December: The Feminine
My apologies for forgetting to actually publish this on the 1st. Please overlook my lack of feminine organizational skill. 
I have decided to dedicate December to pondering The Feminine. You may counter that December is supposed to be about the Divine Infancy, and that any remembrance of the feminine should be relegated to congratulating ourselves on refraining from sacrificing virgins during the solstice. You may be right, but I already have my posts planned.
In no particular order:
On Spiritual Motherhood & my inability to get on the bandwagon
Goal setting in terms of the menstrual cycle
Resenting Pregnancy (and other topics that good Christian women won’t talk about in public)
Always Advent: In which I admit that Lewis might have something good to contribute to the conversation about singleness
Sexual Intimacy for the Betrothed: the story of how my now-husband and I became sexually intimate during engagement and how it was one of the few things we did correctly
On the misconception that marriage is the place for ultimate feminine surrender
Those are the drafts I have so far. I would love more ideas. Please comment if there is anything that you would like to know about Catholics and women’s issues (“rude” questions welcome). Please also comment if there are topics that you have been considering that you do not want to risk discussing on your own blog, or if you would simply appreciate another perspective. Please do not comment yet if you want to burn me for my heresy. Those comments should follow the actual posts.
“Sexual Intimacy for the Betrothed: the story of how my now-husband and I became sexually intimate during engagement and how it was one of the few things we did correctly”
I’m very interested to see what you have to say here. If my mother and sister-in-law didn’t read my blog then I would blog about how one of the best mistakes we made was making love before we were married. We gave into the pressure and were committing the act for several months. But we both, separately, realized it was wrong, and came together and both decided to quit. We were sex-free for 2.75 years before we got married. And the wedding night, remarkable. We have had friends that have had the will power to wait and we’ve had friends who would care less and did it up until the day. We say we wish we wouldn’t have but honestly it was good because it brought us so much closer to God during that absense. We really, really, understood what God was calling us to do.
That is an amazing story! If you would like to write it out in detail I would be happy to have it as a guest post. I seriously think that the most difficult thing would be to have sex, enjoy it, and then choose to be chaste with the same person. I can only imagine the spiritual growth and grace that was required.
My story isn’t nearly as impressive since I am using “sexual intimacy” in a broader sense than sexual intercourse alone.
Interesting, I’d like to read this! I’m particularly interested in the goal setting part!! Do you mean by that planning events around your cycle, so you have more things on the agenda when your mood is at its best? Or do you mean some kind of crazy diet to control the length of your cycle?
Oh nothing that impressive. I guess that I was really misleading with the way that I phrased my topics.
I actually already published the one on goal setting here: http://nowealthbutlife.com/bleeding-goals/
It is just about taking time during menstruation to think about my life and set goals for the next month. I do plan events around my cycle in terms of exercise and how I’ll feel, but I didn’t address that in the post since I guess it is something that I think a lot of women do naturally.
Oh, I’m really looking forward to reading your posts on this topic!
“Any remembrance of the feminine should be relegated to congratulating ourselves on refraining from sacrificing virgins during the solstice” – that cracked me up!
I’m really looking forward to your posts – they sound intriguing!
You have reminded me of an important time in my life, something that really I should write about before I forgot. So I might take you up on the offer. Let me pray about it and get back to you.
They all sound incredibly interesting! I personally am very interested in the relationship women have with guilt (which easily ties in with several of your posts). Do we get something positive from guilt – why do we feel guilty about such a range of things?
Your “feminine surrender” idea reminds me of something I’ve been meaning to write about the modern traditional meaning of “submitting”.