Thoughts on Modesty

Why is it only Catholics that seem to have a problem with "dressing up" for church?

As a convert, I've noticed this from the beginning. "Boy, these people are skuzzy," I thought. "If what they say about the Real Presence is true, you'd think they'd have more respect" (confession has done a lot for me since then!). But my thoughts failed to take any real form until, in my veil-reading, I discovered the concept of Catholic modesty. And while concerns about clothing and appearance may be merely a female proclivity, I think we can all look around us and assess the damage that a wholesale disregard of this virtue has produced. Just look around the next time you attend Mass. Outside church it's even worse. Women are supposed to be "liberated," but when we expose our bodies, we lose our dignity. What's liberated about having to dress like a hooker and then be evaluated on your "hot" factor?

As a housewife, I'm concerned because I place as a priority my own vocational development as well as the moral and spiritual well-being of my family--particularly my sons. As their mother, I am modeling femininity to them. I am saying, "This is what a woman is. This is how she dresses and this is how she acts. The way you treat me and the way your father treats me is how you should treat your sisters and your future wife, as well as other women." And on this point I agree with feminist New Agers: the feminine is sacred. At least it ought to be, in our kids' eyes at least.

I don't think mothers who work are as concerned about this because they're always out in the world. Having to go to work, competing with everybody on every level throughout the day, imbues in us the message that we are where we fit into the pecking order. Clothing is a visual language that tells other people, "Hey, I'm with it. Check me out. I've got the latest shoes, and my handbag isn't too behind the times. I'm committed to this job and I deserve that raise." Imagine a Mennonite woman working in an office. Just doesn't compute. Her costume says, "I may be in this world, but I'm not of it." The working woman has to communicate to her employer that her job is her number one priority or she risks losing her paycheck. Her clothing is the most visible and obvious way to do this.

Well, how is modesty defined? Today modesty seems to mean anything that doesn't get you fired or busted for violating indecent exposure laws. But in Scripture, modesty is named as one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit and the Church has, for 1900+ years, held it up as a virtue. Modesty used to mean the universal enforcement of at least an unwritten dress code for women. That dress code included longish skirts or dresses, becoming but not revealing blouses and shirts, and (in the not-too-distant past) a hat or bonnet or headcovering of some type.

The Catholic literature about modesty is some enlightening reading (see links below). I could quote all kinds of stuff from it, but there's just too much--and more easily read by yourself. It all pertains to the dignity of woman, her sacred role as guardian of the home and primary nurturer of children. There are also explicit guidelines as to what exactly a women should be wearing, and these guidelines rule out 85% of what passes for fashion today. I was amused and dismayed by turns as I examined the web sites with their "modesty clothing." "This is so Little House on the Prairie!" I moaned. There were even patterns for bloomers and petticoats!

But then I reminded myself of just how ugly fashion was getting, and how I have almost given up on wearing anything beautiful. I had resigned myself to wearing jeans and T-shirts for the rest of my life because, as a housewife, "Just who and what do I think I have to dress up for?" I even prided myself on "macho" behavior (probably because I was in the military) and being able to compete with men when it comes to coarse language. But I love old movies and period fashion plates, and my "Jane Austen" videotape collection is well-worn. I have also forced myself to wear skirts to Mass because of the crazy outfits people wear. And I'm always glad I did, especially when there's a guy behind me.

So I read voraciously everything I could find on modesty. And I was so convinced by this reading, that I went up to my closet and pulled out everything that didn't pass what I called "the Pope test" (it's in the literature--see below). Then I went down to Goodwill and spent two hundred bucks on things that did pass the Pope test. I emerged looking like a silhouette from the forties, but with modern touches. The look is a little retro, but not Little House on the Prairie. And what is even more important, I felt beautiful.

I did not buy any pants.

Two things I noticed immediately. On coming out of the Goodwill store, I encountered a man in a "wifebeater" tank top and a mullet. When he saw me, he did this sort of double take and automatically opened the door for me. The second thing I noticed was that I stopped carping at my husband. Didn't take any effort at all. Now why should that be? I thought modesty was only about changing my clothing, which I was willing to do anyway, for the sake of my kids. But I discovered that changing my clothes ended up changing my heart, and my marriage--overnight.

My husband is the most wonderful man in the world. I honestly don't think I could have gotten myself a better. But he's not perfect. He's not neat, he's not "healthy," and he's not handy. I'm the one who cleans and reads auto manuals and handles the finances and nags him about his cholesterol. "Oh, if he'd only listen to me!" I'd think. "All his problems would be solved!" The criticizing always hits a crescendo around PMS time when he either sulks or explodes and then I cry out of remorse. Sound familiar? I think the same refrain goes through the head of every fallen woman since Eve ate the apple. But what if we could break the cycle? Could it be possible that when a woman dresses according to her sacred role, it tends to bring out true masculinity in men? Women, what if we could make our husbands be the men we have always wanted them to be by simply putting on a skirt?

Why are there teaching documents from cardinals and archbishops urging women not to wear pants? Because the pants represent a blurring of the sex roles. When a women puts on pants she immediately thinks of herself not in the role of sacred feminine, but in terms of her utility. And then feminism seizes on this and tells her that she can do anything a man can do. Is it any wonder then that the woman feels driven to compete with her husband, along with everyone else?

Can you imagine the Virgin Mary in pants?

Looked at another way, our clothing proclaims to the world where our hearts are. Last week, I went along with my husband to his work site in Vancouver, British Columbia. There is a public, wholesale endorsement of the gay lifestyle there. In one of the brochures in the hotel, there was a pamphlet with tourist destinations within it that included "the vibrant gay and lesbian community." The pamphlet showed a man and woman tourist, but no kids. The front of the pamphlet was an opened zipper with the statement, "Expose yourself to Vancouver, British Columbia." This is where we are headed, gang.

We went to the farmers market there and saw a teenage boy in a dress. Not in drag, but in a dress. What struck me about him was that this was not a joke. He was dead serious, and you could tell that he expected people to take him seriously. The next time someone accuses you of focusing merely on the externals, ask them what they think about men going to job interviews in dresses and expecting to be hired. What does that say about what's inside?

Now how is modesty related to the veil issue? Are they separate? I think they are linked. When women dropped the veil, they started wearing pants and the "battle of the sexes" was on. The veil is a "sign of submission," of the woman to her husband. When women started to drop this sign, it wasn't simply a matter of convenience. It was an act of rebellion. It says, I am no longer going to be subject to any man--and that goes directly against Scripture. And the secular culture is only too happy to back her up on this. "The Church was wrong for 1900 years," it says. "Now you can become who you really are." And let me interject here that I don't believe this passage means that every woman is automatically any man's slave. The Scripture says a woman is subject to her husband, and to her husband only. She is subordinate to him, not all males or anybody else.

Christianity dignified women by lifting them up from the status of slave and giving them the place accorded to the Church by Christ. Christianity offered protection to women, rights and privileges they didn't have in the pagan world. If you have a problem with St. Paul on this, ask yourself whether it is more dignified for a woman to answer to her husband, in private, over whom she exercises the whole of her feminine gifts--or to some indifferent boss in the public square who values her only for her quota of man-hours? Is it more dignified for a woman to submit to the man who needs her most, and has the most to gain from her cooperation, or the corporate moguls and government officials who set social standards far more rigid than anything that prevails in a home?

In the traditional context, the veil is not merely a "sign of submission,' but a badge of honor, and a privilege. When I was promoted in the military and was given the rank insignia to wear, did I complain about how I was to be subordinate to the next higher rank? No! I gloried in my new position, I wanted to learn all about it, and to do right by everyone who happened to be below or above me. And to the angels, the veil signifies that we accept our proper place in the worship of God, just as they do--because the angels cover themselves before God.

Now that 40 years have passed, and the veil has been so completely eradicated, it seems unthinkable for women to willingly respond to an exhortation from the Church about this--even if the hierarchy felt the urge to do so. Where has the Church been through all this? In a tailspin after Vatican II, fighting social phenomena like contraception, abortion, and homosexuality in the priesthood--which was not exactly a position from which to exhort women about something like veil-wearing. The literature cites a few examples from the 50's or the 60's, a cardinal here, an archbishop there--promoting the ideal of modesty and attempting to set some standards. But they are like voices crying in the wilderness.

Anyone with the courage to obey risks becoming socially irrelevant--because in today's society, if you're not going along with the dress, you're not going along with the culture. Secular, unisex, and immodest clothing SHOULD be anathema to Catholic women, but we all want to "go along" with the crowd. It may be ugly, and utilitarian, but it's comfortable and practical, which seems to be the only criteria on which to judge something these days.

However, if a Catholic woman wants to take the virtue of modesty seriously, she must consider the veil a part of the package. Covering a woman's hair has ALWAYS BEEN DONE in Christian societies. It wasn't until the 20th century that women started to buck the tradition. Now am I talking just at Mass, or all the time? Well...that is a whole other can of worms. I haven't found definitive information yet from the Catholic perspective, but I have found a few Protestant/evangelical/fundamentalist sects which exhort and defend the practice of veiling at least for worship and some of them all the time, based on St. Paul's passage in I Corinthians. There is very strong Catholic evidence that the veil is to be worn at Mass--it just seems to be ignored by everyone. I haven't found a jot of support in Catholic circles for veiling outside of Mass, however. I am still looking, so check back for updates.

Some sites to check out:

http://www.catholicmodesty.com
http://catholicplanet.com/women/index.htm

and you can jump off from there...

Bob the Bummer

The last time we gave money to OPB, they cancelled my favorite show. I was so mad, we took a long hiatus from watching any public programming. I mean, it just feels like a betrayal, because they always take something good and replace it with something stupid or just ruin it.

Take Bob the Builder. At first, I thought it was a little too "cutesy" and simplistic, especially the refrain, "Can we fix it? Yes we can!" The show centers around Bob and Wendy and their crew of construction vehicles that all have names and personalities and even hang-ups. Bob goes around doing construction jobs for the community, with no job being too small. Every member of the community has Bob on the payroll, it seems, and there's no lack of business from the mayor. So every show is a pack of three mini-episodes following Bob and the gang on their latest job, interacting with various other characters, and solving every problem with a mixture of teamwork and serendipity.

I quickly got over my first impression that Bob was a dippy show, however. Soon I began to appreciate the jerky stop-action animation, the cute animals and the anthropomorphic machines. There was an innocence about the show, that transcended bills and permits and contracts to show a simple world without sin, in which everyone worked together for the good of all. One time there was a segment oriented purely at the parents, who were told that, "By learning how to solve problems together, children learn to work together as a team." That was the extent of any overt messages in the show. Although Bob occasionally interjected that such-and-such was a salvageable material that should be reused, or mentioned "green" building methods from time to time, the main thrust of the show was fun, friends, and problem-solving. I got hooked on it, and for the last few weeks, Bob has been the high point of many hectic mornings.

Until now. I may be late to the scene--apparently Bob the Builder has been on for awhile--but after the first season of the show, the focus shifted. Bob and his team have been given a new mission: to develop picturesque Sunflower Valley into an environmentally-friendly community. The new focus was pitched in a full-length episode featuring an architectural contest in which Bob's green utopia was pitted against an ugly mass of skyscrapers. Bob wins the contest, to the relief and enlightenment of all, and is awarded the task of making his vision come alive. During the episode, Bob is what he usually is not--a man on a mission. No more civic redecorating or barn-raising for him! This is a real job. At several points in the episode, he even had all the vehicles chanting "Reduce, reuse, recycle! Reduce, reuse, recycle!" I almost choked on my coffee in annoyance.

Now each mini-episode consists of Bob alone in the wilderness, building his dream one step at a time, while delivering homilies on environmentalism to his captive audience of adoring machines. While Carl still enjoys the show, it's been ruined for me. Now instead of drifting briefly into fantasy land, chuckling over the townspeople's small foibles and unintentional bits of comedy, I'm having this environmentalist agenda shoved down my throat. Even the PC-ness of Sesame Street isn't stressed this much. It's bad enough that children can't just have fun anymore (everything having to carry an "educational" message), but the new, unmistakably political, tone of the show is cruel.

How so?

It's cruel to take a child's little memories and pleasures and twist them to reflect the agenda of some adults who just happen to be in charge and stand to profit from forcing their agenda. You can practically see some producer cackling with glee in anticipation of his next promotion, and some committee of writers sitting around going, "Well, what can Bob say about protecting the environment today? Who cares...somebody brew another pot of coffee and we'll spend 30 seconds chanting Reduce-Reuse-Recycle again." This is not to say that I'm against protecting the environment. It's just that "protecting the environment" has become the mantra of liberals, covering up their real agenda of killing human beings through abortion and euthanasia. They took a sweet little story and turned it into a half-hour long commercial for their platform.

It's cruel to eradicate every last vestige of imagination from television, especially when PBS gets public money to fund programs for poor children which should go toward something besides inculcating an ideology. "Wait a minute, it's just recycling," you point out. "Who can argue with that?" Nobody can. That's the point. It's the camel's nose in the tent, pitched at two-year-olds to soften them up for more propaganda once they get into the schools, where recycling bins proliferate and common sense goes out the window. And even if you don't agree with that, you'd think that there would be a better way than to take a good show that had good writing and production value and turn it into a platform of talking points.

Finally, it's cruel to all the rest of us who live in a diminished world, a world that has sold its birthright--the faith delivered once by Jesus Christ to the saints--for this mess of pottage: a world of paranoia and pornography, of political correctness and contraception, of anti-religious totalitarianism and casual killing. It's cruel to destroy every oasis of joy there is to be had in this howling wilderness, in which human beings exist only to use and be used, and children are simply pawns to be won to one agenda or another. Like the world, Bob has become boring...and that's a real bummer.

Be Nice to Knockers

And now, for a word about door-to-door solicitations.

DISCLAIMER: In taking up this topic, it is not my wish to alienate anybody who simply does not give to any unsolicited requests for donations as a matter of principle. I quite understand this sentiment, as I make it a rule never to commit money over the phone unless I'm the originator of the request.

What I'm after is finding a method of dealing with them that not only does justice to both parties involved, but that harmonizes with Christian, and especially Catholic, principles. I will also not be talking about those solicitations you get over the phone, partly because I have a rule for not giving to them, and partly because elements of the strategy below will also work with phone solicitors.

But doorknockers are a special category, since they are people, and people by definition have souls--souls which you should be interested in saving. Now I'm not talking about handing out tracts, stumping for the Church, and asking them whether they want to go to Mass with you. That would be termed, popularly, as the evangelical approach. What we're talking about here is something subtle, human, practical, and very Catholic, that anyone can do without feeling embarrassed or apologetic about it.

Therefore, doorknockers are a special problem--and a special opportunity. They are also in-your-face unavoidable, and you can't exactly slam down the phone after making pretend static noises and get away with it. You have a commission from God to spread the Gospel, in whatever form you can, even if it means just not being a jerk. Here are some methods I've used that do not pass the test:

1) PRETEND TO NOT BE HOME. This does not work. Either I end up skulking in the bathroom, feeling like an idiot, or the two cars in the driveway and the shrieking toddler give me away. One time the "solicitors," two little neighborhood boys, peeked in our front window, and I was indignant enough to give them a dressing-down for it. Then I felt like a mean idiot.

2) PUT UP A SIGN. This does not work because in order to make the sign effective, it either has to be SO LARGE that all your neighbors can see it from across the street, and thus becomes a real eyesore--as well as making you look reclusive and inhospitable--or it is so small as to be easily ignored by the doorknocker. I once created a sign that I could put up in the window as needed, in lieu of opening the door, but this approach creeped me out, as well as the doorknockers (from what I gathered of the looks on their faces). The effect was, "Help, I'm a prisoner in my own home! Call the 6 o'clock news!"

3) GET RID OF THEM. This involves opening the door, listening to them just long enough to get a word in edgewise, and then declaring your disinterest and slamming the door in their faces. This approach is so repugnant that it not only drives people to use methods 1) and 2) above, but it doesn't always work because you are not always close to a door. For example, today's encounter happened while I was out front mowing the lawn.

4) THE PAYOFF. Let them get their spiel out, squirm a little bit and dig around for a buck or two just to get them off your property.

OK, so how do we deal with these people in a humane and Christian manner?

First, let me say unapologetically that we are on every do-not-call list in existence, and our name is on file with the DMA to not send us all those catalogs. There is nothing wrong with that, in my estimation. Being a Christian does not mean that you must invite an inundation of wasteful, irksome, and sometimes obnoxious marketing attempts. There is nothing wrong with telling people that this is not a good time, their cause is not on your priority list, or that you simply can't afford to add to your charitable donations this month. But you could always consider them for next month. This leads me to strategy #1:

1) SEE THEIR SOUL: The fundamental idea is trying to spread the Gospel to every human being you find in front of you, no matter where you are. So remind yourself that this is a person beloved of God, that he or she has an immortal soul, and "you are the only Bible they may ever read." So quickly pray and ask yourself, "How can I be Jesus to this person?" Not, "What would Jesus do?" but "How can I show the love of Christ and the truth of the Gospel to them, even in just a few minutes?" This necessarily shapes what comes next:

2) LISTEN. Hear them out. Give them a chance to practice their spiel, and try to consider their request. Chances are they're footsore, have been all over the neighborhood, and the rough treatment from some of your neighbors is probably getting them down. You don't have to invite them inside for tea and cookies, but at least give them two minutes of your time. That tells THEM that you truly care about them as a person, even if you aren't buying.

3) ASK FOR MORE INFORMATION. This is the true Gospel test. If you definitely aren't interested, and there's no way you'd ever use that service, tell them politely, smile, and say you're sorry but you hope they have better luck. Practice your manners. BUT if there's any possibility you might use that service, or give to their cause, go ahead and ask some questions. This serves a dual purpose. If you ultimately do not decide to accede to their request, at least you've given them a fair hearing. You may find out about information that interests you but seems unrelated. If you ARE interested in giving or subscribing (or whatever), you need to ask a few more questions simply to verify that you are dealing with a reputable organization, not just a shyster cruising the neighborhood. If they are serious and their organization is legit, they'll be happy to take some time and answer all your questions. Only a crook would suddenly be in a hurry.

4) BE HONEST. I was talking with a DISH satellite sales guy and had come to the point where he was using my phone to inquire about the tax rates attached to the service, and I was reading through the fine print on the contract. The reason I was considering the service was their low promotional rate and the fact that they offered a family package with EWTN, a Catholic cable channel. But the contract was very long, with rigid terms and steep fines if you didn't do everything on the nose. I handed it back to him and said, "I'm sorry. I really would like to do it, I just don't think I can live up to my part of the contract. Sorry to have wasted your time." He was very persistent, but all was polite.

5) BE GENTLE. I don't know quite how to quantify this, but I guess it means that since I started dealing with solicitors in this manner, I've never felt the need to be rude, brusque, or brassy. I always make lots of eye contact, shake hands, and call the person by name. A final note: if there's an opportunity to simply mention my faith in the course of the conversation, I do so. We might be discussing the weather or current events and you could say, "God's in control." Or you could say "Praise God!" if the person relates some good news that seems particularly heaven-sent. "I'll say a prayer for that," can be appropriate if a personal matter enters the conversation. A simple "God bless you," or "Godspeed," as they go on their way will not fall on deaf ears. As an additional note for evangelizing, it occurred to me that I could have a small sign, needlework in the window, or lawn ornament that depicted a blessing, Scripture verse, or saint, so that whoever even knocks on our door will know who we are and what we stand for, and will shape their reaction accordingly.

I mention all this because I did have an encounter today with a doorknocker that convinced me I needed to write all this down. His name was Lawrence, and he volunteers for a missing children's outreach, Operation Lookout. He seemed puzzled by all my questions, but I carefully explained (just being honest) that we have a lot of solicitors come through and I wanted to know who I was dealing with before I donated. I gave him $12 and he gave me a nifty calculator (which, as a tightwad, I use frequently). I had him check over my pepper spray key chain and he gave me some info about that, and he mentioned as an aside that he fixed houses up and rented or sold them. Now I wish I had asked him for some advice on remodeling, but he seemed like he needed to go. But all in all I'd say I got a good deal.

Godspeed, Lawrence.

It's a Blaine Shame

Whenever current events are concerned, I always tell people that I'm behind on the news--unless it's something of 9/11 proportions--because news in general really stresses me out and depresses me, so I avoid it.

But I am usually not 130 years behind.

It was about that long ago that a certain Henry G. Blaine introduced an amendment to the Federal Constitution that would forever ban any revenues from the government going to support "sectarian" institutions--e.g., Catholic schools. He was taking advantage of a particularly strong current of anti-Catholic feeling among Protestants and "nativists" (those who objected to the hordes of unwashed Catholics showing up on their shores). Well, the amendment failed by only 4 votes, and Blaine wasn't even there to vote on it. But that's not the end of the history lesson.

Since the failure of the "Blaine Amendment," 38 states went on to adopt versions of this legislation in their state constitutions. Adoption of Blaine-syle legislation was, in fact, often a condition of acceptance into the Union for western states. Since controversy surrounding the immigrant problem has faded, so has public memory of the legal veracity of these laws--but they remain on the books. In fact, since they were written using rather general terms (referring to "sectarian" institutions and "religious" purposes, rather than singling out Catholics by name), they are now being interpreted ever more broadly in accordance with the current trend of scouring public schools and spaces of religious references. But the fact is that these laws are unconstitutional--and the Supreme Court knows it.

The legal fallacy these laws fall under is called "religious gerrymandering." Kyle Duncan, in a paper written for Columbia Law School in 2003 (http://law.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1044&context=expresso) points out that, while it is allowable that government might make a law for the general public good that incidentally infringes on the religious practices of some, it amounts to legalized persecution to allow public goods and services to be allotted to the general public while excluding groups that have expressly religious purposes, simply because they are religious. For instance, just because the Federal Government prohibits polygamy does not mean that they are trying to persecute Mormons. The law applies to everybody equally. However, when the State of Washington says that a blind man can't use his state-allotted funds to study to become a minister--simply because, as a minister, he believes the religion--disqualifies him, under the Washington State Constitution, to receive the funds (Witters v. Comm'n for the Blind). Witters was singled out, just because he was religious.

"But wait a minute," you say. "Isn't that just separation of Church and State? I don't see the problem here."

The problem is that the law excludes religious purposes and institutions specifically and exclusively. Said another way: the law treats all citizens equally under the law except where it excludes a certain group precisely because they are religious. Let's say 10 blind people apply to the state for funding for higher education to pursue another career. The state looks over their declared majors: Biology, Computer Science, Music, Teaching, Theology, Master of Divinity, Comparative Religion, Basket-weaving, Forestry, and Criminal Justice. "Hm..." says the state official. "These all look OK except Theology and Master of Divinity. Now, Master of Divinity is right out, since that is a career path leading to the ministry, and we have a law on the books that says nobody can use our money who actually believes in their religion. What about the Theology major? Let's call him up and ask if he actually believes in any specific religion, or if he simply wants to study religion in the abstract, like the Comparative Religion major. If he doesn't believe, it's OK. If he does, then that counts as furthering a religious or sectarian institution and he can't have the funds." Now, if you can come up with a clearer-cut case of discrimination, I'll brew the coffee.

Here's another example. A religious group, wishing to practice a religious rite involving animal sacrifice, finds themselves the object of hasty animal-rights legislation that penalizes their religious activity while allowing the general industry of meatpacking to go on. It's OK for everybody else, except the religious group--because they want to do it as part of their religious practices. Now, if you were to flip these situations on their backsides, and say that it's OK for Mormons to have polygamy, or African cults to sacrifice animals, or blind divinity students to receive public funds, but no one else--these would all be violations of the Establishment Clause. The law can't single out religious groups for certain favors not extended to everyone else, but neither can they withhold resources that are commonly available simply because the applicant is religious or intends to use his share of the resources for religious uses.

On the contrary, the First Amendment Free Speech and Non-Establishment clauses tend to uphold the equal rights of all citizens to have access to benefits generally available to everyone, without regard to their religious affiliation. Hence, the state can't deny welfare benefits to Muslims because they're religious. Schools can't let any kind of club under the sun use their facilities while prohibiting religious clubs from enjoying the same privilege. The Supreme Court has actually developed quite a clean record of respecting people's religious freedoms, when they get the chance. However, at the State level, violations abound as many State Blaine-style laws go far beyond the FS/NE Clauses, as the Witters cases demonstrate.

So now you have the background, I can plainly name the elephant in the room. Thanks to Mr. Blaine and a century of legislative fox-trotting, public money is being kept out of the hands of people who actually want to exercise their religion freely. Catholic parents who want to send their children to Catholic schools are effectively taxed twice when they are denied the option to use whatever portion of public resources is theirs to educate their children in a way that is in line with their religion. Instead, they have to fork out ever-increasing tuition fees on top of their taxes in order to educate their children as conscience dictates. They are singled out in a silent way, since the money is taken out in taxes and no justification is ever advanced as to why they cannot participate equally in the educational benefits doled out by the state.

How do Catholics deal with this? Sadly, many Catholics have few options but to send their kids to public schools. Some can pay for private education if mom works. Some can't even do that. The home-schooling movement appears to be flourishing--for now--but isn't a viable option for everybody. The net result of the current system, I believe, tends to reinforce religious indifference for the Catholic. Catholic parents I've spoken to seem to put an unofficial "cap" on their family size when they get to the point where anxiety sets in about how they're going to pay for a proper Catholic education. The problem is that, while wanting to be good Catholics who educate their children in accord with Church teaching, they end up in a contraceptive mentality that dictates family size in accordance with perceived future costs--which is not Catholic teaching at all.

Our Sacrifice of Praise

This morning I got up and, immediately starting to rush because I was late, told myself I'd skip Morning Prayer and just say the morning offering. "After all," I reasoned. "It's not as if I've been getting much out of it lately. Might as well take a break." Then I started brushing my teeth.

A thought occurred to me. A still, small voice said, "Since when is prayer all about you? Weren't you just reading last night that we have an obligation to God to offer praise to Him, since it was He who made you, and it is to Him that you owe all you have and are?" That stopped me in my tracks. I was indeed reading about that, last night, in Radio Replies. It said that religion is man's duty to God, since he did not make himself, God did. Every tribe, civilization, and nation since the beginning of time has had religion of some sort or another. Man instinctively knows he owes worship to God. If he denies it, he has to work against his natural inclination, convince himself through rationalization that either God does not exist, or if He does, then we don't owe anything to Him.

Hm. I continued brushing my teeth. The voice kept talking. "And isn't prayer really your substitute for doing the good works you are always saying you're going to do? You are too occupied at present to do them, so you offer prayers up instead for the weak, poor, starving, sick, and dying. Are you going to stop that now, that it isn't 'doing anything' for you?" "Uh..." I thought. "And what about the universal Church?" the voice continued. "That you are always saying you care about, and would like nothing better than to see put to rights. The Office has always been about that. Are you going to leave your duty to that, too? That is, until your prayer life starts to do more for you?"

I was shrinking inside. I looked over at the picture of Jesus I keep on the wall, remembering words from spiritual works I had read about how Jesus aches for souls, how he hungers and thirsts for our love. If I can't throw myself down before the Blessed Sacrament, I tell myself that I will at least say these prayers. And, saying them, I am not doing this for myself, like I would do a yoga class. It is about God's due.

This whole conversation--this fabric of prayers, thoughts, and feelings that I feel connects me with God from day to day--must be nourished by something. If you want to lead a holy life, you must have power. You cannot do that in and of yourself. However, God also must receive his due. You must do for him, even when you don't feel like it. Even when it isn't really "doing anything" for you. That's what makes it a sacrifice, and even more precious in His sight.

My Screed on Abortion

Consider this scenario: My toddler, full of energy and happiness, thinks that putting his hand on the stove burner is a good idea. Horrified, I move to stop him, resulting in a temper tantrum from him because I denied his "choice."

Illogical? Just plain mean? Or the compassionate response of a loving mother who knows what's best for her child? I think you would answer the latter. And yet, the abortion debate is full of such scenarios as these, in which the toddler is given his way for the sake of "choice." If the logic of abortion were used in any other arena, its arguments and methodology would not stand for an instant.

Driving down the highway today, I notice a pro-abortion bumper sticker that said, "If you will not trust me with a choice, how can you trust me with a child?" I stared at this sticker, and tried to figure out on what planet this would be a logical statement. Leaving aside the euphemistic and imprecise nature of this term, "choice," for a moment, I have to emphasize that what they mean when they say "choice" is KILL THE CHILD WHILE IT'S IN THE WOMB AND NO ONE WILL KNOW. Obviously, someone cannot be trusted with a child if there's a chance that they might kill that child. And if "choice" is simply another name for killing the child, well, they cannot be trusted with a choice, either. That's what CPS, adoption, and foster parents are for.

Frankly, murder is just not a moral option when you're faced with an "unplanned" pregnancy. And if you don't think abortion is murder, I hope you run into one of those disgusting pictures of a tiny murdered aborted child. And I hope you throw up.

The Desert of the Real

The Catholic concept of "the desert" is one that fascinates me. I first heard it mentioned by Saint Therese of Liseux, in her spiritual autobiography, Story of a Soul. Beginning with the Desert Fathers, a few monks chose to separate themselves as hermits, ascetics who lived in wastes considered uninhabitable by their cloistered cohorts. Throughout the history of the Church, as life in a consecrated community became more worldly, various renewal efforts (spearheaded by such saints as Theresa of Avila) drew on this tradition of going to "the desert." To purify oneself spiritually, renounce worldly temptations, and subject oneself to the suffering that was unavoidable in such a deprived environment--was seen as a path to holiness.

St. Therese thought of her entrance into the Carmelite convent as "going to the desert."

Sometimes I think of my life in these terms. As a woman, I feel my identity springs from my vocation as a wife and mother. But while some might think that life as a lay person is less challenging and less spiritually rich than the monastery, I beg to differ. Our opportunities to grow in holiness are limited only by our capacity to endure suffering. And there is just as much suffering available in the life of the housewife as there is anywhere else. Dust and dirt, aches and pains, and countless little sacrifices make up the rocks and sand of my desert.

Many times during the day I tell myself to stop feeling so sorry for myself. I have everything I could possibly want, and yet I find myself wanting more. After doing heaps of laundry, I want more clothes. After dusting shelves of books, I want more entertainment. After forgetting about all the people I've promised to call, I feel lonely and complain that I have no friends. More than anything I feel the lack of time. I seem to have all the time in the world--sheesh, she's a stay-at-home-mom, what in the world does she do all day?--goes the refrain in my head. But I know that my time has severe limits on it. Every fifteen minutes I have to make decisions like, "Gosh, I'm really hungry, but if I water the roses NOW, I can get it done before the baby gets up and maybe I can grab something to eat while I nurse him." Or: "Man, I wish I could get my hair cut and look a little more up-to-date, but I've got so many things in my schedule, I can't possibly fit in a pleasure jaunt just for me." Or: "My writing is so neglected I should at least find half an hour to write SOMETHING, but if I were to do that, I'm giving up sleep that I need to NOT be a monster to my kids tomorrow."

The desert is suffering. It is the pain of loss--not necessarily loss of life or limb, or even the loss of comfort--but loss of the sense of limitlessness that our culture offers up and commercializes as if it were candy. Take a trip to Maui, it says. Try our new camera phone. Treat yourself to dinner. Live a little. Believe in yourself. Achieve your potential. You, you, you. It soothes us with an endless murmuring lullaby of self. My sacrifice, my penance, my path to holiness, as it were--consists in resisting the pull of that voice. Every time I can say no to it I achieve a spiritual victory. But I am often left feeling dry and somewhat deflated.

Then the little self-pity voice starts again. "You are giving up so much. You are such a good mother. Surely you'll achieve sainthood for this. Oh, don't worry about that little indulgence there. God will understand. You're only human. After all, how many people do you know who make all the little sacrifices you do? How many people are blessed with these insights? You ought to write them all down, you know. Then one day people will read what you wrote and quote it and you'll be acclaimed as a great mystic." Then I have to turn away from that voice, and so it goes...

That's the real reason I haven't been writing. The struggle is demoralizing. And I don't know if I could even "cut back" on the many things that seem necessary at any given moment. As soon as a thing appears to be unnecessary (or I discover time-savers and more efficient ways of doing things), I might try. But I think one of the consequences of original sin is not only pride and envy, but also a disordered sense of time. The truth is that there was NEVER a time that was less hectic, or more easy-going. In my life, or even in history, I think.

When I think about my life right now, there's a line in The Matrix that comes to my mind: "Welcome to the desert of the real." The movie is about discovering what's behind the illusion that our lives are composed of. I can agree with a lot of the movie's aspects, except the idea that a lot of soulless machines are behind it all. I believe, instead, that God is behind it, but sometimes the illusion is so compelling that many people can't imagine there is a God, much less that he cares about us as individuals.

My struggle is trying to pierce that illusion, even if only once a day.

Triumph: A Book Review

Every history has an agenda. For example, in a college class our history instructor had picked a textbook all about "the worker." The book detailed the strikes and riots and printed excerpts from the workers' songs and newsheets. I thought it all very interesting--until I found out that our beloved professor was a card-carrying member of the American Communist Party.

My point is that, while a book like Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church was, in a sense, MADE to be dismissed by the academic trendsetters of modernity as a pointless anachronism, it nonetheless differs in no way from any other history on the market in its adoption of an agenda. One gets the sense that, like the workers' textbook, Triumph exists not only to vindicate the Church's role in history, but also to put that role in its proper perspective--a perspective that is often buried under an avalanche of anti-Catholic prejudice.

The book is a blast of fresh air in a room stuffy with the secondhand smoke of the Protestant Reformation. For the first two-thirds, I could hardly put it down. Harry Crocker gallops through history with all the skill and virility of a Crusader going at full tilt--without missing any of his targets. The years whip by so quickly, it seems the darkness of paganism lurks just beyond the streetlights of the modern European state. The ancient barbarism of the Germanic tribes seethes beneath Hitler's triumphant Reich. Italy is a land of ancient rivalries and modern political chaos, Mafiosi-style. Spain is a noble woman who, after having been knocked down a few too many times, is ruthless in her pursuit of an idyllic Catholic state. And the enduring zealotry of the French turns to nightmare during the Revolution, when all truth seems to die.

Indeed, once the whiplash caught up with me, things had gotten so bloody that I had to put the book down and accept a dark truth. Things were not getting any better. Despite all our claims of "progress," the 20th century saw more blood shed in the name of atheism than in any of the wars over religion. Persecution of the Church hadn't gone away--it had increased. In the first few years of Stalin's reign, hundreds of thousands of Catholics simply disappeared. Four million Catholics perished alongside the six million Jews during the Holocaust. More than ever, the Pope seemed to be a lone voice crying out in the wilderness for justice, for peace, and for the dignity of man. And yet never was an institution more ruthlessly attacked.

Throughout the Church's history, with the deadening predictability of death and war, priests and religious have been martyred, exiled, marginalized and penalized in every conceivable way. Church property has been seized, smashed, and sacked in every age. Catholic lay people, women and children, have been dragged from their homes and slaughtered. Soon the truth starts to build in the back of your mind that, if the things that people say about the Church--that it's a man-made institution that simply exists because of a consolidation of power--are true, then history needs to be hidden from view, because it tells a much different story. How can it be that priests, monks, and female religious would put themselves on the front lines, set themselves apart in a highly visible and controversial fashion, in age after age, if they were simply the dupes of a power-hungry papal dynasty? As a matter of fact, no dynasty, no nation, no tribe, and no dictator has ever existed as long, and in the same essential form, as the Catholic Church.

Crocker doesn't pull any punches--all the papal pecadilloes are here. And yet, while littered with pragmatist popes and overzealous generals, the history of the Church is still the history of Western Civilization. For centuries, the papacy was the axis around which Europe turned and--after the rise of the nation-state--the lodestar to which the Western world looked as its man-made institutions began to crumble. Amid internal strife and invasion, it was the Popes who kept the peace--often with their own armies--upholding the transcendent concept that there was a Power above kings and nobles. As each new heresy threatened to split the fabric of society, consecrated men and women stepped from the shadows to preach, to admonish, and to purify the Church that they loved. And we are reminded that it is ultimately the influence of the Church that brought King John to Runnymede to sign the Magna Carta, and it is those same principles of liberty--"the traditional rights of Englishmen"--which are enshrined in our own Declaration of Independence.

The paradox of the Church is that she could be so great, and yet filled with men who appear weak, sinful, and at times--antithetical to the Church's raison d'etre. So many people look at the facts about the Church and ask, "How can this be the church of Jesus Christ?" I submit that after reading this book, one can draw only two conclusions. Either the author has been entirely disingenuous, or we may have to admit that there is no way that any institution of merely human origin has survived for so long and still remains.

This is the Church of Jesus Christ. Sometimes she looks weak, sometimes ridiculous, and always like a flame that wavers as if about to go out. Men have sought to annihilate her in every age, but the gates of Hell have never prevailed over Christ's Bride. Chock-full of sinners as a hospital is of the sick, the Church remains, with arms open wide with mercy--because She is the path, the narrow way...even the foolish-looking way.

I am reminded of the Donatists who, in the time of Augustine in the fifth century, maintained that he who had collapsed under torture and denied the Church should not be readmitted to the sacraments because they would make the Church impure. St. Augustine, who for love of his Lord strove to heal the breach, preached peace and mercy to them:

"Nothing in you do we hate, nothing detest, nothing denounce, nothing condemn, except human error. We repeat, we detest human error from regard for divine truth, but we acknowledge all of God's graces [sacraments] in you, while whatever in you has gone astray we would correct....The stray is the one I would seek out, find, admonish, approach, take by hand, and lead, correcting the deserter, not defacing his divine image" (Willis 109).

My Continuing Fascination with Judge Judy

Thought I'd have a light television moment. Since football season is over (leaving me at the mercy of American Idol and ads for grisly new crime shows), I'm getting nostalgic for the show that brings me all the drama and pathos of the low life, without all the viewer discretion. Now, obviously this is TV and even "reality" shows don't have much to do with reality, but the parade of cases on Judge Judy is so reflective of our national mood and the general level of morality, etiquette, and interpersonal relationships that it makes an interesting cultural study. Plus, I just love Judy.

For those unfamiliar with Judith Sheindlin herself, she's a real retired family court judge, but her court isn't a real court. The litigants agree to have Judge Judy arbitrate their claims on national television, and the producers of the show pay out the awards. In fact, Judge Judy is THE successor to The People's Court, which stopped airing in 1993. The other court shows are trying to cash in on her success, but Judge Judy is the real success story here.

Why is she so popular? The winners may come away with money, but rarely their dignity. Judge Judy is the Dr. Laura Schlessinger of the legal world, and both women have as their calling card plain talk and the ability to ferret out the lies and hidden motives of those who come to them, who often end up looking ridiculous. Roomate wars, boyfriend/girlfriend spats, petty assault, harrassment, and the ever-popular "I gave him a loan/No, it was a gift"--everyone's story is heard and vivisected, while it is Judge Judy--"The Ultimate Truth Machine"--whose viewpoint prevails.

In fact, the show wouldn't be nearly as entertaining if her less truthful or prepared litigants didn't get humiliated on a regular basis. You'd better not talk out of turn, or interrupt her. She has no mercy for deadbeat dads, delinquent tenants, careless pet owners, or angry motorists. She tells people what they probably need to hear but that nobody else has the guts to tell them: "I suggest that you get a job." "You are full of baloney!" "If it doesn't make sense, it's not true!" "Are you a lowlife sir?! Yes you are!" And my personal favorite: "You're not the boss, Applesauce!" (I plan to use this line on my toddler.)

Judy's emphasis on the truth is telling. People want justice. If they didn't want it, we wouldn't have shows like this. But nobody is prepared to believe that the incident was THEIR FAULT. She faces an endless parade of the consequences of sin in a world in which no one is willing to admit it exists. It amazes me that a nation which rejects a divine Judge with supreme power to decide big, cosmic issues embraces TV shows about human judges with limited power to settle small claims--and the harsher and more arbitrary the judge, the better. People seem to be eager for humiliation, but not humility. They will confess their sins to the world, but not to God's agent in the confessional. Instead of seeking truth, they seek "The Ultimate Truth Machine."

Of course the show is not reality, and my comparison doesn't go far enough. But if we imagine for a moment just how our cosmic judgment is going to go, it would bear little resemblance to a TV court. There will be no cross-examination, because God knows everything you did. There will be no need for evidence or witnesses. He can see to the heart of all our motives, our excuses, our prideful denials. He can see the times in our lives when we took the right fork in the road and we know we should have taken the left. And there will be no appeal. It is God's viewpoint that will prevail.

What will there be left to say, at that moment, in our defense? The thought may well make us shudder, as it should. How do we know we are on the right path? How do we know that we will be justified before Him? These days there's a truth for sale in every ideology on the market. But shows like Judge Judy are a reflection of an eternal reality--a real Truth. And we should care about finding it.

Much Ado About Life Insurance

WARNING: Extremely boring post about life insurance follows. Go make some coffee.

Lately I've been obsessing about the fact that we haven't heard back on the application for life insurance for my husband that we filed more than a month ago. As a Catholic mother intent on growing her family, I've had waking nightmares about cleaning houses at night in order to feed our (five, six, nine?) kids, in the event my husband dies "prematurely" (Why it wouldn't be EVEN MORE of a nightmare for him if I should die, one usually doesn't speculate. It's always assumed that the husband dies first.) This causes me to wonder, "Is it an utter disaster if we can't get life insurance?"

Insurance salesmen will tell you that you NEED term life insurance if you have kids. In fact, they will tell you that most husbands are underinsured, most wives are uninsured, and that you need more insurance than you think--at least five times your income. What they won't tell you is that you don't need as much money to survive the death of your spouse as they say.

This needs hard-eyed analysis, because many Catholic families are tossed on the dual horns of a financial dilemma: the calling to raise up (and educate) saints for Christ, and the expenses that seem to be non-negotional necessities for raising families in a materialist world. One of these non-negotiables is term life insurance--hence my anxiety.

So let's examine this. First, what is the purpose of life insurance? You are considering a policy that costs, say, $500 a year for 20 years, for a total of $10,000. You are buying the assurance that you will have $250,000 in financial help in the event of your spouse's untimely death. The odds are against your spouse's early death, or they wouldn't sell you the policy. At what other time in life would you lay down money and gamble on not winning? In contrast, $10,000 in your bank account, or invested in CDs, is a sure bet that you will still have your $10,000, or more, regardless of what happens. But would that be enough?

Let's examine the costs a life insurance disbursement is designed to cover:

1. The mortgage. This is usually the first expense out of a life insurance salesman's mouth. But, practical housewives that we are, is it really conceivable that, in the event of your husband's death, you are going to attempt to maintain the same lifestyle you did when your husband was alive? Of course not. You take advantage of the denial stage of grief and move into cheaper lodgings. "But what about the memories?!" Prepay your mortgage and you won't have to worry about this problem.

2. The burial. This one costs less, is more obvious, and is actually necessary. A decent burial in a Catholic cemetery will probably run you at least $5,000. If you have no employer-sponsored life insurance or other savings, there are less expensive insurance policies that are designed to cover just this. Or, if your husband was in the military, they will bury him for free. Plus you get a flag.

3. The income. This is also a necessary expense, but let's be real. Life insurance is only there to provide a stop-gap to get you over the hump of losing your main income. It is not there to make you rich. It is not there to last forever. Eventually, you are going to need to line up another plan for supporting your family. Your judgment on how long that will take determines how much life insurance you should be buying.

4. College. Why do life insurance salesmen bring this up? I contend that this one is a boogeyman designed to make parents sweat. There are more and better ways to get through college than counting on your dad to die.

There may be other expenses, but these are the biggies. You need peace of mind, the salesmen say. And in a purely materialist sense, if this is the only way to get it then you need the insurance. But as Catholics, we don't put our trust in policies, we put it in God (it even says that on our money). Remember, all the "security" in the world couldn't save Job. He still lost everything. And until he learned to trust God, he didn't get anything back, either.

On the other hand, if you hang onto your $10,000, you've still got $10,000. And if you buy the policy and your husband DOESN'T die, you're out $10,000. If he DOES die, $10,000 may not sound like much compared to $250,000, but it makes a big difference how you spend that money. The $250,000 might run through your fingers like water, while the $10,000 becomes seed money for a business intended to support you and your family, or it pays for vocational training so you can get a good job to support your kids. The more I think about it, the more life insurance sounds like a scam perpetrated on people who think they can't afford to have a spouse die, but who pay anyway--when they would have been better off setting a little money aside.

So what's the solution? Briefly, let me outline my plan. As long as Dean is working, he can get some amount of life insurance through his employer at little or no cost. To handle the problem of transitional income I would, right now, make a six-month emergency savings account my highest financial priority. Common sense tells me that unless I lose all my faculties, I will be able to provide for my children in some capacity, with the help of God's providence. And if it did happen, I would move to an area with the highest concentration of sympathetic relatives.

So do we really need life insurance? Or are we just buying a feeling? Are we not, in fact, buying a kind of peace that we ought to get from God?

"As for you, do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not worry anymore. All the nations of the world seek for these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these other things will be given you besides. Do not be afraid any longer, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom" (Lk 12:29-32).

UPDATE: Since writing this post, I have gone through some seldom-suffered writer's remorse. Of course, jettisoning a life insurance policy you already own is not a good idea, and there is no guarantee that God is going to "make it good" because you failed to make this provision for your family. I guess I was just trying to make myself feel better in the event that we absolutely could not get life insurance (BTW, we did finally get the policy!).

Toddler Insanity

I have become what I never thought I would be: the mother of two who, at the ripe old hour of eleven in the morning, has yet to bathe, or eat a hot meal, or bother to clean up her place because she knows it will just get messed up again and therefore is not a good use of her time.

What happened? Up until now I would have said that I was proud of my ability to keep my house clean, cook from scratch, and take care of quasi-obedient kids. But somewhere in the last week, more of my cherished illusions of Super-Stay-at-Home-Motherhood have fallen. In the last ten days, my toddler has managed to turn my world upside down on an almost daily basis.

Last week he broke my new glasses, handing them to me like they were a precious gift (as in, "Gee, Mommy, thanks for letting me have this $100 toy. It entertained me for five whole minutes!"). At the beginning of this week, he got a hold of my keys and popped the trunk of my car (on a rainy night, of course, causing me to spend the next afternoon cleaning out the garage just so I could get the car in there to clean it out). And for the grand slam, two nights ago I called 911 because Carl locked himself in the bathroom with a broken light bulb and I was unable to ascertain whether he had swallowed any of it (unable to think is more like it), which turned out to be a FALSE ALARM, but not before we wound up in the emergency room. I called my mother this morning and told her that if I had not already had grey hair, it would have turned white by now. As of this morning he has already pulled all the stuffing out of his Winnie the Pooh bear, pulled all my mixing bowls out of the cabinet, spilled my tea on the carpet, and inspired another adrenalin rush when he screamed so hard his feet turned bright red, all because he had a nasty poop that gave him a rash.

I called my mom to vent. I told her about the glasses. She said, "Well little kids are like little animals. They're opportunists, and they act on instinct. You just have to anticipate what they're going to do." Then I told her about the trunk. "Oh..." she sympathized, laughing. "Well little kids are smart, their brains are developing and you are going to have two sets of eyes on you and everything you do, so if you are pressing buttons, he is going to press buttons." Then I told her about the emergency room visit. "Oh," she said again, sympathetically. "I've been meaning to call you." She stopped pontificating on the human vs. animal nature of children at that point.

Now I could be spending my down time cleaning up the mess, but I thought, "This article will last longer than my next batch of dirty dishes, and Carl will appreciate it more." So Carl, this one's for you.

Insecurity and American Idol

Americans are self-conscious idiots. Every weight-loss commercial and hair ad reminds us of our flaws. Young girls look at magazines and think they're fat. Older guys look at Viagra commercials and conclude that if they can't get it up, they should just get out. And even if we aren't complete dupes of the advertising moguls, we can't help but absorb the deadening message: you are what you eat/wear/drive/live in. And it is nowhere more apparent that today's youth are absorbing the message than when you watch the audition opener on American Idol.

These poor kids--who fly to whatever city the star-studded judges alight on, wait for hours and hours to get their numbers, then wait hours more to get into a 90-second audition that will most likely spew them out just as Jesus said he would spew out the lukewarm churches--these poor kids, after absorbing years of consumerist messages, have duded themselves up to the nines to impress THE CELEBRITIES. And they look HORRIBLE. I don't know if it's the lens on the camera, or the lights, or what. But when you see America's youth lined up like Holsteins at a cattle show, it ain't pretty.

I call this the Wal-Mart phenomenon. Ever gone into a Wal-Mart and shaken your head at how ugly America is getting? I love to watch old movies because at least those films portray a nation with a sense of dignity. And they didn't have streaky hair or anti-aging highlighting foundation or enough black eye makeup to give a mime nightmares. And I'm not saying there aren't people who would be attractive if they weren't so AWARE of themselves. It gives me the creeps to see a teenage girl trying to look like a Britney Spears clone (at Mass!) when she would be better off wiping most of that stuff off. This is not to say that I have the franchise on natural good looks. But I like to think I know how much is enough and how much will make people stare.

What's behind all this frazzled fakery? Am I just getting old? Is it that I've given up on my thighs and am now absorbing insecurities about my securities? Because that's what the grand ol' machine of the economy does, folks. Its job is to sell fear. And if people aren't buying enough, its job is to sell more. Fears about my looks, fears about my money, fears about my health, my house, my kids, my job, and my personal favorite: OUR NATION'S FUTURE. And since all these fears have mainly to do with ME, I am so wrapped up in them that I don't care about anything else. I don't care about the rise of militant nationalism, or economic coercion, or families that walk days in search of food, or people who are killed because they were on the wrong side of a border. Instead, I care about the expense ratio that might rob our retirement fund of an extra $15,000 thirty years in the future.

I'm not crying conspiracy. There's no cigarette-smoking man in some back room of Congress pulling strings. I just don't believe that. But I do believe in sin. I think it's sin that makes people look ugly. And I'm not talking about people who weren't blessed with symmetrical features--I mean everyone. We all have an ugliness about us that makes us, on a bad, rainy, crappy day, think that everyone and everything else is ugly. The Britney Spears girl is ugly. The rapist guy on the news is ugly. Nick and Jessica on the cover of the tabloids are ugly. And when I look at myself in the mirror, I realize that I'm no different.

What's the antidote to all this ugliness? I'm amazed that the decorative masks people used to wear haven't come back into fashion, because there are days when I sure feel like wearing one. I think the ugliness should remind us that true beauty--which is only hinted at in rain-washed hills and gauzy clouds and the soft fuzz on a baby's cheek--will never be found on this earth. Our soul longs for it, and our inspirations and desires clearly indicate that, since we are capable of imagining it, it must be found somewhere. This has been called an argument for the existence of God. And the argument is compelling, provided we don't confine our notion of beauty to what is found on this earth, and in the aisles of the drugstore.

Prayer Is...

The best way to kick your new year's resolution into high gear is to start in December, so that once the health club ads start running in January you can smile smugly as you write out a check for the full balance you charged on your credit card last month while balancing a coffee cup within the voluminous folds of the two wool sweaters you wear to cut down on your heating bill.

My new year's resolution was prayer. Not the "now-I-lay-me-down-to-sleep" rote prayer from childhood. Not the ingeniously-creative-whoever-goes-on-the-longest-is-holiest extemperaneous prayer I learned in Protestant circles. I'm not even talking about the Rosary. What I'm talking about is honest, boring, day-in-day-out liturgical prayer, which is the official prayer life of the Church. The Divine Office. Now that's a mouthful for those in the know, so let me add several qualifiers.

1. I am a boring, stick-in-the-mud, only occasionally creative person who loves routine and structure. Prayers that are written out in a book were designed for people like me.

2. The Liturgy of the Hours is no longer the nine-hour-a-day ordeal that you read about in historical novels. The charming Latin names are gone, but so is the getting up in the middle of the night and praying all 150 psalms in one week.

3. Those who are raising two kids and taking care of the household practically by themselves are not obligated to say the entire Divine Office, but are invited to participate in the public prayer life of the Church by praying Morning and Evening prayer, which can be said whenever it fits into your day and only takes about twenty minutes total.

I thought I'd report on this after I'd been doing it for a while, so I wouldn't embarass myself by appearing to have monastic pretensions, or by quitting two days after the book arrived. The book I use is Shorter Christian Prayer, which is the short version of Christian Prayer, which is the short version of the four-volume Liturgy of the Hours. Now, figuring out this book is an act of faith in itself. It took me about forty-five minutes to read through the ordinary while flipping through the psalter and trying to figure out what an antiphon was. It didn't help that Christmas was right around the corner, and I had to tangle with the Common of Seasons. And this was the short short version!

The best help I can recommend for someone who is trying to get started with Morning and Evening prayer is to find an audio clip of what it's supposed to sound like. On the EWTN web site you can find the link along the left hand side at the bottom, and mouse over it to find the appropriate day.

"Oh, what Romanist tripe! Who needs all this LEGALISTIC muttering day in and day out? You Catholics are losing sight of Jesus in all this stuff. Why don't you just pray to Him?"

I have to respond to this objection, because it's what I would have said before I converted, and it honestly deserves a response. The fact is, I have considered myself a Christian most of my life, have gone to several churches, read most of the Bible, and heard some good preaching here and there. But I have NEVER had a prayer life. I mean, I can put on a good show if I'm sitting in a small group study or something and I'm really put to it: "And we lift up So-and-so who has cancer to you, Lord, and we just pray that your will would be done upon him..." and on and on and on. And that kind of prayer is fine, I ain't saying anything against it. But I never prayed at home on anything like a regular basis, except in times of extreme stress.

What I've discovered is a threefold reality. One, that the Church is universal, and historic. If you were going to start a church that was supposed to cover the earth and last until the end of the world, and you were supposed to devise a mode of prayer to fit all these nations and times and situations, spontaneous extemperaneous prayer wouldn't be your top pick. That is a conceit of modern Evangelicalism, and has anti-Catholic bigotry at its heart.

Two, people are prone to shirk, sidestep, and procrastinate prayer whenever possible. This is because of sin. Turning prayer into something that is between you and your nightstand is a guaranteed recipe for failure. Jesus knew that, and that is why he gave us the Lord's prayer. The Church has since created forms of liturgical prayer to carry us through the day and throughout the year, but they always have at their heart the Lord's prayer. You could say more, but the Lord's prayer really does say it all.

Third, spontaneous prayer, while offering complete freedom to tailor what you say to God at any one time, lacks all rhythm--and if you are planning to have a regular prayer life, you will get tired of having to come up with every single thing you say to God yourself. It's like trying to join in a dance without bothering to learn the steps. It's fun once or twice, but you eventually get tired and feel foolish. You never have the opportunity to just rest in Him, to trust the words that he has given you through his Church. And what about praise? I never feel so foolish as when I try to praise God in my own words. But that's exactly what so many of the psalms are for!

The Liturgy of the Hours is the endless, rhythmic, call-and-response of the Church to her Bridegroom, who called her to pray without ceasing. The Catholic Church has always taken this command at face value, requiring the full Divine Office of all Her consecrated clergy and religious on a daily basis. Though not so rigorous as it once was, the prayer life of the Church is an endless reflection of the divine life that is within us by virtue of the grace we receive with our baptism and through the sacraments.

It means that I, an isolated housewife with many small tasks on her hands, have the chance to consecrate time itself--to offer it, and myself, back to my Lord. I come from a family that has a history of mental illness and alcoholism. I've battled depression all my life. You could say that my main motivation is to stop the voice of fear for just a few minutes. But then a miracle happens. The fear goes away. I can't tell you how, in so many ways, I have experienced peace, moments of beauty, reservoirs of patience and charity towards others (especially my children) that aren't native to me--and a complete surcease of fear.

Prayer in this sense is a duty, a service, a consecration, and a consolation. Those psalms...they're love songs. Even when I've only got my short little book and I have to repeat some of it day after day, I get to rest in it. Meditate on it. Everything takes on meaning.

The Day the (Christmas) Music Died

OK. Quick rant about the abysmal lack of traditional Christmas music, even on our local Catholic radio station. You'd think it was bad enough that all major retailers have censored themselves from saying "Merry Christmas," printing it in their ads and playing religious carols in their stores. As a tightwad, I would have said not to buy CD's of Christmas music since it is so ubiquitous from Thanksgiving on. But I must be mistaken, because I have yet to hear more than one verse of two songs, and that from TBN, forcing me to watch their over-the-top lounge act out of sheer desperation.

So I am suddenly struck with the desire to hear all the old favorites, especially the most religious (e.g. most "offensive") ones, and I guess I'll have to go out and buy music CD's to do it. And I'll probably have to buy them at the Catholic bookstore, since major retail stores have probably censored or watered down their "holiday" music collections to include only instrumental arrangements of traditional carols, Bing Crosby standards, or compilations from Garth Brooks and Mariah Carey. And since I can't remember more than one verse of any of these carols, I'll have to go and get a book with the words in it. Sheesh.

Come to think of it, the secular world isn't too shy to milk the Catholic ethos for all it's worth, especially when it suits their purpose to distort and misrepresent the Catholic faith. I mean, how many cheesy pseudo-scholarly shows have we been forced to watch about "the historical Jesus"? They show their intrepid interviewers talking to Protestants in bare-bones churches, but the imagery of the show is all Catholic--images of the Blessed Virgin, the Pope, stained glass windows, and icons of the baby Jesus--and that's the "sexy" that sells the show.

With one shining exception.

I happened to catch an airing of "The Sound of Music" last Friday night. I'd forgotten that Maria starts out as "Sister Maria," a postulant at the local abbey. How refreshing it was to see nuns that weren't portrayed as frigid victims or subversive feminists, who were happy to be serving Christ. How refreshing it was to see the crucifix, the Church's ever-present reminder that it is Christ, and Him crucified, through whom we have our salvation. How wonderful that it is these same heroic nuns who encourage Maria to find her true vocation and who help her new family escape the Nazis.

I think the reason the world is so bent on censoring Christmas is that it's the last Catholic holiday. I mean, you have all these evangelicals with their campaigns to "put Christ back in Christmas," but they miss the fact that it's a MASS to celebrate the birth of Christ. In the Catholic Church, Christmas is not one day, but a season that lasts from Advent to Candlemas (Feb. 2). I read an excellent blog post on how, since the time of Martin Luther, one after another of the liturgical feasts that used to be celebrated as public holidays (holy days) have been subverted and secularized over the years, mostly by--surprise surprise--OTHER CHRISTIANS who saw these "Popish" celebrations as undermining their theological agendas.

The world loves the candles and the trees and the decorations and the presents, but forgets that this wealth of symbology and imagery is grounded in a thoroughly Catholic worldview that sees the material and the spiritual as one sacramental whole infused with God's grace. Both the secular view of Christmas (that glorifies only the material), and the Protestant view (that seeks to retain only the spiritual) have missed the boat. And until Christmas is properly understood once again in context, both groups will continue to have that hollow is-this-all-there-is feeling once the presents are unwrapped and the coffee pot's empty.

So crank up the Christmas carols, turn off the TV, and have a very happy, Catholic, holy day!

Promised Pictures

Finally I've figured out how to publish pictures to the blog (a big breakthrough for a N-TG like me)! So anyone who is intrepid enough to find my site (I'm thinking friends and family here) can see and copy these pictures if they want.

Above you can see newborn Thomas, and Mary, my midwife, giving him his first exam.


Dean bonding with baby.

This was funny until Carl tried to brush the baby's teeth...

Or was it his ear?









That's all for now. Gotta get back on the chow train...

Mommy Moped

Lately we've been watching a British TV show, an espionage series called The Sandbaggers. In this series, when the boss wants to send one of his agents off on a special op, he picks up a red telephone and says, "Agent So-and-so, you're on your bike." Such has been an accurate job description for me lately.

It's almost 8:30 and I'm just sitting down to dinner. Today I was lucky because I made time for a nap, but since I got up at 5:30 pm I've been feeding, bathing, and putting to bed kids. Pushing me through the day is this sense of urgency, that if I don't get up within the next 5 minutes, my schedule will be thrown off 15 minutes or more. Today my schedule has been thrown off by only 45 minutes, so like I said, I'm lucky.

Last night we were visiting friends we hadn't seen for six months, letting them meet the baby. I felt honor-bound to confide in the woman, a fifty-something who I know has never had children. "You know, I've been saying it's easy, but the truth is it's hard," I said, intending to insert an additional comment about the redemptive aspect of motherhood. But she broke in and said, "Oh, that's why I never had children." I shut my mouth.

For the past eighteen months I've seen myself as a sort of walking advertisement for motherhood: not frumpy and overweight, not stressed, not strapped for time or money, my house in order, my kid in line, et cetera. And every opportunity I've had to open my mouth I've expounded on the joys of motherhood, the pity that in today's society more people don't have children, and more of them--that I've discovered how being a stay-at-home mom has become a bona fide vocation for my life. I wonder how many experienced mothers overheard me, thinking, "She'll learn better someday."

Well they're right. It's wrong to try and convince people that they should have kids because, like home birth, "It's really not that hard." The Catholic church claims that, in the sacrament of marriage, the husband and wife are given special graces to enable them to carry out the endless, arduous task of parenthood. Because it IS hard. More so now than ever, because there are no support systems. Oh, there's day care for women who want to work (nearly everyone), and welfare for those who can't work (presumably everyone else). But for the woman struggling through the dense tangle of overgrowth that has come to choke the road to traditional motherhood, there's no one to help--outside of her church.

So what am I saying? Am I saying that I was wrong, that motherhood isn't worth it? On the contrary. Sometimes the harder a thing is, the more worthy it is of doing. And that's definitely true of motherhood. I used to want to be a famous writer, but now I'm not so sure. My kids are going to live forever. That's what souls do. And there's nobody who's going to have more influence over them than me. Not even their dad. Each one is going to be his own person, but he will bear the unique stamp of having been my child. No one else on earth can say that.

How many books can you remember that were "hot" in their day--whether it was five, twenty-five, or fifty years ago? What about a hundred years? Five hundred? How many trendy and timely tomes now sitting on the shelf at Barnes and Noble are going to be remembered in thirty years? I've shopped enough sidewalk sales to know the answer to that question. Fact is, no matter how invisible, unremarkable, or ordinary raising kids seems, that's where the action is--and there's nothing the big, sexy, worldly world offers that can match it.

"Eating for Two"?

Although we are constantly bombarded with information on nutrition, new studies on how food makes a real difference in your health, and countless books on diet and the chemistry of food, I find it striking how little emphasized is the effect of what you eat on your pregnancy among health care authorities. "You're not really eating for two," they say. "All you need is 300 extra calories a day." In a country in which 60% of the population is not only overweight, but OBESE, this advice seems to make sense.

Except to my midwife.

"You haven't gained enough," she said at my last visit. I tipped the scale at 177 pounds, 17 pounds over my ideal ("skinny pants") weight. "Even if you have a seven pound baby," she went on, "you've got two pounds of placenta, three pounds of extra fluids, at least five pounds of fat for nursing, and with the extra blood volume--you've got to put on 26 pounds, minimum." Geez, I thought. Just when I can't fit anything else in my stomach. I said as much. "You need more calories and fat. Why don't you just go out and have a Whopper?" she said. "Most women would be glad to hear that." Then she recommended Haagen-Daz ice cream.

Now, I love my midwife, she's an incredible lady--I wouldn't trust my births to somebody who didn't exude competence. But I don't think she understands how against the grain her advice goes. I mean, it's one thing to add extra protein, fiber, and supplements to your diet when you're pregnant, but it's nearly impossible to add fat. Your stomach just isn't big enough and doesn't empty fast enough. I call this phenomenon the "pregnant lady gastric bypass," which is caused by having your stomach squished into the size of a bonbon by a squirming basketball-sized future quarterback (as this baby is turning out to be). If I ate a Whopper, I not only would be unable to eat any vegetables or fiber, but the fat would sit in my stomach for the next six hours. Ditto for danishes or Haagen-Daz. My only choice would be to give up all pretense of eating "healthfully," and to smack down regular doses of cream-cheese slathered Otis Spunkmeyer muffins--which just sounds disgusting.

The other problem with her advice is the cost. A fast-food burger is three dollars. So is a pint of Haagen-Daz. Danishes, which I keep mentioning because I actually have a craving for them, cost at least five dollars for a package of six to eight. When you consider that I buy my bread six loaves at a time for 33 cents a loaf, and make all my other baked goods from scratch, you can see how hard the tightwad mentality is on high-calorie foods. The exceptions are dairy products, which pretty much cost the same no matter if they're skim or whole. So I promised to buy the whole dairy products and eat them. The dilemma is amusing to my husband, who wouldn't miss a few pounds if he mislaid them. "Get thee to a Burgerville, woman. That's an order," he said. "Think of it as medicine for the baby." He had a point. I remarked on the irony that I'm willing to spend $37.00 on a bottle of fancy vitamins for my pregnancy, so why should I balk at a few extra dollars in my grocery cart?

It all comes down to habit. Once you've made the effort to change your diet, and once you've made the effort to switch to a money-saving mindset, you don't want to go back and undo all that work. You don't want to risk backsliding into old patterns. A solution might be on the horizon, however. I explained my dilemma to my neighbor. "Why don't you eat those Marie Callendar's meals?" she said. "We have a pregnant lady at work and she eats them. They have, like, 600 calories, and 400 of those are fat." Ah, I thought. This might work. Convenience foods do go on sale fairly regularly, and at least in a whole meal I would be getting vegetables and protein. TV dinner portions are always smaller, plus--I would not have to cook!

(I did buy the danishes, though.)

Physical Fitness and the Stay-at-Home Mom

I've run into enough trim, fit, and trendy SAHMs to make me doubt the old canard that says if a woman stays at home long enough she'll "let herself go" and lose her looks. But you occasionally spot a woman who looks as if she hasn't left the house since 1986 and has cases of Ho-ho's delivered to her back door. Then the trim, fit, and trendy working mom thinks, "Horrors! It's a good thing I kept working and haven't lost my looks." Now don't go all politically correct on me. If you're the Ho-ho mom, rest assured that I don't believe looks equal reality. The fact is that we have all been given different gifts, some native, some acquired. Some people just don't really care about dressing up for the benefit of others. Some are hyper-self-conscious and are constantly "done" to the nines--hair, nails, etc. But it doesn't necessarily follow that being a SAHM means inevitable weight gain.

Whether a woman is more likely to gain weight if she stays at home is dependent on several factors. Since scientists and nutritionists disagree on what exactly causes obesity, I can hardly mount an analysis here. Surely there exist working women who gain weight because, stressed and strapped for time, they end up overeating or overconsuming convenience foods without the benefit of extra activity, just as there are SAHMs who lose weight because they finally have the time to exercise and cook nutritious meals. I will exclude for the moment those with a disorder, such as hypothyroid, that causes them to gain weight no matter what they do, and assume that a woman has some control over her rate of consumption and energy expenditure. For my qualifications to discuss this topic, I'll cite my years of being a food service specialist in the military (which included stocking up for patrols, making menus, and nutrition training), my experiences with compulsive eating, and my ability to lose the extra weight I had and maintain an ideal weight for five years and counting (and if I did seek extra training to go back to work, being a nutritionist has seemed the most attractive career to me).

First, forget the quick-fix diet. What constitutes a nutritious diet has varied through the decades, but what it has always included is some proportion of protein, carbohydrates, fruits, vegetables, dairy products, and fats. Now, people love to dicker about what exactly constitutes an ideal proportion of each group (I'm not even going to get into the debate over Atkins, for example). Let me just say that the preponderance of evidence points to a more varied diet as the healthful ideal--so forget about surviving on popcorn only, or meat only, or bananas only, or whatever fad diet is currently in vogue. You will simply become malnourished and then be tempted to overeat something that is not healthful. If you believe that carbs should be limited, great, just so long as you still have some of everything in the diet. You can also be a vegetarian and still get enough protein. Just don't try to live on melon shakes, think you're going to lose weight, and then get bummed when you don't. Conversely, don't stock up the freezer with Oreo ice cream and then wonder why it looks so tempting when the baby's napping. It's simply harder to overeat when you are being nourished from so many food groups.

Second, change your goal from "losing weight" to "nourishing yourself." Linguistically, saying you're going to "lose weight" backfires because we have a mental block against "losing" anything. Losing your keys and losing your mind are always bad because they are expressed negatively. So don't sabotage yourself mentally. Tell yourself that you are the family nutritionist, and it is your job to stock the pantry carefully to make sure everyone gets the nutrients they need. Let moderation and variety be your watchwords, as well as thrift, when you go shopping (it's easier when you go by yourself, as long as you can fight the Oreo ice cream temptation). Use common sense. Being a tightwad naturally lends itself to more healthful cooking, since you are forgoing the expensive (and fatty) cuts of meat and almost all the calorie-rich and nutrient-poor convenience foods. If you can't cook, learn. I did. It's hard to get fat on your own cooking--just too much darn work (those brownies aren't that attractive if I have to make them myself).

Third, keep a record. If you are actively trying to shed pounds, keep a food diary. This is effective if you are honest about it, but it requires accountability as well. Make a chart with the days of the week and record everything you eat, along with the relevant calorie/fat gram/protein gram notation if you're tracking that. You might have a goal, such as 1500 calories a day, if you're a calorie counter, or so many fat grams a day. You'll want to tally up at the end of the day and see how you did. Note how many servings of each food group there are. Also note exercise you got that day, or vitamins and supplements you took. The accountability part is important, since you're not likely to stay faithful unless someone is looking over your shoulder and is as enthusiastic about your goals as you are (husbands or mothers are not good choices). Just as with money, it's hard to get started when you're scared you'll fail. Tracking your food intake is more informative than weighing yourself every day, and more objective than trying on the same (tight) pair of pants.

Just as it pays to know your spending pitfalls, it pays to know what sets off your urge to merge with the refrigerator. I know that if I have ice cream in the freezer, I will eat a serving a day, until it is gone, period. Ditto for cookies and homemade goodies. If you know that boredom or emotional issues set you off, leave these items out of your pantry. Allow yourself only one item as a treat--something that helps satisfy part of your craving but that also delivers nutrients, so you're not setting yourself up for double and triple servings. My personal "treat" is hot chocolate made with milk (winter) or frozen chocolate milk "shakes" (for summer). Realize that dieting pitfalls include more than just food. Physical fitness includes a lot of things. Are you getting enough sleep? Are you stressing out about something, like money or marriage problems, or kid problems, that is keeping you up at night and driving you to emotional distraction during the day? Is your routine disorganized? Look your life over before you set out to achieve this goal and tackle as many of the things that bug you as you can.

What about exercise? If you're like my husband, you pity the poor joggers out on the street because you think they're in unbearable pain. If jogging isn't your thing, find something you can do three to five times a week that isn't too expensive and doesn't take too much time. Walking is ideal. In fact, when you're towing (or carrying) small kids, it's practically your only option. I like it because I don't have to wear special clothes, I don't have to warm up or cool down, I don't have to drive anywhere, and I don't need any special equipment. If your goal is substantial, say 50 pounds or more, you might need to supplement the walking with more intense activity (you should also get some bloodwork done, just to see the change in your lipids). Balance the activity with your intake. If you really don't want to or can't exercise as much as you think you should, do what you can--consistently!--and cut back on the carbs instead. Realize it's going to take time. But the longer it takes, the better. You will be solidifying healthy new habits and by the time you reach your goal, you won't feel deprived or tempted to snap back into your old routine.

So just how did I conquer compulsive eating? A couple of serendipitous changes, and a willingness to force myself to do a couple of things. First, I couldn't stop compulsive eating until I stopped working in a kitchen (galley). There was just too much food around, and I was too tired and stressed to avoid grazing all day, eating double dinners, and then hitting my rack at night (they really overworked us). The second change was a short break, almost a vacation. I got to do some training on another base, and for three weeks, I could do pretty much what I wanted in the food/exercise department. I ate smaller meals and started jogging after dinner. It felt better to do that, and I looked better. I bought smaller pants, and people made comments. Third, back on the ship (motivated by my new pants), I forced myself to get up at 5:15 am and go down to the cargo hold and hit the Stairmaster before work. In order to make this a habit I had to do it every day. No exceptions, except on weekends I'd jog down the waterfront and back for variety. Fourth, I ate smaller meals more often during the day. This made my stomach smaller and willing to accept less. I also looked and felt less bloated. If that sounds daunting, I agree. I don't think I would have kicked it so quickly had I not been shoehorned into the rigid routine of the military. I hadn't solved my emotional issues, but looking better eventually led to feeling better.

(As an epilogue, I'd like to add that my attitude towards food has totally changed since I started having babies. My midwife was the one who insisted on my keeping a food diary, and she lent me a book about nutrition during pregnancy and how much it affects the baby. She also lectures me and examines my food charts, since nutrition plays a large part in having a healthy pregnancy, an easier, natural birth, and a vigorous baby. I'm a believer, but I long for the time when I can eventually stop stuffing myself with all this protein and supplements. Then it will be a relief to not have to eat so much!)

My Costco Quandary

I used to listen to a musical group called Enigma, and on one of their tracks, they had this line spoken over the music: "The path of excess leads to the tower of wisdom." Though at the time this sounded deep and mystical to me, later I realized that the statement really makes no sense and is no more than a piece of New Age fluff. Why? Because, more so than any other nation on earth, we Americans are firmly fitted into the ruts of the path of excess, and it has hardly taught us wisdom. It's not leading us to the tower of wisdom--in fact it doesn't seem to be leading us anywhere at all. Similarly, at times in my life when I just knew I was overdoing it--too much food, too much sex, too much alcohol--I felt so out of control that I thought the only way out was death. And although we do have people in our culture who think death and the tower of wisdom are equivalent, we usually refer to them as psychopaths.

Why all this fuss over a trip to Costco?

I used to think going to Costco was fun. "Let's just go and window-shop," I said to my husband. "They have all their Christmas stuff out--it'll be fun." Despite the fact that this was a dangerous thing for a tightwad to say to her hubby (who tempts her to loosen her habitual spending controls), I wanted to put my inner consumer to the test. For a year I had been playing a mental game with myself. I would think about something I wanted--or thought I wanted--and then imagine going to the store, picking up the item, going to the check-out to pay for it, loading it in the car, driving it home, taking off the wrapping and throwing it away, and finding a place to either use/display or store my new acquisition. Throughout this exercise I would try to calculate how much value this item would bring to our lives, how much money it would cost, whether it would continue costing money and/or deliver additional value, and how much satisfaction I would derive from the purchase. Finally, I would imagine the money being deducted from our checking account, and then I would compare that feeling with how I would feel imagining that same money deposited in our savings account. Not many items passed this test.

But suddenly there we were in Costco. I remembered the words of an old boyfriend who called Costco the "Land O' Plenty." He certainly seemed right. I mean, there were heaps and stacks of things. All the boxes and packages were humungous. Even the cart was so large there was enough room for two children to sit in it, side by side. Some items seemed like a good deal. Dean was fingering a heavy winter jacket. "It's only forty bucks," he said. I thought about the seven or eight other jackets and coats he had at home and drove on. There was an enormous Christmas wreath and "outdoor ornaments" that were bigger than Carl's head. There were fancy wrapped packages of chocolates weighing anywhere from one to five pounds. There were huge bags of biscottis, and giant tins of butter cookies. And there were toys. They all came in oversized boxes, packaged to thrill. There were fancy trikes and art sets and a giant dollhouse, even a "travel system" stroller and highchair that was exactly like you would buy for a new baby, only it was for a doll. There were big canisters of Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs for the nostalgic. I felt like a Dickensian child who had accidentally wandered into Harrod's from the street.

As I struggled to maneuver the huge cart down the aisles without hitting other people, I spotted some scrapbooking supplies and stopped to look. The package had 24 pairs of scissors in it, each designed to put a different sort of edge on a piece of paper. The whole package was $19.99. Suddenly the display didn't seem so benign. Who could possibly use 24 pairs of scrapbooking scissors? Who could possibly want that many? Why would they package up 24 different pairs like that? They were only scissors! The most any reasonable person could want would be maybe three or four. Befuddled, I stopped and pointed this out to Dean. "Suppose you ran a craft workshop, or were a teacher," he said. "Oh," I said. Right next to it was a similarly priced set of 100 marker pens. Suddenly, I felt overwhelmed and tired. "Let's just go to the bakery section," I said. I wanted some of the apple streusel bread that in my imagination had seemed so good. Other than a reasonably-priced baby sleeper for Carl, and some Christmas chocolates, our cart was empty. But when we got to the bread, I saw the price was $4.29. I knew I could get flour for seventeen cents a pound and bake something similar for under a dollar. We passed it by.

I had a list of things I'd been waiting for months to get at Costco because I'd determined they would have the best price, but I just kept driving the cart. I didn't want to put anything in it. "Let's just go," Dean said. We didn't even eat any of the samples. Carl was sucking his thumb, looking sleepy and tired. On the ride home I felt shifty and weird. "There's something wrong with that," I kept saying, but couldn't put my finger on what it was. After clipping grocery store coupons for a year and replacing my eggs with soy flour I had, somewhere along the line, lost my taste for richness. I had come to appreciate the leanness of mixed, powdered milk in my coffee. I had come to the point where I scanned the curbs while driving for interesting-looking piles of junk. I had learned the joy of rooting through the dollar bin at Goodwill and pulling out name-brand clothes. It wasn't so much that Costco was "wrong," or that people are wrong to shop there. It was simply that Costco tells you what the world tells you--that life is easy, comfortable, even luxurious, and that you deserve to have all these things in your life at a price you can "afford"--and I had just gotten to the point where I no longer believed it.