There Is No Wealth But Life

Babies!

By Rae April 29, 2011 Things of Which We Do Not Speak 15 Comments

One of the things that I don’t get about all of the “Royal Wedding” related chatter is that no one is talking about babies. Um, I thought that was the point of today?

Really, I don’t read gossip magazines or websites or whatever, but I am on Twitter, and I learned nothing new today. Except what Kate’s dress looked like, but that was pretty much exactly what I would have guessed, so no excitement there.

Anyway, these two have been together forever and do a good job of the royal thing, even practicing their kisses etc. to keep their public happy, so I really don’t get all of the fuss about today… unless one were to agree with me that the whole point of this is that Kate is 30 and ready to start having babies.

Now that, my friend, is more my version of interesting!

I’m not expecting that they will have a baby 9 months from now, but 12-18 months seems entirely reasonable. So I guess I’ll bet on a May, 2012 baby. What is your bet? And do tell me why on earth I seem to be alone in my thought that this royal wedding is all about preparing for babies!

Posh Conversation

By Rae April 29, 2011 Funny Thing Is 2 Comments

I made Josh look at lots of pictures of David and Victoria Beckham from today.

I tried to explain that I wasn’t really sure why I was so sure that he needed to see them, but that I thought they looked like something out of My Fair Lady and he likes old styles, and for some reason I just thought that they just looked…

And as I stumbled around, Josh provided the word: posh.

I responded with an appreciative “ha” but he just looked at me.

“Um, you do know that she’s Posh Spice from the Spice Girls, right?”

“No, I was just trying to think of an appropriate British term.”

I would have laughed harder if I’d known that he was not purposely making a pun. Oh well.

Cursing, Swearing, and $#*&#@! Profanity

By Rae April 15, 2011 Things of Which We Do Not Speak 9 Comments

I don’t swear.

And I don’t know why.

I don’t use even the mildest of minced oaths. I will invoke the idea of hell or damnation when I intend to invoke the idea of hell or damnation. I will quote others exactly as they stated something, without concern for repeating words that I would never choose. But otherwise, my language is what you might term “clean.”

I like the fact that I don’t use profanity because it means that I never have to deal with the horrified apology to someone whom I did not consider while I was spewing.

But that is all I can come up with for why I restrict my use of language in this way. I know that I do not want children to learn curse words from me, and that I do not want to have to try to “fix” my speech, but I don’t have a good reason for this.

Yet I try to protect myself from undue profanity. If others use it in a way that I deem excessive or beyond tasteless then I won’t read what they write. It seems odd that I do this without a good reason, but I just don’t like profanity.

And that is why, even in my post title, the $#*&#@! stands for “written.” That was your first guess, right?

Vegetarian Carnivore Marriage

By Rae April 5, 2011 Relationships 9 Comments

So I married an omnivore.

That sounds ominous, doesn’t it? Apparently it is a big deal that Josh and I are happily married despite our differences of opinion regarding meat. According to some sort of reasoning, I was supposed to cave in soon after we were married and mend my evil vegetarian ways.

That didn’t happen. Shockingly enough, most days it simply isn’t an issue.

I suppose that many once-vegetarian women¹ start eating meat simply because it is the norm for our country and so it is easiest to go along with whatever is, well, easiest.

But to me, that doesn’t make sense at all. In my mind, the vegetarian should almost always “win out” because vegetarianism tends to carry the weight of some sort of ethical choice, whereas the arguments for eating meat usually tend to come down to a perfectly legal form of self-indulgence. And in our relationship, the person who is motivated by something more than selfishness tends to “win.”

I won’t declare victory until Josh is the one pressuring me to engage my conscience more in food choices, but I will admit that we’ve both already “won” in the sense that we are happy with how things have worked out.

Here’s how it has worked for us:

We dealt with the issue prior to marriage. We did not live together before getting married, but we did seek out the benefits of living together without the downsides. That meant that we spent a lot of time grocery shopping, cooking, and eating together. There was no shock of going from only sharing meals together in a restaurant, to being married and really sharing meals. Because of this we were able to work out differences gradually. When I made Josh cook the chicken when he came to visit me he not only learned what a pain chicken is to cook, he also realized how much faster the other food was ready.

I adjusted my cooking to vegetarian and then vegan foods prepared in a style that Josh loves. Josh likes spicy foods. More to the point, he does not enjoy anything that he finds bland, and there is a lot that he finds bland. So instead of just making lentil soup, I started making curried lentils. A few trips to international food stores for lots of cheap spices and Josh was suddenly quite pleased without meat. I don’t even bother to hide my pleasure when he raves about an Asian fusion dish I whipped up with cabbage and tofu. Sure, I still think that it is odd to dump peanuts into the pan when cooking dinner, but I would much rather us eat peanuts than hot dogs.

Josh is free to prepare and eat whatever he wishes. We’re not under the impression that I must do all of the cooking or run the kitchen simply because I am a woman. If Josh wants to buy and cook meat then he can. In reality I like cooking more than Josh does and he finds it much easier to eat whatever I make. But he does not ever resent the lack of meat because if he really wanted it then he could cook it himself.

While I would be very happy if Josh stopped eating meat altogether, I find the low level of meat-consumption in our house ethically tolerable. I still have a long ways to go on the journey of wise eating, and I am pretty pleased that Josh and I will at least be staying in sight of each other during this grand adventure, even if we’re not always walking hand in hand.

The stereotype at least is that women tend to be vegetarians, and the few posts (with one exception) that I’ve seen about this were from the former-vegetarian woman’s perspective.

Birth Control, Contraception, and the Catholic Church

By Rae March 25, 2011 Catholicism 23 Comments

I cringe whenever people say that the Catholic Church opposes birth control. And, if it is appropriate in the context, I do my best to correct them: the Catholic Church does not oppose birth control; it opposes contraception. What is the difference?

Our good friends at Princeton remind us that:

Birth control is limiting the number of children born
Contraception is birth control by the use of devices (diaphragm or intrauterine device or condom) or drugs or surgery

So, birth control is anything that limits birth, and contraception is a specific type of birth control which limits birth in a specific way, namely through the use of devices which allows one to suppress fertility and separate sex and procreation.

Birth control is by definition amazingly broad. Anything from complete abstinence to abortion can count as birth control.

The Catholic Church opposes abortion because it involves killing a new human life.

The Catholic Church opposes contraception because it is contrary to the dignity of the human person in pathologizing and suppressing something as essential to ourselves as our fertility¹. The Church also opposes contraception because contraception goes against the very nature of married love: a love which unites two people in the deepest of intimacy inherently connected to the transmission of human life. The Church opposes contraception because contraception destroys the intricate connection between the unitive significance and the procreative significance of sex.

But the Catholic Church does not oppose birth control. In fact, the Church urges people to live responsibly in the realm of parenting and to wisely take into account their situation in life when considering having children. A certain minority is called to have large families, and they are to be commended if they do so suitably after wise deliberation. But for most people prudence dictates that they limit the number of children which they bring into the world. The Catholic Church urges this prudence in the same breath in which she condemns contraception.

Those who refer to Natural Family Planning² as “Catholic birth control” usually do not know what they are talking about. But they accidentally stumble upon the truth: frequently overlooked among the many problematic options, there is a Catholic form of birth control. It is the birth control which takes into account the complete reality of the human person and allows couples to avoid or achieve pregnancy without compromising the ultimate intimacy of their sexual relationship.

This is not to in any way imply that the Catholic Church’s teaching on the regulation of human birth is easy or fun or comparable to contraception it its daily implications for one’s sex life. It is not. But even though what the Church suggests is challenging, it is not stupidity or irresponsibility.

You are certainly welcome to disagree with the Catholic Church over its prohibition of contraception and abortion. But you should at least understand that its motivations are far more complected than the caricature of old white bishops wanting all married women to spend their lives giving birth.

In short: Contraception? No. Birth control? Yes.

1. This is actually a particular instance of the Church’s broader opposition to self-mutilation etc. The idea is that the human person, including the human body, is essentially good as naturally created by God, and (with the exception of medical reasons) amputation, mutilation, and sterilization are immoral.

2. Natural Family Planning is an umbrella term used to describe various methods of determining when sex is likely to result in conception, and thus allowing one to practice periodic abstinence to avoid conception.

The Pill and Me

By Rae March 24, 2011 Endometriosis, The Feminine 8 Comments

Ever since I posted Trena’s story on her pill usage I’ve meant to post about mine. I’ve hinted at my story before, but now it is time for it to get its own post. This will, as always, include plenty of what normal people consider to be TMI. You’ve already been warned. And perhaps it is worth stating explicitly that this is about the use of the pill for therapeutic, not contraceptive, reasons. Lots of sickness, no sexiness. So don’t be scandalized.

My first near-encounter with artificial hormones (henceforth, “the pill” even though much of it -including my own experience- is not in pill form) happened when I was 19 and Josh and I had first started not-dating. Prior to that point we had been sort-of friends, but then Josh expressed an interest in “something more” and so we entered the phase of not-(yet)-dating. I was incredibly stressed. I went from 12 mile runs every weekend to not being able to run a mile without cramps and nausea. I had started fertility charting a few months before and so it was quite clear that my body had gone crazy. I ovulated, but then went weeks without menstruation. So I scheduled my first gynecologist appointment.

Me while on the pill and feeling disconnected from nature

I left with the reassurance that “sometimes these things just happen” and a prescription for a progestin-only pill which was supposed to bring on my period. I was irrationally afraid of it, and had a feeling that my body was going to resolve the situation soon after I’d finally gotten to see the doctor, so I delayed filling that prescription. It is probably still with my old papers somewhere, unused.

Two and a half years later Josh and I were engaged and I had gone from struggling to run to struggling to walk. I started skipping daily mass because the two mile walk was more than I could handle. Josh moved to be closer to me and for the first time we got to see each other frequently. It was wonderful.

I was still quite opposed to the pill and had laparoscopic surgery in an attempt to both get an accurate diagnosis (endometriosis) and cure through removal. It did not work. So I caved into the solution which had been offered to me every step of the way and went on the pill, much to the relief of my surgeon who thought it the wisest way to preserve fertility by preventing the endometriosis from destroying my ovaries etc.

While I was concerned about the pill for health reasons, I had no religious qualms. I knew that the Church had no objection to me being on it to control cramping and excessive bleeding. It would not be okay for me to rely on the pill for its more oft-prescribed purpose, but as long as I wasn’t using it for contraception it was perfectly fine.

You know exactly where this is going, right?

Once I was actually on the pill everything changed.

My feelings about my sexuality were dramatically altered, as was the way in which I related to Josh.

I was no longer in pain for three weeks out of the month, and the fourth week (which I cut as short as possible) was quite bearable in comparison. Suddenly I had strength to spend time with Josh going for long walks in the woods and visiting churches rather than spending so much time alone in my dorm room.

The pill was, of course, not without side-effects. My sex drive disappeared. I loved not being in pain, but I hated the way that my body felt. For someone whose natural cycles meant debilitating pain, I felt surprisingly separated from nature.

And I was utterly gleeful. Who knew chastity could be so effortless? Was this the famed lack of interest in sex which so many claimed was normal for women? Oh what delight! I had gone from being disinclined to sin to being disinclined to contemplate anything remotely sexual. Even if the sweetest of kisses had not been so unappealing, who would want to waste time with such things when one was feeling well enough to actually live? There was so much that I could do once I was on the pill– things like visiting museums and going to mass!

Eventually I stopped taking the pill. But its impact on my life and the way it radically altered my relationship with Josh for those 4ish months has stayed with me.

I know that not everyone has the same experience with the pill. There are many different forms of artificial hormones in many different doses, and women react differently to them.

I do not think of myself as at all virtuous in “resisting temptation” or the near occasion of sin. I think of the pill as chastity in a bottle.

And that is my experience with experimenting with artificial hormones for health reasons while unmarried.

Skin and the Sun

By Rae March 22, 2011 Health 8 Comments

Someday I’m going to get skin cancer. I plan on it.

Not only do I plan on it, I plan for it.

Someday when I have skin cancer I want to be able to say “IT IS NOT MY FAULT!”

My mother and aunts have skin cancer and my mother thinks typically motherly thoughts about how foolish it was for them to bask in the sun as children, and tan their little hides as teens.

I know that I will get skin cancer even if I hide from the sun, but at least I will not have to feel like my mother. No, I will be self-righteous in my cancerous state.

So I wear sunscreen and don’t swim in the sun. I hide inside when my shadow is shorter than I am. I wear wide-brimmed hats, even though they do not actually protect my face.

And most of all, I wear a self-satisfied smirk because I know that even though I’m getting skin cancer, it is NOT my fault.

What do you do to prevent skin cancer?

Infidelity + Dishonesty = Kindness?

By Rae March 21, 2011 Relationships 44 Comments

When I first encountered this idea online I was shocked. Multiple people put forth their belief that if one were to be sexually unfaithful to one’s spouse, the best thing to do would be to end the situation and then “resolve” it by moving on without saying anything to one’s spouse. They asserted that apologizing to one’s spouse requires informing one’s spouse, and that the wronged spouse would only be more hurt by knowing about what had happened.

This seemed, well, disgusting counsel to me. So I did what any reasonable person would do and asked the Twitter world what they thought. I was even more surprised to find that about half of those who responded passionately insisted that admitting wrongdoing to anyone other than God was “selfish” and would turn the guilty party into the victim.

Their reasoning was that if one does not confess then one bears the burden of one’s crime alone while the wronged spouse is able to go on with life as normal. But, if one confesses then the wronged spouse must live with the knowledge of what has happened and that will only make his or her life worse.

While the personal pain behind these comments helped me to understand this view more, I cannot understand how it is supposed to work in real life. We are, after all, assuming very intimate relationships of a sexual nature.

1. STIs are real. It takes 3 months to have 97% reliability when testing for HIV, and six months to get almost 100% accuracy. Exposing one’s unknowing spouse to infection is morally reprehensible, and how exactly is one supposed to quietly go about repairing one’s marriage while abstaining for six months without providing an explanation to one’s spouse?

2. The cheating spouse is clearly weaker than she or he imagines. Something about the guilty party, and likely the marriage as well, opened the way for infidelity. If nothing changes, then nothing will change. It seems incredibly presumptuous to imagine that the cheating spouse is somehow magically strong enough to repair everything by him/herself. It only takes one to destroy a marriage, but it takes two to rebuild it.

3. When one is sexually unfaithful, one loses one’s right to a normal marriage. Under civil law infidelity is grounds for divorce, even without no-fault divorce. Under Church law infidelity is grounds for separation, though not divorce. Thus, by deceiving one’s spouse, one is depriving the victim of his or her right to decide that he or she does not wish to continue living with the unfaithful spouse.

It is simply untrue to say that by confessing one is transferring the burden and requiring the victim to forgive. Yes, the victim will need to forgive in a general sense in order to not be eaten away by bitterness, but the victim is not required to forgive in the sense of forgoing all punishment. While the dissolution of married life is an inferior option and will likely hurt the victim as much as the cheater, it is the victim’s choice to make.

I know that other people have different values, and different life experiences, but I doubt I will change my mind on this issue.

What do you think? Is it selfish to confess infidelity?

Thoughts

By Rae March 20, 2011 Life 8 Comments

Libya: Apparently I need a television in order to know what to think, because the stories online are all over the place. Some compare Obama’s words to those Bush used 8 years earlier. Others present Sarkozy as a glory-seeking Roman emperor, complete with words like gravitas. Some wonder why the US did not care more. Others wonder why we do not just wait it out.

Supermoon: So the super perigee moon was last night, though I’m quite confident that I won’t be able to tell the difference tonight. I was a little sad to not have a Catholic online world full of fertility jokes, but one (non-Catholic, I think) woman did say something about “abstaining” about talking about her ovaries.

Shoulders: I chose the picture for shoulders post based on the fact that the dress had slipped by that point and it shows the most skin of any of the pictures. But looking at it a few days later I laughed, because for anyone who has been formed at all by Catholic liturgical art, the picture screams MODESTY! I am looking down (seemingly) demurely and holding white lilies.

Nightmares: The other night I had a nightmare which involved being with my mother by the kitchen sink. She told me that the 2% cows milk that I had bought had spoiled. I doubted since I had only bought it last week, but sure enough it was rotten. I was upset that I had been so stupid. I had bought the cows milk for Josh rather than soy milk because it was cheaper, and it turned out that I had wasted money since it does not last as long.

When I woke up in the morning and Josh I told him to use lots of milk on his granola because it might spoil soon. Then I told him about my dream and he thought it absolutely funny, and told me that I had to post about it. Apparently it isn’t normal to get really stressed over rotten milk rather than spilt milk?

Food challenge: The reason that I bought the cows milk was our food challenge. The goal is to spend no more than $50 for the two of us for six weeks. That sounds close to impossible (though I know it’s not because last year I made $25 stretch for 3 people for each month for a while) but is much more reasonable when one considers that food already in the house does not count towards the cost.

It has only been a little over a week (and it looks like we’re not going to make it since I didn’t cheat by buying extra ahead of time), but it is already clear that at this stage in our lives, less is more. The fridge has much less in it, and that apparently makes it easier for Josh to see that it does indeed contain leftovers that are easy for him to reheat. Since finding food to eat is easier for him, we’re saving money simply because he does not feel the need to buy more and let leftovers go to waste. A fridge full of vegetables makes me feel happy and safe, but apparently it just screams TOOMUCHWORKTOFIGUREOUTWHATSINHERE to Josh.

This has also meant that I’ve returned to making bread several times a week, though not quite daily. Did you know that you can put almost any leftovers into bread? It probably helps that our leftovers are beans and grains, but it mostly adds variety to the bread and Josh is quite happy.

So the score so far is a happy Josh, and a stressed Rae who is ready to cave in at a moment’s notice, even though the challenge was her, er, my idea.

Hormones: Yesterday evening Josh took away my progesterone cream. I had been experimenting with using it in various ways and agonizing over whether the benefits were worth the side-effects (like lower back pain, morning-sickness like symptoms, and otherwise early pregnancy type angst). Even though I had asked for his thoughts multiple times, I was surprised when Josh finally decided that my hormonal psychosis had lasted long enough and put the cream away in a closet. Apparently it is back to the drawing-board and I’ll have to find a way to up my chances of breast cancer through something actually recommended by my doctor.

Are You Smarter Than a 10th Grader?

By Rae March 12, 2011 Good to Know 8 Comments

When I was around 14 I started using 3×5 cards as bookmarks and writing down all the words that I encountered that I did not know. The idea was to look up all of the words once I was done reading since it wasn’t as if I was going to keep interrupting a good book to pick up the dictionary!

Of course when it came to words like “Cossack” in War and Peace I needed to look them up immediately since I wanted to be a smart reader, but for the most part I accumulated list of words that I mostly knew by the time I got around to actually checking their definitions.

I recently found the card that I used for Shakespeare’s Hamlet. These are words that I did not know as a 15-year-old, and like any good formerly homeschooled person I am just a bit ashamed of myself for ever being so ignorant.

Are you more educated than a 15-year-old who has never been to school?

Pernicious
Obsequious
Jocund
Assay
Peruse
Gratis
Appartenance
Calumny

And for good measure I wrote a favorite quote on the back of the card: “More matter with less art.”

Pernicious remains one of my favorite words, though I may or may not have learned how to pronounce it correctly before I went to college. To this day one of my favorite ways to identify the formerly-homeschooled is by noting those who use unnecessarily unusual words–and pronounce them incorrectly. The best part is when we don’t even realize that we’re being stupidly pretentious.

Homeschoolers: we’re so cute.

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