The Velveteen Nation

Ever since Pixar's "Cars" some of my kids have wanted to watch racing. They have a Daytona 500 race Wii game and specialize in spectacular crashes.  Finishing is for the singularly uninteresting in their minds.  Post game wrap up consists more of discussing the total decimation of their vehicles and how they exploded or limped into an explosion.  Perhaps they thought the game was realistic, because they were psyched for Sunday. 

What they discovered was the degree to which boredom can be contagious as they watched various race car drivers talk about the weather or what they twittered about the weather or whether they should even have twitter accounts as they waited for the opportunity to drive around in circles 500 times.  Within 15 minutes of all talk all the time, two of the boys had bailed for the Wii.  The third son was more dedicated but when the discussion became a discussion about the discussion they were having that the race car drivers felt they should not discuss on television, the final child decided extra studying for school was preferable. 

On Monday, by the time we remembered that today was the race, the big crash had already happened.  It was talked about ad infinitem, but the reality of the race was so eclipsed by the track conditions, the delay and the fire such that while we know the race ended, we neither saw nor cared. Nor have we even felt the need to google the result. My children have gone back to the virtual world versions of this same thing.  It's more fun.

Like the Oscars where more people discussed Angela Jolie's thigh than any actual film and the GOP Primaries which seem to never end or have actual winners,  systemic failures and spectacular crashes along the way have made the actual process seem plodding, dull and unoriginal.  The whole mood of the whole country seems to be summed up in "Let me know when you decide to do something." and "I'm sick of these excessive celebrations in the end zone before you've actually scored."

I'd like to think that everyone is just plain exhausted from years and years and years of political spin and the disingenuous attempt by the press to paint anyone as a god or a devil.  I'd like to think that everyone really wants to send a message to Washington and Hollywood to get outside their bubbled existence and know that hype is just that, hype. We won't believe the worst or the best printed about you.  Kindly extend the same courtesy to all of us.   But the reality is probably more complicated and simple than that.

The cyber and political world can make us forget the actual, where 99% of Americans of all political stripes and persuasions seem to be able to have normal discourse and kindness and progress and commerce and even friendships without the rules or consent of the government and politicos.  99% of Americans also manage to get through the day without knowing or caring what Hollywood thinks on any "important" matter.   What we don't understand is why the miles inside the beltway suffocate any capacity for civility or common sense.  We also do not comprehend why the beautiful people of the film and television industry, who have everything and are paid to step into other people's shoes, to create illusions, to imagine themselves as other than who they are and convey it convincingly, are so incapable of imagining any thoughts to have validity that do not echo their own.  The beltway and the Hollywood class seem stuck on their own track for the 500+ laps, unable to comprehend anything beyond their own designated path. 

The thing is, in the real world, there are a lot of other roads and open spaces and thoughts and ways of seeing things than those prescribed, scripted and approved by whomever the "They" is that prescribes, scripts and approves such things.   We're more interesting and real than the limited roles cast for us by those who have the power of the pen, the screen, position or title.  We actually want solutions and believe they're there for those with courage enough to propose them.  We also believe that we're smart enough to be told what's really going on, rather than pandered to and patted on the head or promised the sun, moon and stars.  We're real.  We know that all things have limits, even government spending, even government regulations.  Even more frightening for all of you, we were always real, you've just never noticed.

The Solution of the World

It is a topic that I've been reluctant to talk about because I know, it sounds like I'm trying to be superior and it sounds funny coming from a mom of ten children.

But I've used birth control so I know the arguments. I've made them. I've swallowed them. The doctors told me I was high risk, that every pregnancy could result in a tracheotomy, and that the next one might be permanent. I had a medical reason so I thought "I'm good."

The sympathetic priest told me it was a legitimate health concern, but in truth, it wasn't. The express purpose of taking the medication was to ensure I wouldn't get pregnant, so I wouldn't jeopardize my larynx with the possibility of a trachetube. It wasn't curative of the problem, it was preventative of a possible situation by eliminating being open to life.

Being a new mom, I was eager for a break, fearful of the possibilities and took the package with the approval of said priest. It didn't occur to me that I was sinning, as the doctor had said I must and the priest had said I could. I took the medication.

For the next year and a half, I took the medication and wondered what had happened to me. Emotionally, I was angry all the time. Nothing felt happy. Everything felt stretched out of proportion. I told myself it was recovery from birth, from becoming a stay at home mom, adjust!

Then we moved to Maryland, and I told myself, it was having to start over. I kept telling myself things would be better, but the romantic passion I'd felt for my best friend, for my beloved had faded to a pale imitation of its former self. I'd tell you that it was just because we'd matured, but that would be a lie. We'd dated for six years and found each other alarmingly interesting, and three years of marriage had done nothing to dim that feeling, but everything had flatlined since. I loved my husband, but there was this gap between my feelings and my desire that honestly made no sense to me. It was a painful time in our marriage, because we both loved each other deeply.

Then, we scheduled a visit to see my parents that summer. My dad's family (Pre-Hurricane Ike) owned a beach house that had been my growing up summer place and I loved loved loved loved loved it. It was also my prayer place, that spot on this Earth where Heaven seemed closer. It didn't matter if there were mosquitoes galore or the fishing was bad, this was my favorite place in all the world to be. I was so excited to go, I packed hastily. I forgot the birth control.

My husband had to work, so he was not on this journey the first week I was there. He fed ex'd the medicine with a note: The only reason I can send you this sad cargo, is I know one day, we won't use it. Reading that note was the "You had me at hello" moment. I threw the "sad cargo" in the trash and that was the beginning of what followed.

I won't say it hasn't been hard, that it isn't hard, or that it won't get harder. I will say, it's been beautiful and rich, it is beautiful and rich and is going to continue to be a luminous experience. I will say, I have no regrets over having ten children. I do have regrets of the lost year and a half of full feeling.

I say all of this not because everyone has to have ten children, but because a lot of people say to me, "I could never afford...or I'm too old...or I can't handle..." and I would say in response:
The solution the world offers to all problems is always less love. The solution God always offers, is always, more love. Children are literally, the creation of the need and the source of more love in the world. Children will require you to love more deeply and to become more loving. They will also love you.  They are the both and that is love, requiring more love, giving more love.

Much has been made of the Church's refusal to dispense birth control or condoms in the poorer nations of Africa. The solution to poverty in developing nations is "Birth Control!" Except we've had birth control here for fifty plus years, we've had abortion since 1973 and killed babies by the millions and we still have poverty. The solution? More birth control! More abortion on demand! Yes, the road to riches, glory, power beyond your wildest dreams is locked up in those little daily doses of estrogen and Planned Parenthood.

Also, the rich need birth control to stay rich. The middle class need birth control to get rich and  the poor need birth control so they can stop being poor. Apparently, there is no point at which one has made enough money that one does not need birth control.

Don't believe me? Watch the Yaz commercial. Advanced degrees, homes, fabulouso trips to Paris, all yours if you just warp your body by super saturating it with hormones for decades.

The message over and over again, in magazines, on television, on radio:

Women...
You can be rich if you don't have children.
You can be successful if you don't have children.
You can have everything you ever wanted if you don't have children.

The funny thing is, the way of the world never works.  Sure you may become richer financially, more polished, more powerful, more important in the world, these are all things that might happen, but none of those ensures that you will have more love or be more happy. All the pill ensures is you will have guaranteed, fewer people to love.

God's way, the way of more love, of being open to having your lives' script rewritten again and again and again, always works.  It may require sacrifice to raise all these people, but it is no sacrifice to be surrounded by people that love us.

Willingly Willing It

 It is the paradox of seeking to live an authentic Catholic life.  If we would do so, we must mold our will, our stubborn prideful selves to God's. If we would do that, we must "Will it."  So on the one hand, we must surrender our willfulness and on the other, we must wilfully throw ourselves into God's will.  It is a both and experience, that takes everything we have and pours it out, and constantly fills us with the infinity of God's grace. 

Lent is a time for strengthening our resistance to sin, strengthening our capacity to "Will it" to be molded as God willed us from the start, but loved enough to allow for our own fumbling about. 

Why are all these thoughts crammed in my head? 

Because I've spent the week seeking to get my children to see, via love, via talk, via reminders and sitting next to them until they're tired of me and I of them, that if they would blossom as their intellects and creativity indicate they could, they must "Will it."  I can check every assignment. I can go over every paper, but if they will not own something of this, they will not be what they could be, they may master some, but what they could own, they will forget and lose.  It takes a sublimation of the self for each of them to do this and that is not easy. What they do not see, is I too am having to "Will it" when I sit there, when I check the homework, when I force myself not to just let it go. 

We are all engaged in an ongoing battle to will what is proper and surrender what is not.   In a sense, all of life is Lent, of learning to surrender the excessive attachment to appetites, power and glory. 
Every time we think we've licked it, we've deluded ourselves, because we continue and the next moment will come when we shall be tempted yet again.  Like the dieter who has lost four pounds, the next day, I still have to watch it today and tomorrow and the next and the next and so on or they'll come back.  There is no rest in this battle, it is ongoing. Sin is like that, a fresh drink to an alcoholic, an offering of a "free sample" to lure you back into whatever it is.

Fortunately, God's grace is ample to defeat sin in our own lives, but we have to avail ourselves and all too often, I find after I've had a momentary triumph, I forget to keep going back to avail myself of still more.  Because I am stubborn, I keep trying to go on alone. Even worse, I find groping for that next moment after I've had a temporary triumph, is all the harder, that moment is the mile before the last leg of a marathon, when it seems justifiable for one's body to fail and the only thing that can keep it from failing is "Willing it."

How do we reach for God's grace in that moment when it seems impossible?  This is what prayer and fasting are designed to do; to give us a method for those moments when appetite or weakness or desire for the things of this world threaten to disorder our lives.   We shall not be perfect, but if we grab onto these gifts and seek God's grace, we shall be perfected in this great struggle.  It will be epic, but we know the outcome, the happy ending, and as such, as hard as the journey may be, it will make for a great story.