation.

What say you?

My hair dryer is essential to both my good looks and my happiness. See how happy it makes me?

First for consideration is a completely unnecessary use of a hair dryer. I can (almost) understand if one really cares about one’s hair and finds blow drying it essential to achieving a much-loved style. But I do not tend to care much about my hair. It is unruly, to be sure, but control depends far more upon the styling products used (and style desired) than the way it dries. And, let’s be honest, I really do not pay much attention to controlling my hair most days.

So, why do I resort to wasting electricity rather than letting my hair dry naturally? I am lazy.

I do not like getting up early enough to allow my hair to dry naturally before it is time to leave for work. I am disinclined to interrupt my evening in order to shower and still have enough time for my hair to dry before work.

So, my hair dries naturally a few days a week, but most days find me grabbing that most truly unnecessary electromechanical device as I finish my morning routine.

I did not think much about hairdryers prior to this month’s environmental reflection. Oh, sure, I thought about how bad they are in terms of frying hair, but not their utterly unjustified wastefulness.

Now that I have reflected on the issue, I must chastise myself. ::tisk tisk:: eh?

Chastisement done, it is time for improvement. This stinks because it is so simple. There are no elaborate requirements for change that I can translate into excuses to continue my bad habits. I simply have to either get up earlier or else schedule a shower into my early evening. ::sigh::

Why is it so hard to change when it is only such a small change?

For example: yesterday I bought veggie burgers. This is normal for me, but it probably should not be. The veggie burgers are individually wrapped in plastic, then in a cardboard box. They are shipped from who knows where in who knows what quantity.

I am perfectly able to make my own. I can buy local produce (well as soon as there is some in MA!) and use the very large bags of rice and legumes already in my pantry. It probably won’t save energy in the cooking process, but the packaging of the ingredients is very little compared to the boxed veggie burgers.

So, in June I am going to try to notice these things every day. I know myself well enough to know that awareness is half the battle. Hopefully I won’t have to have 30 posts telling me of my sins before I start fixing a few little things.

This should be at least a little painful, so please don’t hesitate to add to the pain with comments. I want all the suggestions I can get!

The doctrine of original sin is a happy doctrine for a few reasons. The first is that original sin offers a suggestion of how God can be good even though bad things happen to good people. We can argue all we want about the role of origional sin in deciding the eternal fate of babies who die, but the fact remains that babies die. And there is nothing good about babies dying.

If one believes in original sin, then one can also believe that God did not create a world in which babies die. God created a good world, but Adam and Eve chose evil and thus babies die. Romans 5 explains that “through one person sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all, inasmuch as all sinned.”

It is not that a baby chooses sin. But all babies feel the impact of original sin, and for some this means death. There is no way around it. There is redemption, but there is also the stinging impact of sin which causes all creation to groan “as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:22-23). If one denies the place of sin in causing babies to die, then what is left but to say that it is directly God’s will? It seems to me that it is horribly arrogant to attribute the result of sin to God’s design.

The second benefit of the doctrine of original sin is that it asserts the connectedness of humans in an overly-individualistic society. The influence of liberalism (Enlightenment, Protestant Reformation, what have you) on Christianity has brought many good things, such as a focus on God’s love for every person. But, in some ways, it has lead to an insane idolatry of the individual and no place is left for the crucial role of the community. The doctrine of original sin reminds us that Christianity is not just about “me and God.” We are connected to each other and have to live with the fact that our lives are shaped by the actions others took long before we were born. Ideally, this should serve as a reminder that our actions impact others, and we should live well. It does not really matter whether one prefers to focus on sin as “origional” or “structural” or any other term. What matters is that one remembers that one is not alone and never acts in isolation. The Bible is full of stories of God seeking out individual people and dramatically altering their lives. But these stories involve changing people’s lives so that they can change even more lives, not because God simply likes shaking people up. God didn’t grab Abram and Sarai and say “I want to make your dreams come true, just for the two of you.” Saul wasn’t stopped on the road to Damascus simply for his own salvation. One’s theology of sin is an important aspect of one’s theology of community. And the doctrine of origional sin offers a good starting point for humbly accepting the facts that we did not choose to be who we are, and our choices will impact others.

Lastly there is the great irony that believing in origional sin allows one to have a much more positive view of humanity. If one does not believe in original sin, then it seems that one must attribute all evil acts to sheer malice, greed, etc. But origional sin explains that people do not necessarily choose to be evil. We were stained by sin before we were even born. Remembering this is a tremendous help for me in loving others as weak, rather than despising them as cruel. Sure, we can choose evil, but not all evil is chosen by the person who acts it out. Choice is never truly “free” and no one gets to start with a clean slate.

What is your preferred way of thinking of sin? Do you think that the term itself is problematic? If so, what constructs do you prefer?