Mutiny on the Bounty

Terrible title. Gives away everything. I propose Breadfruit on the Bounty.

Hard to swallow

"It was as if, every month of that former life, I had walked into an abortion clinic and said, 'I’m probably not pregnant, but if I did conceive, take care of it,'" Mrs. Kevin Golden writes in the current issue of the Missouri Lutherans For Life newsletter.

I am not a scientist. When I read something about how a particular drug works, I can't assess the scientific accuracy of that statement. But any lay person can consider the implications of scientific statement and make a personal decision about potential risks.

7.5 years ago I had my life overhauled by Randy Alcorn's booklet "Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions?". Not everyone agrees with the case Alcorn makes. But there is evidence that the birth control pill can cause abortions. I speak not as a scientist but as a Christian when I say that the pill is not a risk married (or fornicating) Christians can be willing to take. This is not a statement about contraception, but about hormonal contraceptives (pills, rings, patches, IUDs, etc.). Don't want to get pregnant and don't buy the anti-contraception business? That's an argument for another day. This post's argument is that non-abstinent Christians cannot take the pill. A scientific ambiguity with implications for morality (and morality here means human mortality) requires Christians to err on the side of caution. There are other ways to engage in intercourse and avoid its results.

Thank you, Missouri Lutherans For Life, for publishing Mrs. Golden's candid article, and Joy, thank shrew. I mean you.

"Be thankful for what you have, Lucille."

Good times at the second annual CSPP conference. Seven moms, 16 shockingly dirty kids (and three in absentia and three in utero who whose dirtiness cannot be spoken to), two generous babysitters (they wouldn't let me pay them so I'm mailing it to their mothers), and one very dear guest speaker whose willingness to share so much of herself with some crazy strangers was deeply appreciated. Her advice to her former self gives this post its title, so anyone whose name isn't Lucille can make the appropriate substitution and gain the benefit her years have led her to perceive in it. Who knows, maybe in a few more years there will be a third annual CSPP conference (or find a Lucille in your locale and host your own!).

Usage you can use: RSVP

RSVP, as one may learn in Paddington Takes the Air, stands for the French expression "répondez, s'il vous plaît", meaning "please reply." This means that it is redundant to say "Please RSVP."

Incorrect: Cocktails at my house Friday at 8. Please RSVP.

(In fact cocktails are always served at my house on Friday at 3, and I already said please.)

Correct. CSPP conference on Monday the 11th. RSVP.

(In fact there is a conference and if you're coming we'd like to reserve you a spot, so let us know. While we're on the topic, let me mention again that this is mostly a glorified playdate for any mom and kids who otherwise plan to be bored that day. I will not be counting children and making personal judgments on the basis of my accounting on that day. Or any day, as I have attempted many times to explain.)

Five innocent words that strike terror into the heart of every boy mom

"Hey Mom, look at me!"

(Boy Motto)

The more exuberant the shout, the more inevitable the ER trip.

In defense of Captain Underpants

JK! Of course you’re right: even if I were so inclined, I could find absolutely nothing to offer in defense of Captain Underpants and his ilk. I’m as tired as the next guy of the cheery and/or winking and/or resigned expression of “Well, at least they’re reading!”

I’m really sorry that it even had to be said, but since it did, I’m glad that someone took advantage of a public venue to say it: “One obvious problem with the SweetFarts philosophy of education is that it is more suited to producing a generation of barbarians and morons than to raising the sort of men who make good husbands, fathers, and professionals. If you keep meeting a boy where he is, he doesn’t go very far.”

Thank you, Mr. Spence, and for your good work I may even forgive you another of your comments: “Who knows—a boy deprived of electronic stimulation might even become desperate enough to read Jane Austen.” :D

(HT: My kids’ grandparents, who know quite well that the last thing boys need is official sanctioning of bathroom humor.)

That counts. No, really.

I recently received a copy of Lutheranism 101 on account of having a kicked out a few pages thereof. My own few pages aren't of much interest outside of the fact that I can now say very literally that I wrote, well, not quite the book, but a good part of the chapter on repentance. Plenty of expertise there. :P

Anyway, that's not what I sat myself down here to jabber about. What caught my eye when I flipped through was, predictably, chapter 14, "What About Women?" As I've mentioned here, I am of the persuasion that Our Beloved Synod has not handled the woman problem (and we are always a problem, aren't we? :D ) too well. By reason of fear (and more recently, I think, a resulting theological sciolism) and means of attrition the LCMS has really sold out to the world in this department.

So what does Lutheranism 101 say about women? That's right, the same old lame stuff. "The highest honor ever given to any human being was a given to a woman" and "The influence that Christian mothers and teachers have upon the spiritual development of children and youth is enormous." Bo-ring.

But that's just it, isn't it? What the Synodical Powers mean by approving this is for publication with the coveted CPH logo is: that counts. It counts that the Savior of the world was born of woman. It counts that women bear and raise children. All that pain, all that fear, all that loneliness, all that scorn, all that frustration, all that doubt, all that invisibleness, all that bo-ring: it counts. It is good. It is enough. It is respectable and admirable. It is blessed. It is faithful. It is the life and work to which women have been specially appointed. It is a gift twice over: to give and nurture life, and thereby to assiduously cultivate that profoundest and most painful virtue, humility. It is pleasing to God and as such should be pleasing to man.

Then after that is some blather about chicks who wrote hymns. So someone over there on Jefferson Ave. still hasn't gotten the "And what else are you doing?" question out of his or her system yet (Reb. Mary posted on this once but now I can't find it--bother). OK, whatev. The point is, if the "Mary" and "motherhood" answers sound like they don't count, like they aren't good enough, like they don't deserve the respect granted to other pursuits, it is because they are falling on ears tuned too much to the world. The fact that our little corner of Christendom still gives them top billing is a good sign.

I blunder as I launder

Laundry ex opere operato is not a huge problem here. It doesn't bug me much and I don't often get egregiously behind.

But there's also something about laundry that makes me know I have not given myself over to it completely; namely, that the clothes don't get clean. Sure, there's some overloading of machines involved, and some inattention to major soilings whether at the "You cannot wear that one more day put it in your basket!!" stage or later on at the "It's all going in now and together and that's the end of it" moment of pragmatic triage. I superstitiously believe the washing machine will and must get things clean, though I know not how. If something comes out gummy or muddy, I throw it back into the dirty clothes heap like a madwoman. Dirty stuff goes in the laundry. Stuff that comes out of the laundry dirty goes in the laundry. Then at the end of the summer, I realize that my four year old no longer has a single clean shirt.

Even knowing this, I am lost. A sponsorless neophyte, I have amassed an arsenal of old timey powders and new fangled elixirs. They judge me from their shelves as I purposefully cram wadded boulders of clothing into the machine. But which of you am I supposed to be using right now? They never answer outright, but drip into my insecurity receptors cruel hisses like, All of us for different things, you imbecile! And why haven't you bought any Biz yet? Sssssssssssss!

My experimentation so far has yielded a few results. First, sunshine will take out yellow problems on the southern end of a baby garment but not the northern end (or much else. Sunshine gets way more credit than it deserves). Second, bleach expires. Third, the Shout stuff with the bristly applicator can buy some time for a garment nearing devotion to the ban on account of stank. Fourth, I cannot keep up with the nosebleeds around here and therefore all linens should be dark colors. Fifth, there is absolutely no telling which load had a fortifying scoop of Borax or Oxyclean or baking soda or chitin meal or nothing in it, because nothing works.

Somewhere deep in my brain is an inchoate vision. Through the fog, it looks something like another system, another rule, another basket . . . I can see humanoid forms tossing in their particularly troubled shirts . . . a larger humanoid picking up the basket and analyzing each piece, treating it with the tonic and therapy relevant to its ailment. Later, as she shakes out and folds each item, this large humanoid smiles, gratified at having achieved the level of huswifery which yields such a satisfyingly clean load of laundry; which saves disturbed clothes from ruination; at never having to say, "It's a perfectly fine shirt except for being completely disgusting." Yes, this would totally work, like all the systems and rules around here . . . .

But for now, my shoulders and front bear the marks of the baby of the house even before he begins the day's business, and the cuffs of Dad's tough guy pants are crusted as befits toughness, and my four year old wears at this and every moment a dirty shirt.

Book, recommended: The Eternal Woman

I'm not actually reviewing this book because I have a problem with writing ridiculously long book reviews, and this one would end up being longer than almost anything I've ever written. All I'm going to say is that any Christian person would benefit from reading The Eternal Woman by Gertrud von le Fort.

The Church's view of women was one of many things the Reformation did not seek to change. The Lutheran Confessions didn't have to have an article on women's ordination (WT . . . heck?) or address complementarianism or give an encouraging shout out to all the pregnant ladies. There simply wasn't a question of such things. But now there are many questions of such things, with the unfortunate effect that it nearly always comes off as boorish to give the ladies a friendly reminder of their blessed place (see?). In the introduction to The Eternal Woman, Alice von Hildebrand writes, "there are questions raised only when a person has adopted a wrong metaphysical posture." Good posture takes off ten pounds, so this book is worth the investment right there. Head up and shoulders back, girls: the Church is the only place that has ever respected women.

Fair warning: Gertrud von le Fort was a Roman Catholic, and her thesis pivots on RC Marian dogma. Then again, followers of the Pope generally have a more reliable metaphysical posture than other folks, and if what's dogma to them is an open question to us maybe we'd do well to learn what a good question sounds like. Gertrud von Fort was also a German and an intellectual and writes like one of each with a side of having been born in 1876 when schools still educated, so add one of Amazon's prettiest thinking caps to the cart and qualify the order for free shipping.

(Thanks again to Monique, who sent me my copy. Also, someone once sent me a video of one of those skinny chick inspirational speakers who had a riff about building cathedrals, which I now cannot find. Anyway, that skinny chick sounded an awful lot like page 50.)

The Woman may be eternal, but the book's only 108 pages.

Signs

"If the sign of the woman is 'Be it done unto me', which means the readiness to conceive or, when expressed religiously, the will to be blessed, then there is always misery when the woman no longer wills to conceive, no longer desires to be blessed."

from The Eternal Woman by Gertrud von le Fort