Two to tango

This is one of those posts that will likely make no one happy, but I promised it to someone so here it is. Sorry, folks. Remember, I’m neither your doctor nor your mother; I’m just some blame fool on the Internet. 

Here’s a crazy notion: A Christian wife’s fertility is best managed by her Christian husband, because he is her loving lord and her appointed head. The approach any given husband takes in managing his wife’s fertility—which is a gift to him from his loving Lord and eternal head—is a matter of faith for that husband.* Additionally, the wife does well to recognize that her body and its life-giving capabilities are gifts, and to submit to her husband as to the Lord in childbearing.

Not all Christian husbands choose to manage their wives’ fertility like my husband chooses to manage mine. Each man has his reasons, his circumstances, and his conditions, and I don’t presume to know anything about his life or his crosses.

That said, there are women in our congregations who have encountered upsetting information about the Pill and its kin, and yet are still “on it” because it’s what their husbands insist that they do. There are women who trust that it is Christ who opens and closes the womb, and yet these women use prophylactics because their husbands do not desire more children, or because their husbands are not convinced that now is the right time for more children.

And sometimes a Christian sister, plagued by her conscience and/or the chaffing of disagreement with her husband, approaches a CSPP and asks something along the lines of, “What do you think I should do?” This is what the CSPP has to say to such a question: “God bless you, honey, you have to obey your husband. I’ll pray for you both.”

Because what else is there to say? When a woman is given in marriage, she promises to submit, to obey, to be a wife to her husband in sickness and in health. Physical sickness or spiritual sickness. The Christian husband who falls short on the matter of contraception is not equivalent to the abuser or the drunkard; he merely suffers the infection of the age. Sarah was not given to pack up and leave Abraham, who had his fair share of marital fumbles. Neither did harassing him do her much good. Sarah was given to wait and to pray. We are Sarah’s daughters. It is given to us also to wait and to pray, whatever our circumstances.

However, there is one caveat, and it’s Portia’s: while Shylock has a right to his pound of flesh, he may not shed a single drop of Christian blood in getting it. It is excusable and correct for a wife to refuse abortifacient forms of birth control, which is to say, pills, patches, rings, herbs, foams, jellies, injections, implants, and IUDs. When and where the universe has misinformed the Christian husband, the Christian wife is encouraged to help her husband become aware. I’ve no scruples about telling my Christian sister that she can pitch her pills. Just do it. OK?

But prophylactics and true contraceptives are a different deal. As these devices are not deadly to newly conceived children, and as they do no salient harm to women, their use in Christian marriages is difficult for contemporary Americans to condemn outright. Don’t misread me: the use of such things is problematic, but those problems are more difficult to discern in our day’s prevailing darkness. And while wives everywhere find such things humiliating and otherwise sad-making, well, what are we going to suggest these dear sisters do? Make a mess of their marriages? No and thousand times, no. Again, a husband’s stance on such things is a matter of faith for that husband.* Better for a wife to keep the peace and work gently and lovingly to change her husband’s heart. Such change takes time. And, like, dozens of pies.

So it goes for the modern woman. Turns out being a modern woman is pretty much exactly like being a woman at any other point in all of human history. We’ve come so far as not to have gone anywhere at all. But the news is still very good: We wives, whether suffering from inflicted barrenness or no, are given to lift up our heads and open our hearts, for Christ is coming (the signs abound!) and it is He who is the perfect Bridegroom, who makes us to be the perfect Bride, who gives to us the countenance and the fortitude to flourish within our marriages. To be married is gift in itself, for thereby is each woman given a companion to comfort her as best he can as she waits for Christ’s return. Take heart! The duty of the wife is to submit; in doing so her conscience is clear. Bide your time, sister. He works all things to the good of those who love Him.

*Yes, dear anonymous, you’re right; it’s not a matter of saving faith. A man need not ever conceive a single child to merit the righteousness that Christ freely imparts to His people through His cross. Nonetheless, “be fruitful and multiply,” a law spoken to all people by the one true and triune God, is accepted and enacted by people through faith in that God. You know: did He really mean it? But how much did He mean it? But does He still mean it? OK, but does He mean it for me? That sort of faith. Just so we’re clear. 

The good old days

Father Beisel reminds us that our great-grandparents probably knew what they were doing, even when it came to order in the pews.

Elisabeth Badinter and CSPP, together at last

No wonder I dropped out of Attachment Parenting ™ ®. It's caused by contraception.

Super secrety secrets

There are three areas of the pastor's life which often occasion some level of confidence. The first is what he has going on with the circuit, region, district, and Synod, and all the people associated with those entities (circuit counselors, district presidents, various bureaucrats). The second is what he discusses with his pastor friends and colleagues, ie, the guys to whom he takes his troubles instead of all those clowns at Winkel who don't do things his way. The third is what is happening in the parish he serves. These areas overlap a lot, but they almost always start in the parish, which is where the pastor's wife goes to church every week, which is why things get complicated.

Some couples share pretty much everything (obviously anything heard in the confessional must be excluded from "pretty much everything"). There is an argument to be made for the safety of this approach. Things shared between husbands and wives are whatever is one step down from sacred. It can be done that way.

The danger of the "sharing pretty much everything" approach is that pastors necessarily get tangled up in some yucky things. It is often easier for the wife simply not to know about them, whether it involves a DP or a senior pastor or an elder or a choir director or any old parishioner. If the wife knows much about a personal conflict in which her husband is involved, she's probably either going to get mad and have trouble remaining civil to someone[s], or get scared or depressed and end up avoiding church. There is usually not a thing she can do to change the situation. Her involvement only ends up meaning sadness for her and no help to anyone else. So sometimes it is to the benefit of everyone for her not to know what's going on. Where then is nosiness? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of tyranny? No, but by a law of common sense. That is something a pastor's wife should know and be OK with so that she does not make her husband's life any harder.

But no one likes the mushroom treatment except mushrooms, which wives aren't. One of my older wisers advised me that she and her husband resolved this struggle with the conclusion that anything that wasn't actually a Secret was something that he could and often should tell her simply as a social courtesy (especially true for the at-home wife with limited social inlets). That is something a  pastor husband should know and be OK with so that his wife does not feel disrespected and left out.

Mehr Licht!

The parish is always personal for the pastor's family, and often the greater ecclesia is too. Sometimes a wife needs to know everything, either because everyone else does or because it affects her personally. Sometimes it's more helpful to give her a general heads up about topics or people needing gentle handling. Sometimes it's best for her to know absolutely nothing other than not to bother waiting up for him tonight.

There are times when the pastor's wife is the last person to know something everyone else knows (whether in the parish or among pastor-family peers). There are times when she accidentally learns something she  wishes she hadn't (this also happened to me as a PK, so we need to help our kids through this question some too). Neither of those scenarios feels good, but it's only a big deal if the Frau Pastor makes it one. The pastor and his wife have to muddle through it with mutual trust, consideration, and respect. If I've learned anything, it's that being mad at anyone never pays off, and keeping my mouth shut when I'm mad always does.

Perspective and good humor go a long way, too. Once I was with a pastor-wife-friend when the husbands blundered into a super-secret conversation in our presence and had to hussle off to bewail the hour's catastrophe away from our virgin ears. My friend whispered politely as she wiped a pot dry, "They all think they're in the CIA, and they're just pastors." So they are, the dears. But they love their CIA, and there is nothing to be gained by begrudging them the joy it brings them. We would do well to remember that nothing makes a secret less intriguing than learning it how boring it actually is. I also know that when my husband walks through the room while a  friend and I are discussing a sister-in-law's sister-in-law's retained placenta, we put the conversation on hold. Isn't it nice of them to return the favor?

Life by bumper stickers

And ill-behaved women rarely make anyone happy.

If I were queen of the world

I would ban plastic food bags, which invariably get opened in a cacophony of crackles just as the baby is about to give in to sleep.

So, no more corn chips, you dear peasant folk. If you need to cry about it, go to your room and shut the door.

I'm sorry if you misunderstood how I was trying to offend you

I forget nearly everything I read on the internet, but I haven't forgotten this item on apologies from Simcha Fisher, which means I'd probably better post it:

The personal apology for the bogus offense that causes phony pain.  This is by far the biggest category of offenses that I putatively cause, and I refuse to apologize for them.  When people are offended: 

-Because I was writing “My Ideas About Subject Y” and failed to include a large passage about Subject Q; 

-Because I’m writing about my personal experience, but the reader’s personal experience was different—DIFFERENT, I TELL YOU; 

-Because they just flat out didn’t read carefully, and either missed the point entirely, missed a key paragraph, or somehow read some invisible paragraph that I didn’t actually write, but which was apparently chock full of offensive statements; or 

-Because they think “charity” means “liking everything all the time.” 

I generally don’t even bother to respond to this kind of thing.  I work hard at saying exactly what I mean, and don’t have the responsibility to say things twice to people who aren’t listening anyway.  Apologizing to people who haven’t actually been injured is like giving someone candy to make their tummy ache go away:  it just makes things worse.

Thanks, Simcha. I hope we run into each other in real life sometime because I know it never works out between Lutherans and Pope-types online.

Book, recommended with prejudice: Hosanna, Loud Hosanna

I don't know Mrs. Klages outside of a few emails we've exchanged, but the bottom line is she's a sister in Christ and even in Concordia, and I was plain horrified to hear of her recent trip to death's door at the delivery of her third child. What could I do for this dear lady? I don't know her or live by her. Then I remembered that she has a really beautiful book I've been putting off buying because I'm either poor or cheap (it's so hard to tell the difference sometimes). So I'm picking up some copies for niephlings and godchildren, and I urge you to do the same if you've been hesitating as I was. Use coupon code APRPHOTOS12 for 25% off (which won't cut into Kelly's profit--not sure how long this code is good, though). God be with you, Kelly. You're in my prayers.

Raise Thou our hopes of endless light

As with rosy steps the morn,
Advancing, drives the shades of night,
So from virtuous toil well-borne,
Raise Thou our hopes of endless light.
Triumphant saviour, Lord of day,
Thou art the life, the light, the way!

Oh, hi

The CSPP are over and out for Holy Week. Much contemplation to you.