love Archives - Page 2 of 3 Held By His Pierced Hands

How to Stay Chaste: 10 Tips for Couples

It’s all well and good for a single gal to tell y’all to be good, but when you’re really in love things can get hard. After last week’s post on chastity, some of you might be wondering how on earth people do it. From what I’ve gathered, it generally involves more than just a strong will; it involves prayer and guidelines and communication and mercy. So for those of you who are in a relationship and struggling–or who aren’t in a relationship but are still struggling or who aren’t either but expect one day to be–here are some tips on pursuing chastity when love and chemistry seem to be conspiring against your better judgment.

Be committed. Know who you are and whose you are. Know why chastity matters. Then make a commitment–to God, to yourself, and to each other–that you will strive for chastity. If you’re halfhearted, your resolve won’t last long. And if you’re not on the same page, it’ll be very, very difficult. But if you’re both serious about being holy and keeping your relationship pure, you have a real shot.
Pray for each other. The purpose of dating is to discern marriage; the purpose of marriage is to get each other to heaven. If you’re not praying avidly for your partner’s sanctification, what are you doing? Pray for your own chastity, of course, but pray for your partner’s even more. It’s easier, I think, to be willing to compromise your own salvation in the heat of the moment than to endanger the soul of someone you love and for whom you pray daily. Making little sacrifices and offering them for your partner’s chastity will keep this at the forefront of your mind–and probably bring that desire to mind when other desires threaten to push it aside.
Farm tools optional.

Pray with each other. If you’re praying together for purity, you begin to see each other in a more sanctified light. Try beginning each date with Mass or a rosary before the Blessed Sacrament. It sets the tone for the evening and strengthens you against temptation. If it’s possible, end each date in the chapel. If you’re planning to stop in to see Jesus before you say goodnight (or if you’re dropping her off after having done so), it’s harder to transgress those boundaries.
Fast. I’ve said it before: I don’t know how people can be chaste if they don’t fast. Not only does it strengthen your prayer, it gives you mastery over your body. The more you’re able to deny your body what it needs, the more you’re able to deny it what it wants. If you’re really struggling with chastity, I’d recommend picking one day a week¹ to skip a meal or two. Fast (to the point of being hungry), learn some self-control, and ask the Lord to strengthen your love of purity.
Rodin’s The Kiss. Too far.

Set boundaries. “We’re not going to have sex” is a great start, but there’s more to chastity than just avoiding intercourse before marriage. Sit down early in the relationship and discuss what you think is appropriate in different stages in your relationship. It strikes me as fairly obvious that touching things you don’t have (pause to make sure everyone’s grasping my euphemism) is reserved for marriage. But maybe you’re like me and you think “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t do with your grandma looking on” is a good rule of thumb. Or maybe you don’t want to kiss before you’re engaged. Maybe you want to talk about how many feet should be on the floor when you’re cuddling. Try not to be too legalistic, but do be aware that there’s more to chastity than sex. If you’re not comfortable having this conversation with your partner, you might want to reconsider either this relationship or your readiness to be in a relationship. It might be awkward but it’s important enough to endure.
Be intentional about being alone. There’s a reason the Church talks so much about the “near occasion of sin.” Even if you’ve got the self control of a saint, sleeping in the same bed is a bad idea before you’re married.² In less extreme situations, standards are going to differ dramatically. The more you’ve fallen in the area of sexual sin in the past, the more careful you’ll have to be. I know some people who have to be sure never to be alone with their significant others. They spend time in parks and coffee shops and movie theaters but never just the two of them in someone’s apartment; they know themselves. You might be able to handle some alone time but need to have the possibility of a roommate walking in at any moment to keep things PG–know yourself and do what you have to.
Be accountable to someone. If you’ve got a roommate, give her permission to ask how your date went–and promise to tell her, down to the last detail. Ask your buddy to call you Saturday morning and ask if you were good the night before. Heck, give me your number and I’ll text you at midnight to make sure everything’s still holy.³ We can’t do it alone and a real community could be just what you need.
Dress chastely. I’m looking mostly at you ladies here. Your bodies are lovely and there’s nothing dirty or wrong about them. But they were made to be given only to the body–and the eyes–of your husband. Even if you’re not willing to dress chastely for the myriad men in your life who are trying desperately to see you as a person and not an object, do it for the one man you love. If you’re dressed like you’re wearing clothes, not underwear⁴, then he’ll have less trouble not thinking about removing said clothes.
Be chaste alone. The solution to temptation is not to indulge that temptation in another venue. Using pornography and masturbating don’t release sexual tension, they distort it and cause it to grow. Pornography is also as addictive as crack and has serious consequences on more than just your love life. Here are some tips on leaving pornography behind. Do it now.
Repent. You’re going to fall. Don’t give up! Get up, get to confession, and redouble your effort. Reconsider your relationship and the rules you’ve set for yourself. Talk to a trusted friend. Cry and pout and punch a wall but do NOT give up. It’s a hard road, but remember that you follow a God who fell three times under the cross. He knew you would fall. He forgives you. He wants you to try again.

Every relationship is different which is why these are more broad guidelines than hard-and-fast rules. What seems to be universal is the fact that people don’t stumble into chastity–they work for it. It’s not just about rules, it’s about building your relationship with Christ first and foremost; purity is just a means to that end. And if we’re not just talking about abstinence but about glory and virtue and true love and a real, eternal happily-ever-after, nothing should stand in our way.

It’s hard. It’s worth it. Be strong when you can and when you’re weak, let Christ be strong for you.

Friday would be ideal: all Catholics are required to perform some act of penance every Friday (per the Code of Canon Law). The U.S. Bishops recommend abstaining from meat. [↩]
For a number of reasons. It might not be sex, but it’s certainly intimacy. [↩]
Limited offer and bear in mind that a lot of the time I don’t have service, so…maybe make a new friend at church. [↩]
You know what I mean–sheer shirts, short shorts, leggings that you’re pretending are pants…. [↩]

You Will Get Pregnant and Die: 4 Better Reasons to Wait

It’s not hard to make an argument for chastity. After all, STDs are terrifying and unplanned pregnancies aren’t ideal. And there are the statistics that show increased depression in sexually active teens and increased rates of divorce among those who had multiple sexual partners. But if you’ve ever been in love, you know that scare tactics won’t work. “It won’t happen to us,” you think, and rightly so. You ought to be so deeply in love that you think nothing can go wrong. That’s a good thing—at the beginning. But it means that our explanation of the importance of chastity has to be more than cherry-picked statistics intended to terrify teens into super-gluing their pants on.

I spoke with a young friend recently who is really struggling with chastity. She and her boyfriend are in love and in a committed relationship. They’re both strong Catholics who know that it’s wrong to sleep together outside of marriage, but she wanted a little more of the why. Now bear in mind that these arguments aren’t directed at the unchurched but at those who are really striving to do God’s will. If you’re not coming at them from that perspective, they might not be terribly compelling. But for those of us who are seeking chastity not just to avoid dying of a terrible venereal disease and going to hell but in order to glorify God, I think they might help.¹

1. Sex renews the covenant of marriage. Sex isn’t just fun—although I’m told it is that. Sex is the sign of the covenant of marriage. Every covenant² is renewed by a repeated action, an action that reminds each party of their commitment, an action by which they recommit themselves. In God’s covenant with Adam, it was the Sabbath.³ In the covenant with Moses, it was the Passover meal. In the covenant with Jesus, it’s the Eucharist⁴ and in the covenant of marriage, it’s consummation.

Like this couple: married 60 plus years, 9 children, 25 grandchildren and 40 plus great-grandchildren. Now THAT's love! — Like this couple: married 60 plus years, 9 children, 25 grandchildren and 40 plus great-grandchildren. Now THAT’s love!

Renewing your vows is a beautiful gesture, but it’s just that: a gesture. Even when a couple celebrating 60 years together repeats their vows with tears of joy in their eyes, it’s just a symbol; it doesn’t do anything. The way you renew the covenant of marriage is by saying with your bodies what you said with your vows: I give myself completely to you forever.

Sex makes a marriage; sex outside of marriage isn’t just sin, it’s sacrilege. It’s renewing a covenant that doesn’t exist, like receiving the Eucharist if you’re not baptized or wandering in to a Seder meal, grabbing some lamb, and walking on through to flip through the paper in the other room. It’s more than just rude—it’s wrong.

If this incredible act of love was created for marriage (not just restricted to marriage), to create and renew and strengthen marriage, it just doesn’t make sense in any other context.

2. Sex is a sign of God’s love. Sex didn’t have to be awesome. God could very easily have designed human beings without family. Even with marriage and procreation, sex didn’t have to be an ecstatic, all-encompassing gift of self. He designed sex as a shadowy image of his love for us. It’s a foretaste of heaven. And the marriage that it consummates is a sign of God’s covenant with each human soul. The purpose of sex is to show you how deeply God loves you: a love that is indissoluble, for better or for worse. When you give yourself completely to your spouse, you experience a sliver of the complete self-emptying of God for you and (God willing) you begin to give yourself to him in return.

Look how excited they are to have said forever!

But when we engage in sex outside of marriage, we give ourselves completely to one who has no obligation to us, one who could–theoretically–use us and move on. Our relationship is necessarily tinged with uncertainty and even shame. We are giving ourselves but there’s no guarantee of tomorrow. Even if you’re absolutely certain that you’re going to get married, “Baby, I’ma love you forever” in the heat of the moment is very different from standing up before God, your momma, and everyone and saying “until death do us part.” You may mean forever but you haven’t vowed it and your heart knows that.

What does this tell us about God’s love for us? In this context, our experience of self-giving always has reservations–“for now,” we say, or “but not my fertility.” Our consummate experience of love is absolutely conditional. It has no flavor of eternity or surrender or promised sacrifice. And so we begin to feel that God’s love must also be conditional. He loves us as long as we’re young or beautiful or innocent or loveable. This damages our ability to love each other and our ability to receive God’s love.

Certainly even married sex is never perfect. There are conditions to the love of fallen man, fears and insecurities. But the vows you made are strengthened by God and the ideal is possible because of his grace. It is that ideal that speaks–in the thrill of married love–of the unending love of the great Lover of souls. Don’t cheat yourself of that.

3. You owe it to your children. I knew an agnostic teenage girl once who told me that she wasn’t going to have sex until she was married.⁵ “I owe it to my children,” she said, “to give them a father.”

This girl knew in her gut that sex isn’t just about pleasure or even just about love. It’s about family. It’s about a love so strong that it brings new life. And that new life deserves the stability of married parents.

Be warned: sometimes 1 + 1 = 4. Just ask my sister.

But it’s not just that you might get pregnant. After all, you might not. And even if you did, you might end up happily married for many years. This isn’t a consequentialist view of morality⁶ but one that looks at the inherent purpose of an act, not merely its consequences. Sex is about family. Sex outside of the context of family (even a family of two) is disordered. Remember that sex is one image of the Trinity–two Persons whose love for one another is so strong it becomes a third Person. If it’s outside of marriage and openness to family, it’s closed in on you two and not about a love that spills forth to the world. This act of complete self-gift becomes an act of selfishness. That will begin to take its toll on your love.

4. Chastity prepares you for a healthy, happy marriage. I don’t mean to come out all roses and butterflies about how pleasant and happy marriage is. I know too many married people to think that a healthy marriage is all smiles all the time. Marriage is hard. And so is chastity–before marriage and after marriage. When I’m asking you to be chaste, I understand that it seems a Herculean task, especially when you’re in love. It takes a lot of work, months and even years of self-control and self-sacrifice, of patience and communication, of fortitude and purity and respect, obedience, and selflessness. If you’re going to make it to the altar unsullied, you’ll have to work and work and work at these virtues.

Because "happily ever after" is just the beginning. — Because “happily ever after” is just the beginning.

Fortunately, these are exactly the virtues that you need for a strong marriage. That patience and selflessness and self-control is exactly what’s going to hold your marriage together during the tough times. And after a few years of absolute celibacy while dating the love of your life, celibacy on a business trip or with a good friend who suddenly seems like more won’t be quite so tough. Marriage isn’t a magic wand that makes it possible for you to be chaste but if you’ve trained yourself in self-control, fidelity in marriage will be a lot easier.

I often hear people argue that premarital sex is actually a good idea as it’s practice for marriage. You know what’s really practice for marriage? Doing what’s right even when it’s hard. Sacrificing and communicating and learning how to be strong for each other. Chastity is the best practice for marriage. Love your partner enough to wait.

Now, obviously God is merciful and people and relationships can be healed. You’re not SOL because you messed up, even if you messed up repeatedly and unrepentantly. Where sin abounds, grace abounds the more.⁷ But if you’re at a crossroads and you’re wondering if it’s worth fighting this overwhelming desire, it is. I promise you won’t regret it.

Note: there’s only so much nuancing that can be done in a blog post. It’s already too long. I love you and I’m not judging you! [↩]
Remember that religion class vocab word? Irrevocable exchange of persons. [↩]
So take a real Sabbath this Sunday! It’s God’s gift of love to you. [↩]
Which, of course, is also the Passover meal. [↩]
Well, she said “in a permanent relationship” because she didn’t believe in marriage, but it comes to the same thing. [↩]
The idea that the morality of an act depends entirely on its consequences. [↩]
Rom 5:20 [↩]

An Open Letter to Everyone Who Disagrees With Me

Dear everyone,

If you’re reading this letter, it’s because you disagree with me.¹ And because I’m the kind of person I am, you probably disagree with me about something I feel very strongly about. That’s because I feel very strongly about everything. Faith and onions and leggings and children’s books—if I’m informed enough to have an opinion, you can bet it’ll be a terrifyingly passionate one.

Had there been a soapbox, I would have hopped right on up.

Unfortunately, I hate conflict. Deeply, desperately hate it. It gives me stomachaches and makes me so miserable I can hardly think about anything else—even when it’s imaginary conflict with people I don’t even know. It is hard for me to be public about my controversial beliefs. But it would be impossible for me not to be. Standing on a soapbox was written into my soul. It’s who I am.

It’s not a comfortable place to be, but it’s often a productive one, this diplomatic-dogmatic balance I try to hold. I cling to what I know to be true and err on the side of love. And generally people see that and respond with respect.

But sometimes not. Sometimes people attack and accuse and willfully misunderstand. Sometimes the rules of logic and civility seem to be thrown out the window. Sometimes the sound of a Facebook notification makes me so anxious I’m afraid I’m going to give myself an ulcer.

So often it’s because we assume the worst about each other. We assume that all people who disagree with us are condemning us. We think they hate us and find us stupid. And we believe that their position is really the stupid one and if only we can beat our flawless argument into their worthless heads they’ll finally agree with us.

I love you. I really do. And when I try to explain these things—chastity or faith or the Eucharist or helping the poor—it’s because I love you. It’s not because you’re wrong and bad and stupid. It’s because I honestly believe that you’ll be happier living in the truth. I’m sure you disagree. And that’s okay. Just please know that I’m trying to love you well through all this.

I kind of hate me. I know how I—and the Church—often come across: a cold-hearted shrew screaming “NO!” at everyone who’s trying to be happy. I hate that I can’t just “live and let live.” But so often “live and let live” is code for “live and let die.” How can I stand by and watch you break your own heart and not say anything? I hate that the love I speak sounds so much like “NO.” I wish we understood each other better so you could hear the “yes” I’m trying to say.

I get where you’re coming from. I think the most important thing in dialogue is honestly trying to understand why the other person takes a particular position. So on every issue, I’m always trying to figure out the kind, loving, genuine beliefs that could motivate my opposition—and then I ascribe them to every person I encounter. So when you’re trying to tell me that rape victims should abort their babies, I hear compassion and sensitivity and a weak understanding of embryology. I’d love to hear why you take this position–that’s why I’m talking to you–but know that I really am assuming the best about you. I’d appreciate the same.

Not to get ahead of ourselves or anything, but I can't WAIT to celebrate his feast day! — Not to get ahead of ourselves or anything, but I can’t WAIT to celebrate his feast day!

You’re probably not going to convince me. Just about everything I truly believe, I fought. And I fought hard. So if I believe it now, it’s because I’ve asked all these questions and found answers that satisfy me. The only worldview that makes any sense to me at all is the Catholic one. So I’ll listen, because I want to understand your position and appreciate its logic. And if you’re really convincing, I’ll probably think and pray about it for a few days. I may even do some more research.² But if you’re opposing something the Church teaches infallibly, that’s as far as it’s going to go, God willing.³ Being open-minded, I think, doesn’t mean accepting anything you’re told even if it flies in the face of everything you hold dear; it means being willing to accept that another position is (at some level) kind and reasonable and to consider it fairly. That I’ll do.

I’m not always trying to convince you. Sometimes I know I’m not going to. Maybe you’re so young in your exploration of faith or you’re so rooted in the things of this world or you’ve convinced yourself so thoroughly of a certain matter that I’m pretty sure my input won’t make a difference. I won’t give up on you, but I don’t think it’s my job to convince you of my position. I do think it’s my job to show you that my position⁴ is reasonable and loving. When I ask you to be open-minded, it’s not because I want you to let go of your convictions; it’s because I want you to recognize that mine aren’t ludicrous or cruel. I promise to return the favor.

I’d love to answer any of your well-meant questions. People are sometimes afraid to ask questions—like they think I’ll be offended by their questions about celibacy or how strange it is to sit in a candle-lit room and talk to yourself. But if you’re asking honestly—either because you want to know or because you’re not sure I’ve asked that question of myself—I’m so happy to answer. I’m a Catholic because I really believe that it’s the truth. I really believe that the Church has all the answers. And if I can’t answer your question, that’s something I need to deal with.

That said, there are some questions that are just accusations. You know, “How can you oppose contraception when priests rape babies?” and “WTF is wrong with you?” and the like. Once we fall into ad hominem attacks and incessant harping on analogies, I’m out.

I don’t think you’re stupid because you disagree with me. We live in a world where thinking someone is wrong is perceived as thinking that person is stupid or worthless or going to hell. I don’t think any of those things about anyone. I know wildly intelligent people who disagree with everything that I find essential. I know particularly unintelligent people who understand the faith far better than I ever will. I honestly think it’s been years since I judged a person as stupid or sinful or what-have-you because of his beliefs.

I do tend to think you’re stupid when you stop using reason and start freaking out. Maybe that’s my fault. Maybe it’s something I should work on. But when you ignore every point I make except one and then misinterpret that one? When I explain my position over and over and you continue to fight a straw man? When you act like you know all the things and you can’t even grasp my definition of the word the debate hinges on? That’s when I struggle. And that’s usually when I excuse myself from the conversation.

I’m happy to drop it. It’s the peacemaker in me—I don’t want to fight you. So if you’re done debating, I’ll call it quits. And I probably won’t bring it up again for years, if ever. It’s hard for me not to talk about Jesus, him being the center of my life and all, but it’s easy for me just to limit those comments.⁵ If you’re firm in your position, I’ll love you and visit you and like your Facebook pictures and never say another word about our disagreement. But I’m here when you’re ready to.

I’m doing the best I can. I was born with my foot in my mouth and it just gets worse when we start talking about something that really matters. When we’re talking, it’s likely that my brain will take over and my heart will run pathetically after, trying to pull the words back into my mouth. I may say something that sounds totally insensitive because we’re speaking different languages. I’m sorry. But please assume that I mean well. I really am trying.

This, I think, is what dialogue is all about: love and forgiveness and understanding. It’s not about winning or ripping someone’s worldview apart and leaving him crying amid the rubble. It’s not necessarily about changing anyone’s position but about helping her to nuance it, maybe, or even just to acknowledge yours as not the worst thing ever to happen.

And you know what, friends? I assume you’re on the same page. I assume your intelligence and your good intentions and your integrity. I try to read all of your remarks in the most charitable way possible. Maybe if we all did the same, we could start making some progress.

Yours in compassionate conviction (I hope),

Meg

No, really. You do. About something, I’m sure. [↩]
Really—a very convincing Mormon got me questioning, as did a Calvinist. I’m listening. [↩]
Matters of prudential judgment and politics and opinion are entirely up for grabs, of course. Except Notre Dame football. Duh. [↩]
And by extension, I hope, the Church’s. [↩]
My little brother is an atheist. He also hates football, which makes him a heathen in more ways than one. I said something about football a few years back and he interrupted me: “Meg, you know I don’t like football.” I said, “Timmy, I have two topics. Football and Jesus. Pick one.” He picked football. [↩]

How To Evangelize (And How Not To)

If I knew you in high school or early college (or probably later college, God help me), I’m sorry. I’m sorry for judging you and lecturing you. I’m sorry for throwing my faith in your face at every possible opportunity. I’m sorry for responding to your crisis of faith by buying you Anselm’s On the Incarnation and telling you it would fix everything–an excellent book, but not the compassionate response.

See, when I first came to know Jesus in the eighth grade I felt meaning for the first time. My life had purpose and my suffering had value and suddenly–shockingly–I was happy to get out of bed in the morning.¹ And I wanted you to feel that. I wanted you to know him and to experience the joy he’d brought to my life. I wanted you to know how desperately you were loved.

If you dressed like this, you would have been desperate to impress, too.

But I also wanted to win. I wanted you to know that I was right. I wanted you to see that I was really holy. I was awkward and insecure and I thought that if I brought you to Jesus you’d like me better. I had some good intentions when I beat my Bible at you, but not only good intentions and I’m sorry.

When I was younger, I evangelized like a sledgehammer.² I went at people like they were battles to win, not souls to love. And I did a lot of damage, some of which seems irreparable except by grace. Oh, I know I did some good too. But I don’t think anybody ever sat me down and told me that it wasn’t my job to save souls. And when you think you’re saving souls–and that truth is all it takes–you go at it with the zeal of a crusader and the finesse of a drunken elephant.

My sister has 8-month-old twins. Elizabeth, the older, reminds me of myself in a lot of ways. From the moment she was born, she’s had a big personality with much wider range of emotion than you see from her sister. Lately, she’s taken to screaming like she’s being eviscerated. Turn down your speakers and take a listen (starting at 0:13):

How could you scream in a face like that?

She loves this noise and she really thinks everybody else should love it too. So she crawls over to her twin, playing innocently on the floor, tackles her, pins her to the ground, and sticks her face in Mary Claire’s face, shrieking gleefully as Mary Claire sobs.

Sometimes I think that’s how we evangelize. We’re not trying to hurt anybody. We really think they’re going to love what we’re doing. But we don’t listen to them. We don’t feel for them. We don’t open our eyes to see if they want anything to do with our message. We scream in their face (or on their facebook page) about how we are FILLED with the love of Christ and they’d better be too or they will GO TO HELL!!

Friends, that’s not evangelization. It’s not loving or Christlike or even effective. That’s where we get this reputation of being closed-minded and bigoted–from the few of us who come across as closed-minded and bigoted.

But we have to evangelize–that’s a huge part of being a Christian. Our beautiful Holy Father has been speaking on this need to spread the faith at World Youth Day:

Sharing the experience of faith, bearing witness to the faith, proclaiming the Gospel: this is a command that the Lord entrusts to the whole Church, and that includes you; but it is a command that is born not from a desire for domination or power but from the force of love, from the fact that Jesus first came into our midst and gave us, not a part of himself, but the whole of himself.

So what do we do? How do we evangelize if the simple proselytizing method isn’t going to do it?

1. Pray

Before all else, you have to be in love with Christ. Your prayer life has to be your top priority, although that looks different depending on your state in life, as Haley so brilliantly pointed out. So pray. Go to Mass every week without exception.³ Go to daily Mass as often as you can. Read the Bible! Get to confession–aim at once a month. And seek God in silence. It’s so easy to fill our lives with noise and then let the Rosary or the Liturgy of the Hours be more noise;⁴ make time every day to be still before the Lord. Even 5 minutes a day will change your life.

Pray for the people in your life who don’t know God or don’t know Christ or don’t know him in the Eucharist. Before you do anything else, pray for them. You can’t change their hearts and you can’t save their souls. Recognize that God is doing the work and ask, seek, and knock on their behalf.

Pray about evangelizing. Ask the Lord who he wants you to speak to and how he wants you to speak. Ask the Holy Spirit to be the one at work in your conversations. Pray before posting something controversial on Facebook, before commenting or sharing or retweeting. Ask Jesus to stand between you and the people you’re trying to bring him to–and to smack you upside the head and shove you away if you’re doing it wrong.

2. Love

He loved you at your worst. Do the same for his other children.

There is no more powerful force in this world than love. Your job is to love the people around you–and not just as a strategy for their conversion, either! Sure, hopefully your love is so powerful that others recognize something different in you. But if you’re loving people so that you win, you’re fake and probably not terribly convincing about it. Your purpose in loving is not to change someone. Your purpose is to love as Christ loved.

The semester I studied in Italy,⁵ almost everyone I was there with hated the Church. Passionately. They would make filthy jokes about priests and spent their weekends experimenting with different combinations of alcohol, weed, and caffeine. I knew there was nothing I could say to change their minds, so I prayed and prayed and kept my mouth shut. And went out with them to make sure they didn’t get too drunk to get back. And sat with them on the balcony while they got drunk and high at the same time to make sure they didn’t fall over the railing. I was miserable and felt useless.

And then, at the end of the semester, one of my friends turned to me (drunk) and told me:

“Until this semester, I didn’t think there was a place for me in the Church. But now I think maybe there is. Because you love me. Thank you.”

We fell out of touch, so I don’t know what ended up happening to him. But that moment changed my life. I’d spent years looking for openings to preach when all I needed to do was let love speak.

So once you’ve prayed, shut your mouth and love until it hurts. Then keep loving.

3. Witness

Once people know that you love them, they begin to look at your life to see why. The witness of your life is a powerful statement, and it’s not just about wearing a cross and sharing Catholic memes. It’s about joy and consistency and openness.

Choose to be joyful. The world doesn’t need more dour Christians. Live with an eternal perspective. As Mother Teresa said, “Never let anything so fill you with sorrow as to make you forget the joy of Christ risen.” If your life is transparently joyful–filled with hope in moments that should occasion despair, not just chipper and shallow–people will wonder why.

Be consistent. If you can’t be Christian Saturday night, don’t ask me to join you Sunday morning. Modern man can spot a fake at a thousand paces and if your Facebook timeline is half quotations from Pope Francis and half drunken selfies, you’re doing far more harm than good. Get your stuff together. People don’t mind sinners who acknowledge that they’re sinners and ask for help to be better. They hate hypocrites.

It doesn't have to look like this. But it can. — It doesn’t have to look like this. But it can.

Don’t be embarrassed about your faith. Mention that you’re going to Mass when you make plans for Sunday brunch. Pray before meals. Have a chant ringtone. Those little things help people to connect your love and joy to your faith.

4. Propose

Finally–finally–after praying and loving and doing your best to be as Christlike as possible, finally you can say something. Maybe it’s as simple as sharing an article on Facebook or retweeting the Pope. Maybe it’s inviting someone to go to Mass with you or to join your Bible study. Maybe it’s sitting down with a friend and asking–gently–why he doesn’t go to Church any more. Maybe it’s talking to your friends about NFP. Maybe it’s just being open to how the Holy Spirit is calling you to evangelize.

I knew a high schooler once–captain of the basketball team, center of the school’s social life–who signed up for a holy hour every Friday evening at 10pm. He’d go out to dinner with his friends, go back to somebody’s house, start watching a movie, and then stand up to leave at quarter to 10. He just said, “I’m going to adoration. Anyone want to come?” The timing and the invitation changed that school. Kids would caravan to adoration on Friday nights. Because one guy had the guts to ask.

But when you’re asking those leading questions or inviting friends on a marriage retreat or explaining the Church’s position, be humble. You don’t have all the answers, even though the Church does. You’re not better than anyone or smarter or kinder or even happier. But I would guess that you’re better and smarter and kinder and happier than you were; that’s what you’re offering.

So often, it’s the little things that open people’s hearts to the Lord. It’s inviting them to go to confession, buying them a rosary, asking that question, sharing that CD. The Holy Spirit will lead you there–if you’re praying. It will mean more if you love them. It will be compelling if you’re living it.

It’s not yelling at people when they’re wrong. It’s not snorting derisively or calling them out in public. It’s not ever trying to be right but trying to seek truth. Truth and goodness and beauty–not smug correction or broken relationships.

I’d love to hear your thoughts–how do you draw the line between evangelizing like a sledgehammer and inviting people to Christ? Do you think it’s enough just to love people if you’re not actively introducing them to doctrine? Do you have any stories of how the Lord was leading people to him through you and you didn’t even know it?

*******************

If you live in the Harrisonburg, VA area, will you do me a huge favor? Will you like my mom’s pumpkin patch on Facebook? And then visit in the fall? Thanks!!

Okay, I’m never happy to get out of bed. But I was happy to be alive and excited to face the day. [↩]
I hope it was only when I was younger–if I’m still doing this, please break it to me gently. And NOT in a comment on this post. [↩]
The Church requires that you go to Mass 57 times a year. That’s 0.65% of your life. Are you really so busy that you can’t give God less than 1% of your life? [↩]
These are great prayers. But if you’re not good at praying them–like me–you definitely need silence too. [↩]
I know, I know. Jesus is particularly fond of me. [↩]

In the Name of Love

It may surprise many of you–especially those who think they know me–to hear that I hate conflict. Oh, I’ll get up on my soap box when I’m preaching to the choir¹ but the minute somebody gets upset my shoulders seize up and my stomach starts to churn. I won’t change my mind, but I’ll sure as heck agree to disagree faster than you can say “relativism.”

So today’s been rather a rough day on Facebook. Everyone’s got their trendy equals signs or their counter-cultural declarations and I’m just trying to get by with a few links and no drama. I can’t even handle Catholic Memes today, and you know that’s usually my fave.

All day, though, I’ve felt like I had to say something. But I don’t just want to start shouting about Romans 1:26-27 and have all my “conservative” groupies back me up.² And I don’t want to pull out studies or Church Fathers. I don’t want to talk about the constitution or the separation of Church and State or what happens to religious liberty when institutions with religious significance are threatened by the state. I don’t want to talk about homophobia disguising itself as religion or intolerance disguising itself as acceptance. I don’t want to talk politics or sex or any of the other topics that get people all mad.

Today, I just want to talk about peace and love. But ain’t nothing gets people madder than real love working for real peace. And you know who’s getting in the way? Conservatives. And liberals. Progressives and traditionalists. Stay-at-home moms and 12-year-old-kids and me and you and a whole lot of everybody.

If I see one more claim that people who support gay marriage are in favor of love while those who oppose it are in favor of rules, I may scream. Don’t you know that the rules are supposed to help us love better? Don’t you know that we–some of us, anyway–are trying to love you by helping you to understand the rules? You might think I’m wrong, but please understand that my disagreeing with your lifestyle doesn’t in any way change how much I love you.

And you know what–if I see one more mathematical equation that reduces the love of two human beings to the orientation of a set of lines, I may scream louder. How does it help anybody to reduce their love–their family–to a gimmick? How does shouting that it’s not marriage if there aren’t babies or that it’s not a family if there isn’t a mom and a dad speak to a world of infertility and contraception and single-parent households?

Quit calling me a homophobe because my understanding of the nature of marriage doesn’t match yours.

Quit bringing up pedophilia and bestiality like they’re at all the same thing as homosexual unions.

Don’t attack my Church if you don’t know what she teaches.

Don’t attack my friends if you don’t–you know what? Just don’t attack my friends. Or their friends. Or anybody at all. Don’t tell people they can’t be good parents, don’t tell them they don’t know anything about love, and don’t you dare tell them they’re going to hell.

An invitation from a gay Catholic friend of mine to go beyond the rhetoric.

My friends, we’re not getting anywhere. And we’re not going to get anywhere until we shut up and listen. I respect those of you who are actually making points. But if you’re just recycling the rhetoric, try sitting down with someone intelligent and compassionate who disagrees with you and asking them why they think the way they do. Because I don’t think there are a lot of people sporting pink equals signs who are trying to destroy the moral underpinnings of our society or corrupt children. And I haven’t met many who support traditional marriage because of hatred and fear.

There are outliers on both sides and confusion and poor reasoning and unfair attacks but I think we mostly just want people to be free to love.

You may think that a person isn’t free to love unless he’s free to marry whoever he wants. I think that a person isn’t free to love until he’s living in God’s plan for love. But I’m not opposing equality, I’m fighting for love. You’re not opposing morality, you’re fighting for love. And we’re not fighting each other when we oppose each other’s positions. If Twitter is any indication, we’ve lost any ability we once had to disagree without despising. In the name of Jesus–invoked on both sides–we are hating each other in order to pursue love. That’s seriously screwed up.

So as the equals signs proliferate (and the division signs and the addition signs and whatever other craziness there may be), can I implore you to stop before you link, before you share, before you like or comment or tweet or pin and just ask yourself: is this loving? Is it reasonable? Does it attack positions rather than people? And if it’s not for the greater glory of God, delete it.

Living like this may not change any minds,³ but maybe it can change some hearts, can show them that this is about love. Whatever side you’re on, unless you’re a total clown, this is about love. Can we stop hating each other for 5 minutes and respect that we’re all fighting for love here?

Gotta love a mixed metaphor. [↩]
No, I don’t consider myself a conservative. Nor do I think liberal is a bad word. I’ll take a lot of both, thank you, although that’s a post for another time. [↩]
The only minds that matter this week are the nine on the Supreme Court. What the heck difference do we think our caustic social media interactions are going to make?? [↩]

A Modern Translation of 1 Corinthians 13

Since we all know the Bible is, well, out of date,¹ I thought you’d appreciate a more modern and relevant reading of the old wedding standard. I don’t know about you, but all that talk of selfless, patient, trusting love makes me a little nervous. Wouldn’t it be better if we updated it so that it talked more about romance and being in love instead of all that nasty suffering and virtue we always have to hear about? Try it this way:

If I speak in human and angelic tongues
but am not in love,
I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.
And if I have the gift of prophecy
and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge;
if I have all faith so as to move mountains,
but am not in love, I am nothing.
If I give away everything I own,
and if I hand my body over so that I may boast
but am not in love, I gain nothing.

Isn’t that a nice start? Just a little shift so that we know that really, it’s romance that makes life worth living. And just in time for Valentine’s Day, too!

Love is tolerant, love is nice.
It is not demanding. Love is not needy,
it is not hard, it is not dull,
it does not outlast romance,
it is not faithful, it does not forgive when wronged,
it does not challenge or correct
but lets the beloved be comfortable.
Love improves all things, tolerates many things,
ignores some things, endures nothing.

See what I did there? This passage gets read so often at weddings, but I don’t think modern Americans want to be thinking about jealousy and rudeness and wrongdoing at a wedding! Isn’t it better to take all that messy stuff out and put in those nice sentiments about how we’re all just going to feel good forever now that we’re in love? Let’s not get all bogged down by the old notion that love is challenging or, God help us, that it’s not an end in itself. A path to holiness? No, no, holiness is hard and if love gets hard, well it just isn’t love anymore, is it?

Love feels good.
If there are major differences, they will be brought to nothing;
if fertility, it will cease;
if unchastity, it will be brought to nothing.
For we love partially and we are loved partially,
but when the wedding comes, the partial will pass away.

So forget your mother’s objections! Don’t listen to the studies that tell you that cohabitation will mess up your marriage! Who cares if you can’t trust your fiancé? Marriage will fix all this! Just walk down the aisle in a dress worth more than your grandparents’ first home, say the magic words, and you, too, can live happily ever after!²

Then there’s some funny stuff about kids and mirrors, which is stupid because weddings aren’t about kids unless you mean the flower girl, and hopefully her mother took her out of the church the minute she walked down the aisle because she sure as heck better not be messing up your perfect day. And mirrors–well, weddings are definitely about mirrors, but no need to call anyone’s attention to the fact that you spent more energy on your makeup than you did on your pre-nup. Hey, at least you got a pre-nup, right? Of course you did–you’re not stupid.

At present I love fully;
then I shall love less, if I am less loved.
So success, money, love remain, these three;
but the nicest of these is love.

Remember, friends, love is a feeling. Now go out there and find someone to make you feel good! Then enjoy it as long as it’s nice and easy. Don’t worry what anybody else thinks about your partner or your behavior–this is just about you two (or three–no judgment here). Make sure you have a good friend to complain about your partner to, somebody who’ll take your side and bash him right along with you. But never actually communicate about your frustrations. That wouldn’t be fun or pleasant and love is all about pleasure, isn’t it? Guilt-free, consequence-free, self-gratification. So go grab yourself a mate or you’ll be alone and empty–but don’t actually *mate* unless you’re financially comfortable and emotionally stable and you actually want kids. (And really, who wants kids? Except as an accessory, I suppose.) Then stick around as long as you’re having a good time. That’s all anyone can ask of you.

Before anyone gets mad, let me make it very clear that this entire post is completely sarcastic. And, lest you be offended, I assure you that I’m not making fun of you. Unless you’re completely shallow and secular and saccharine and over-sexed. In which case, hi! Welcome to my blog! Please read absolutely everything on here. [↩]
Unless things get too hard and then you can start over. [↩]

Weakness

On Christmas morning,¹ Father gave a homily that focused on the weakness of the infant Christ. Since I had custody of a 3-year-old and an infant at the time, I didn’t hear much, but I’ve been meditating on the weakness of the omnipotent one a lot since then.

I tend to focus on Christ’s weakness and poverty as a manifestation of his desperate love for us, that he was willing to suffer anything to be united to us. And certainly that’s true–he wanted to be like us in every way but sin² and so he began with that most basic of human conditions: weakness. And yet I think there’s so much more than that to learn from a God who can’t hold up his head–in the manger or on the cross.

Now isn’t that just the prettiest vicious instrument of torture and execution you’ve ever seen? By the way, go shop at Hobby Lobby, especially this Saturday January 5th–they’re really fighting the good fight with this HHS business.

There’s something about the helpless baby Jesus that draws us, something about his very weakness that appeals to what is good in our humanity. We turn from Christ stripped and beaten, take him off our crucifixes or at least wash off the blood, but we can’t help but approach the little God-child in the manger. In his weakness, he calls to us as his strength never could.

You see, our God is terrifying. He’s anything but approachable. In the moment of the Fall, Adam and Eve saw God through the eyes of sin and hid from him. And in spite of everything God sent to our ancestors to draw them back to him, in spite of floods and plagues and prophets, in spite of the Song of Songs and the temple restored, still they hid. The only god worth worshiping is a God who holds galaxies in his hands, a God who rends mountains and smites nations. But who would dare love that God? So the Israelites did what was logical–they worshiped the true God with incense and sacrifices and then went home to pour their hearts out to their weak little household idols.

Because a god who can do nothing is at least a shoulder to cry on but a real God, one with real power? That’s not something to be trifled with.

Our God would not be distant from the hearts he so loved, though, and so he fought for us. The entire Old Testament is a history of God’s attempt at wooing man. But whatever he did, still we hid and cowered and held him at arm’s length. Despite our need for him, we ran from him.

And so the almighty, immortal, all-knowing God chose to need us. Not in any real sense of the word, of course. But he became that most needy of creatures: a human infant.³ Because we would not approach his majesty, he became supremely approachable in the form of a soft, sweet, chicken-legged little baby who needs to be held and rocked and loved. Through his weakness, he draws us to himself. We would not love him reigning in heaven, so he asks us to love him powerless on earth. Our beloved Holy Father spoke about this at Midnight Mass this year:⁴

Again and again it astonishes us that God makes himself a child so that we may love him, so that we may dare to love him, and as a child trustingly lets himself be taken into our arms. It is as if God were saying: I know that my glory frightens you, and that you are trying to assert yourself in the face of my grandeur. So now I am coming to you as a child, so that you can accept me and love me.

And in becoming weak to draw us close, he dignifies weakness. He teaches us that suffering and poverty and even shame have value and meaning. He teaches us that the weak are not despised by God who himself became weak.

Jesus loved the outcasts And if we are Christ-lovers, then we must become lovers of the weak, the scorned, the poor, the abused. We must love him in them not simply because he told us to (Mt 25) but because in the womb of the 13-year-old girl waiting for her bus with swollen ankles and a more swollen belly we see our Savior, threatened from the moment of his conception by a world that thought he had no right to exist. In the little boy whose daddy is being deported, we see our God in exile with no legal right to safety from the terrors of what should have been his home. In the little girl who’s three years behind in school, we see the Word illiterate, learning to read at his mother’s knee. In the losers and the freaks sitting alone in the cafeteria, we see Love rejected and despised. In the homeless, the unemployed, the terminally ill, the criminal we see Christ. And if we’re serious about this Jesus thing, we fight to love them not despite their weakness but because of it.

Still it gets harder–further up and further in, after all. We love God in his weakness and so we love people in their weakness and so we must love ourselves in our weakness as well. We refuse to be discouraged when we are lonely because, after all, Christ was lonely. We weep beside him, hunger beside him, long to be loved beside him. The God of power and might did what seemed impossible–became weak–not only to show his love or call out for ours, not only to dignify weakness or teach us how to love others. He shivered and cried and toddled and fell and lisped and stank and suffered and died in order that we might not grow weary and lose hope.⁵ To give us patience with ourselves, to remind us that he’s not done with us yet. Tonight, I am weak and a little discouraged. And maybe as the world makes lists of resolutions, what we need isn’t more gym memberships or book lists but the simple promise that when we fail, it will be okay.

God became weak for us. Maybe weakness isn’t something to be ashamed of after all.

*********

If you’re in the Mobile, Alabama area, make sure to check out Vino and Values, a women’s evening with speaker Hallie Lord. Free wine, cheese, door prizes, fellowship, and a fabulous speaker–what’s not to like? (And if you’re not in Mobile, at least check out this great article by Hallie on how being hard is what makes marriage great.)

Merry Christmas! It’s not Christmas day anymore, but it’s still Christmas. [↩]
Hebrews 4:15–did anybody hear me talking about Hebrews on the radio the other day? [↩]
Believe me–we’re dealing with two right now and we’re all just a little bit crazy from all their neediness. [↩]
Thanks to Christina for helping me find this quotation! [↩]
Hebrews again–12:3 this time. [↩]

How the Temperaments Are Making Me Holier

Until I was in my mid-twenties, I thought that every woman who wasn’t occasionally a quivering mass of emotions was repressing her feelings. I tend to cry frequently and freak out even more often. So I would sit down with my poor sister every few months and try to push all her buttons until she was sad enough to cry.

I really thought I was helping her.

When I finally found out that people are, in fact, different and not everybody needs to be such a basketcase as I am, life started to move more smoothly. It goes along with what I was saying about not judging people–the more we can try to understand people, the better we can love them. I think that learning about different personality types can really help with this.

Let me start by saying that I am in no way an expert on the temperaments. In fact, most of what I write here I learned from some of my kids, two brilliant girls who explained the whole thing to me when they were in high school.¹ So I might be off on some of this, but it doesn’t seem to be an exact science. In any event, I’ve found this system very helpful (and I want to write a post about my struggles with humility which will make more sense if I can refer to my temperament in passing), so I’m going to sketch it out here.

The basic principle behind the temperaments is that there are four major categories that people’s personalities fall into: choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic, and sanguine.

Cholerics are passionate and intense. They tend to be extreme in whatever they do and often elbow their way through the crowd to positions of leadership. Bible verse: “Therefore be either cold or hot, for if you are lukewarm I will spit you from my mouth” (Revelation 3:16); The Office character²: terrifying Dwight Schrute, who is more intense about beets than most people are about their eternal salvation.

Phlegmatics are the opposite: more easygoing and relaxed. They tend to be calm, steady, and rational, less driven by passion than their choleric counterparts. Bible verse: “He is like a tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream: it does not fear heat when it comes, its leaves stay green; in the year of drought it shows no distress, but still produces fruit” (Jeremiah 17:8); The Office character: chill Jim Halpert, who barely cracks a smile while encasing everything Dwight owns in jello.

Sanguines tend to be confident and emotionally stable. They’re often characterized as “happy,” but what is most significant is that their emotions tend not to be extreme or to dominate them. Bible verse: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4); The Office character: Michael Scott, who jokes around even when his heart is breaking and never stays sad for long.

Melancholics, on the other hand, are sensitive, feeling a wide range of emotions very deeply. They are more introspective than sanguines and often have to work through some intense emotional reactions. Bible verse: “Weeping may endure for a night but joy comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:6); The Office character: Pam Halpert, who (especially when pregnant) alternates between grinning goofily at Jim and crying over commercials.

Traditionally, people say you have a dominant and a secondary temperament. My girls look at it from a different angle, explaining it like a coordinate plane (ooh, check out my mathy words! I must be so smart.) like so:

Most people just aren’t as monochromatic as a single temperament would suggest. This model gives us the idea of a spectrum between two opposing temperaments and lets you be extreme in two temperaments, as some of us are. Let’s use Winnie the Pooh to illustrate:

Temperaments Pooh — I’m not sure this is what A.A. Milne was going for….

So, to make sure we’re all following: Tigger is passionate but unemotional, chipper all the time; Rabbit is just as intense but much more sensitive and more easily upset; Pooh is hard to upset, happy to go with the flow; Eeyore is generally upset but unmotivated to fight anything. Now these four are extremes, all in the corners of the graph. You might be slightly choleric and extremely sanguine or just a little melancholic and a little choleric. Not everybody’s personality is as extreme as mine.

Where do I fit, you ask? Well, if you’ve read more than just this post, you’ve probably figured out that I’m crazy choleric. Here’s how choleric: when I was first learning about all this, my kids told me I was the most choleric person they knew. My response?

“No way! I bet I could list at least 5 people more choleric than me! And I don’t care about everything. Like hockey! I don’t care at all about hockey. I bet I could come up with 20 things I don’t care at all about!”

They just stared at me. “Seriously? Are you trying to prove our point?”

What this means is that I care a lot about just about everything. And learning that I’m the outlier here helped me to understand that when other people don’t care about something that matters to me, it’s not because they need to be inspired to care or they don’t understand how important this is or they’re bad people because THIS IS SO IMPORTANT AND THEY’RE NOT EVEN ANGRY ABOUT THIS TERRIBLE TERRIBLE INJUSTICE!!

See, some people are just phlegmatic. And it’s natural to them, when they care about something, not to have a coronary about it. And that’s good–God knows the world can’t handle many of me without a whole lot of phlegmatics to balance things out. So when people are good Catholics but don’t go to daily Mass ever, it’s not because they love Jesus less than I. It’s because their love of Jesus doesn’t naturally express itself in a commitment to going to daily Mass. And, to be honest, I don’t go to daily Mass because I love Jesus so much. I go because I’m an all-in kind of person. I decided a decade ago that I’d go to Mass every day and it’ll take a lot to change that commitment not because I’m holy but because I’m stubborn and choleric.

There’s a thrill to being as passionate as I am, and I think it enables me to serve the Church in a very particular way, but it can also be exhausting. Plus, when I care so much about everything, life is kind of a roller coaster ride. Before I planted my feet on Christ, I was a hot mess. Praise God for life on the Rock.

What about the x-axis? Oh, so, so melancholic. Those same kids who were explaining this to me were very confused on this one because they’d heard me talk about how a piece of music broke my heart or how peaceful prayer was, but they’d never seen me upset.

“Well, yeah,” I said. “Because I don’t cry in front of my students.”

Practically, what this means is that I’m very, very easily hurt. I read way too much into everything and have to spend time in prayer most days taking irrational suffering to Christ to be healed. I’m very sarcastic (choleric) but also crushed–after the fact–by having hurt someone (melancholic). But I’m also able to feel very deeply. My constant and repeated heartbreak gives me a reference point when contemplating the Passion which opens me to contrition that most sanguines will never know. And the deep suffering makes the joy that much more beautiful.

Understanding how melancholic I am has actually made it a lot easier for me to govern my emotions. I thought all through high school that anyone who didn’t return my phone calls was passive-aggressively telling me she didn’t want to be my friend anymore. I’ve realized since that sanguines just don’t generally have any idea that they’re hurting me. I took being 10 minutes late as an intentional slight when really a sanguine might not notice that he was late. He certainly wouldn’t expect anyone to take offense.

Now, sticking people in boxes is generally not helpful. But it’s been my experience that understanding that other people might view the world in a completely different way from me helps me to love them better. It goes back to walking a mile in another person’s shoes. I can’t at all understand a sanguine phlegmatic (Pooh) until I realize that he doesn’t have to be like me. If Pooh tried to be like Rabbit, the Hundred Acre Wood would be a very unpleasant place.³

The Saints are all over this graph. Cranky St. Jerome was probably a Rabbit,⁴ but so was fiery St. Teresa of Avila. St. Joseph of Cupertino was Pooh, as was Bl. John XXIII. I’d think Philip Neri was a Tigger, along with St. Peter, and St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross strikes me as an Eeyore. The kingdom of heaven accepts all kinds, and the Church needs them.

I probably ought to have some great spiritual lesson to conclude, but all I’ve got is this: you don’t have to be like anyone else and they don’t have to be like you. Figure out how you are called to be holy, be holy that way, and let other people follow their own path to holiness.

For Further Reading:

Since all I did was sketch out some very basic principles, here are some other sites that you might find helpful. None of them seem to use the graph idea above, but they’ll help you flesh out what I said about the specific temperaments:

Ave Maria Singles explains how temperaments relate to marriage.

Fr. Antonio Royo Marin, O.P. connects the temperaments to spirituality.

Fisheaters is always good for those who want to know about the medieval roots of anything.

And of course, we can’t forget Wikipedia!

What do y’all think? Does this help you understand yourself–and those you love–better?

Maria Guzman and Elizabeth Hanna Pham, to whom I am extremely grateful. [↩]
If The Office doesn’t do it for you, look here for some more comparisons. [↩]
For the record, while I’m in the same quadrant as Rabbit, I don’t think we’re very much at all. My brand of melancholic is much more cheerful. We’re both borderline OCD, though. [↩]
All of these are guesses–bear with me! [↩]

Learning to Love, Not Judge

For a good ten years, I didn’t confess being judgmental. Not because I was a saint or because I was too hardened a sinner, but simply because of a poor definition. I thought that “judging” someone meant condemning him to hell and I’m really good at not condemning people to hell. I’m so aware of God’s mercy and his desperate desire for each soul that I’m not even willing to consign Hitler to hell with certainty–and the Church is with me on this one.¹

But I’m starting to realize that judging–the sinful variety–is broader than that. And so pervasive. Reading through the comments on my post on kids at church (which has 15,000 unique visitors and 1000 facebook likes and I’m seriously freaking out over here) has been moving and powerful and convicting. But it’s also shown me just how easy it is to get caught up in what other people are doing wrong.² This got me thinking about Mother Teresa’s famous quotation:

It’s so hard not to be angry at someone when all you see is how his behavior falls short of what you think it ought to be. And the angrier you get, the harder it is to love him or even to love yourself. I’ve found, in a few specific relationships particularly, that it became nearly impossible not to be constantly furious at people until I changed. I had to stop praying that their behavior would change and start praying that I would stop obsessing over it.

I realized in prayer today that I am a super-judgmental person. I’m just judging hearts, not souls.

Yeah, that makes it okay.

But I judge everybody all the time. I judge you on your grammar and your wardrobe and the book you’re reading and, yes, how your kids behave at Mass. And I saw in the comments on my post that so many people were upset with somebody–their kids or someone else’s kids or other parishioners or a pastor or church in general. Most people were clearly trying to love and forgive and work through it, but it just got me thinking.

Your goal in life is to be a saint. God willing, you’ll bring other people along with you, but you can’t fix the people around you. You can love them and support them and even sometimes correct them, but focusing on other people’s vices, even when they are very real and obvious and hurtful vices, isn’t generally going to help anyone.

I knew a guy once who was just sulky. I hated him for it until it occurred to me that maybe his options were to sulk or to rage. Maybe his sullenness was actually a demonstration of heroic virtue. Here I was thinking he was a rotten person because he wasn’t trying to be chipper when he was upset, and maybe all along he was earning a white martyr’s crown because he wasn’t screaming at anyone.

So I began to wonder–is it possible that everybody’s really doing the best they can?

Maybe the reason they don’t correct his quiet talking in church is because the alternative is screaming and they’re actually quite proud of him.

Maybe she pointed out the cry room because she raised kids in a church without one and really thought you’d appreciate the option.

Maybe he was up all night hearing the last confession of a dying man and doesn’t realize how harsh he was.

Maybe she really has no idea how short her shorts are.

Maybe he’s homeless and the jeans he’s wearing to the Easter Vigil are his best clothes.

Maybe he wanted to complain 50 times since walking in but only let himself say that one thing.

Maybe she only says those things about other women because she’s terrified that she’s worse than they are and gossip seems the best way to hide it.

Maybe she’s from small town Mississippi and doesn’t have any idea that you stand-right-walk-left because she’s never even been on an escalator before.

Maybe he’s not turning–even though the light’s been green for a full 4 seconds–because his son’s in the hospital and he can’t see through his tears.

Maybe she keeps talking during Mass because she really thinks it helps other people enter in when she adds her commentary.

Maybe he smokes like a chimney because the alternative is a much harder drug.

Kind battle — Pinterest thinks Plato said this. I am not convinced.

Now maybe I’m a little ridiculous in concocting these elaborate explanations to excuse people’s behavior, but I’ve found that I’m less angry and more loving when I start to imagine that there’s some reason that people are doing things I wouldn’t do. And really, there are reasons. Maybe there aren’t explanations that completely excuse everything, but I can’t know what you’re struggling with that makes you whine or dress or parent or drive that way. And when I recognize that, I’m so much happier because I’m letting go of my anger and just trying to love.

Perhaps if I were a saint, I could love people without having to exercise my imagination so liberally. Maybe then I could see only that they’re children of God and not feel the need to analyze and categorize.

But this is where I am right now. Instead of looking down on you, I’m going to try to assume the best, to see how hard you’re trying. Because I want you to see my efforts, not my failures, I’ll try to do the same for you. I’m doing the best I can. I think most of us are.

We know for certain that there are people in heaven. It’s hard not to believe that Judas is in hell given Mark 14:21, but while the Church teaches that there is a hell, there’s no official teaching that there’s anyone in it. Private revelation in spades, but nothing dogmatic that I’m aware of. If you’re interested in this, check out von Balthasar’s Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved? [↩]
No, I’m not talking about you. It was nobody in particular. Blame the Holy Spirit. I’m not judging you, I promise! [↩]

5 Rules for Fathers of Daughters

I mentioned before that I was a teenager in the 90s. This was a bad thing even for those with an innate fashion sense and wads of cash.

90210 never forget — Oh, how I wish I could forget….

For those of us who were nerdy, broke posers, it was catastrophic. I distinctly remember buying a worn-out pair of Umbros at a thrift store because Maia Matthews wore Umbros and she was awesome. I had pink flannels from Caldor and chunky heels from Payless. And I’m pretty sure I wore them all together.

I think my best outfit of that cringe-worthy era was a fabulous combination of oversized men’s jeans with a cropped tank top. Oh, and because showing your boxers was cool for boys, I bought plaid underwear to sag my jeans over. Pretty much, I was awesome.

Kelly Bundy crop top baggy jeans — I think I was going for something like this. Yes, always take advice from “Married with Children.”

So that my 13-year-old pudge could be admired by as many people as possible, I would get all dolled up in this outfit and ride my bike around the neighborhood. It was a disaster.

And my father thought I looked beautiful.

Okay, objectively he was wrong (and probably ought to have told me to put on more clothes). But my daddy always thought I was beautiful. Until I moved out of the house, I modeled every new outfit for him. And every time, no matter how ridiculous the ensemble was (why did I WEAR terrycloth?), his jaw dropped and he said, “WOW!”

Now, I’ve had my share of body image issues. Like every teenage girl I’ve ever met, at some level I hated myself. But let me tell you: at the deepest level, I knew I deserved to be loved. Because my daddy loved me so well.

Gentlemen, you are hands down the most important person in your daughter’s life. Forget moms (sorry moms–you matter, too), friends, boyfriends, teachers. Aside from God, there is no more important relationship. I mean, no pressure, but so much of the woman she becomes comes down to the way you treat your little girl. So in honor of my daddy and fathers everywhere, I want to give you my top five rules for dads based on years of working with teenage girls and even adult women who are, largely, as broken as their relationships with their fathers set them up to be.

1. Love her. I know this is obvious. Hopefully it goes without saying. But guys, you’ve gotta love that little girl like your life depends on it. Because hers does.

I sure hope you’re captivated by her. I hope you think she’s beautiful and smart and clever and worth cherishing. But if you don’t, learn to. Love isn’t a feeling, it’s a choice. If you don’t think your little girl (whether she’s still in the womb or 60 years old) is incredible in every way, figure out how to. Make a list of everything you love about her. Sit down with an album of pictures of her and marvel at how she’s grown. Write down all your favorite memories. Pray for her, Every day, without fail. You can’t always be who she needs you to be, but you can always pray.

If your daughter is older and has hurt you, I’m sorry. But I’m going to need you to be the grown up here and learn to forgive. It’s hard to love a sullen teenager. Believe me, I know. That’s what I do for a living. But this isn’t just feelings–this is a lifelong battle for the everlasting joy of the little girl you created. You do what it takes to love that girl. Because if you don’t, she’ll find someone else to. And unless you’ve set a high standard, whatever man she finds to to love her like you were supposed to is just going to crush her spirit more.

2. Tell her you love her. I don’t care if you think she already knows. Tell her. Tell her every day. Really, a woman can’t hear it enough. My mom says she wanted to tell her kids she loved them so often that it was commonplace. “Sure, Mama, whatever. Can I have 10 bucks?” And there were times when I found it annoying as a child. But when I didn’t have a date to homecoming, I knew somebody loved me. When I put on the freshman 15, I knew somebody thought I was beautiful. And as much as I love my mom, it wasn’t her affirmation that I remembered. A woman needs that affirmation from a man. Blame the Fall if you want, but the fact remains that a man’s words mean much more to a woman than another woman’s words do. If you don’t give your daughter this love, she’ll do whatever it takes to get it from some other man.

So tell her you love her. But tell her in a thousand different ways. Tell her she’s beautiful. You don’t have to go all awkward goo-goo eyes on her (and please don’t ever, ever use the words hot or sexy to talk about your daughter), but tell her she looks nice in that sweater. Tell her she has a sick jump shot. Tell her you love her drawing or her dimples or her poetry or whatever. Don’t limit your affirmation to her appearance–girls need to be more than pretty–but compliment her appearance. Most men don’t need to hear that; most women do. Don’t just compliment her on things she’s accomplished, either. She needs to know that your love doesn’t depend on her corner kicks. Do NOT call her names–even behind her back. You say positive things or you say constructive things. Then tell her you love her again.

Buy her flowers. Write her a letter. Write her a poem if you can. I roll my eyes every time my dad writes me a poem (I told you he was amazing) but I keep them because they tell me what I’m worth. Sometimes, just look into her eyes and tell her she’s everything you ever wanted in a daughter. When she’s little, she’ll just run off to play. When she’s a teenager, she’ll probably roll her eyes. But those words will change her life. She needs to know that you love her always and forever, no matter what. She needs to hear you say it.

3. Show her you love her. It doesn’t matter what you say to your little girl if you don’t put your money where your mouth is. So hold her while she’s little. I don’t care if you don’t like to cuddle. If she likes to cuddle, you cuddle that child. Carry her when she asks.

Father wearing baby — Pack her up and take her with you if you have to.

Show up to everything. Every game, every recital, every awards assembly. No meeting is as important as her debut in the school play. Cancel whatever you have to cancel–your vocation is not to make money. Your vocation is to love your daughter. Nothing is more important than being there for her. You never know how long you’ll have with her. No regrets.

And while you’re at it, don’t just show up–do something! Take her on a daddy-daughter date. Go to a zoo or a museum or just the playground–just you and her. When she gets older, take her on her first “real” date–show her how a date ought to treat her. When she moves out, call her just to talk. Chicks love that. Show up to help her move. Treat her like a lady–holding doors and carrying things–so she knows that’s how a gentleman behaves. Convince her not to waste her time with worthless men. Listen when she complains and don’t try to fix it for her. Most women just want to be heard, not to be solved. She’s a person, not a puzzle.

Father Daughter Ballerina — Take the freaking ballet class with her if that’s what it takes!

Hold her when she cries. Hug her often. Kiss her on the top of her head. Buy her presents that mean something. Do NOT try to buy her love. Change her tire or teach her to change her oil or let her give you a makeover or play ball with her in the driveway or take her fishing or read books together or take her to see the Rolling Stones (how are those guys not dead yet?) and then go with her to see Taylor Swift. There will be moments in there that are boring or awkward or awful but what she will remember is that you loved her that much. Get to know your little girl and love her the way she needs to be loved. She deserves nothing less.

4. Love her mother. John Wooden is famous for saying, “The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.” The relationship you have with your daughter’s mother sets the standard for every relationship she will ever have with a man. She needs to know that a woman deserves to be cherished and protected and adored. So if you yell at your wife or roll your eyes or demean her, stop. Right now. Maybe yelling has to happen sometimes, but not in front of your kids. You need to treat your wife the way you want your daughter to be treated. If you wouldn’t want your daughter to marry a man like you, be a better man.

Showing her how a woman ought to be treated also includes romance. Take your wife on dates. Kiss her often–in front of the kids. Don’t be gross, but let them see that love can stay alive in a marriage. A friend told me recently that her 2-year-old niece saw a picture of two people gazing at each other and said, “Dada and Mama!” The picture looked nothing like the girl’s parents, but when she saw love, she thought of her parents. Your daughter deserves to see marriage as beautiful and romantic. And she needs to see that the place for romance is in marriage. Make her believe that her knight in shining armor won’t just slay the dragon and ride off into the sunset, he’ll kiss the princess awake every morning afterwards. She deserves to believe in fairy tale love. Your wife deserves it, too.

I know this is a complicated world and maybe you’re not married to your daughter’s mother. You can still treat her kindly and talk about her respectfully. If you don’t have custody, you fight for all the time you can possible get with your baby. If there’s a stepmom, treat her like a queen. If your daughter’s mom has passed away, you can tell wonderful stories and explain how much you loved her mom. She identifies with her mom, whether they have a good relationship or not. She needs to know that you’re not going to stop loving her if something terrible happens. The mother of your children deserves to be respected in front of them even if that respect doesn’t go much further. Do it for your kids.

5. Love all women. Treat every woman with dignity. Every one. The cashier, the obnoxious little girl on the playground, the politician on screen. You’ve got to be consistent in the respect you show for women. This means especially that you run from anything impure. If you’ve got a problem with pornography, get help now. Even if she never finds out (and she will), porn makes you look at women differently and she’ll start thinking men ought to see women as objects. No porn. Change the channel when something inappropriate comes on TV. Talk about the positive things you see in women–and mention their beauty even if they’re heavy. If you only think skinny girls are pretty, your daughter will think she’s fat and ugly even if she’s a size two.

true gentleman — Basically, I’m saying be this guy to everyone.

Open doors for all women, not just pretty ones or old ones. Step up and be a servant. Look at women like they’re human beings–you’d be surprised how many “decent guys” can’t even look kindly at a stranger. If you can look at every woman the way you look at your little girl, she’ll know what a real man is and you’ll be a saint.

This is a lot to ask. I know it is. But not only do you set the standard for her relationships with men, you set the standard for fatherhood. Christians have been taught to call God Father; I’ve met too many women who can’t love God because they’ve been so hurt by their fathers. Don’t do that to her.

This daddy thing isn’t something you can compromise on. It will take the rest of your life to become the kind of dad your daughter needs. It’ll take a lot out of you. But don’t you think she deserves it?

P.S. Happy Father’s Day–I love you, Daddy!

P.P.S. This list gives some great thoughts. This article, too.