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Use this link and get my book directly from Our Sunday Visitor for only $8. You too can have the SGNFP experience, now at a discount . . . BUT FOR HOW LONG????*

* a few weeks

Here’s something I just saw on Facebook, in response to an article about lies spread by pro-vaccine doctors:

These illnesses are manageable. Here are some children managing polio:

PIC children with polio on all fours

And here is a baby managing whooping cough (pertussis):

I’m closing comments on this because there is NOTHING TO SAY. I understand being afraid of vaccines. As with so many worthwhile things, vaccines have some risk. But to say that the diseases they prevent are “manageable” — well, there is nothing to say, except stay the hell away from my kids. I like them breathing.

 

Look what I found!

We used to drink $1 beers and play darts at Penuche’s all night, then come back to campus and do this workout. Tried it this morning. Lasted 11 minutes. Hello, again, treadmill, which I can do while keeping and eye on the kids and reading Call of the Wild.  I think we understand each other.

I don’t have the mental energy to rehash everything that’s been said by me, Emma Smith, Leticia Adams, Calah Alexander, or anyone else in the debate over how to talk about fidelity in marriage.  If you missed it, you can probably count yourselves lucky!  It was a doozy.

But for anyone still standing, here’s what I keep thinking of: a passagefrom The Screwtape Letters. The “patient” — the soul the devil is trying to win — has converted, then failed, then returned again to God in true humility. Screwtape, the master tempter, says to his apprentice:

The most alarming thing in your last account of the patient is that he is making none of those confident resolutions which marked his original conversion. No more lavish promises of perpetual virtue, I gather; not even the expectation of an endowment of “grace” for life, but only a hope for the daily and hourly pittance to meet the daily and hourly temptation! This is very bad.

The first conversion, when everything was new and thrilling, was absolutely necessary.But it’s not sufficient. Here’s what Kate Kelmelis had to say on my Facebook page:

I’ve been following this exchange and when I think of the original article (and the other newlyweds who piped up in agreement) what came to mind was Peter. “Even though others may leave you, Lord, I WOULD NEVER”. And in response to Jesus telling him he would deny him not once but three times that very night, more confidence from Peter “I would follow you even to death!” We all feel that way when first in love. It’s not strange or unusual that young couples “know” that they could each “never” betray one another. Catholics and non Catholics alike feel this way. And like Peter there’s nothing bad about it really, except that they haven’t been tested. Until you’ve been put to the test you just don’t know what you will or won’t do. You don’t know who you are (or will become). Not to say adultery is an inevitably. Just that I’m really wary of ever thinking there are sins that “good Catholics” just don’t commit. Good Catholics are as vulnerable to temptation as anyone else. I don’t see why some people would get so offended by that fact. Is our love for our spouse more pure than Peter’s was for Christ? Seems doubtful.

Yes indeed.  And it was only after Peter realized that he was capable of betraying Christ that he became the head of the Church on earth.  It was only after he sinned and was forgiven that he had the strength and courage to die for the one he loved.

And I have something else to say.

Many people are complaining that it’s dangerous or scandalous for engaged people or newlyweds to hear married people speaking about infidelity or betrayal of various kinds.  This may be true; but it’s also true that we’re not always talking to engaged people or newlyweds. Not everything that’s said in public has to be specially tailored for every conceivable audience.   It’s okay for people to discuss things that don’t apply to you or aren’t aimed at you.  If you are reading something that is upsetting or scandalizing you, stop reading. It’s really that simple.

If I were thrilled to be pregnant with my first child, I wouldn’t spend hours and hours reading about the reparative therapy that babies go through when they have serious birth defects. It would FREAK ME OUT, and rob me of the joy of my pregnancy. But it would be insane for me, as a pregnant women, to say, “I know that my baby will never go through that, because I take my vitamins and eat kale and get plenty of sleep.” And it would be downright offensive to tell mothers of those other babies, “You can’t say these things in public. It’s sad, and might scare other women away from wanting to have children.”

You know what’s scandalous? It’s scandalous to tell suffering people, “Don’t you speak.” It’s scandalous to tell them that their sorrows are making other people sad.  Good heavens. There are worse things than being sad. One of them is being happy and telling other people that, if only they were stronger, they’d be happy too.

Deacon is giving an impassioned sermon based on St. Patrick’s Breastplate:

” . . .Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ below me . . . ”

Irene (4) says in a stage whisper, “WHY DOES HE SAY CHRIST IS BALONEY?”

Pshh, deacons.

Okay, so we’ve established that it’s not nice to laugh at people, unless they are deliberately behaving stupidly so as to provoke laughter. I’m going to take a chance and assume (and hope, and pray) that this guy falls into the latter category with his spectacularly awful improvised cosplay costumes.  Via i09:

Meet Anucha “Cha” Saengchart. By day, he works as a caretaker for the elderly. In his free time, he runs Facebook page Lowcost Cosplay. Instead of tracking down special fabrics or other materials, the idea is that you cosplay by using whatever you have in the house—like eating utensils, plungers, towels, baking flour, etc.

Here are a few of my favorites, side by side with their inspirations:

I used to feel like I don’t understand cosplay. Now I feel like I don’t understandanything.

I keep forgetting to announce these things ahead of time!  Saint Gabriel Radio , AM 820 out of Columbus, OH. Hope you can catch it!

Is breast best? Maybe not — at least not in the long run.

A study published in the journal Social Science and Medicine followed children, some breast fed, some bottle fed — and found that there is not much difference in how the kids turned out after babyhood. According to Slate, breastfed and bottle fed kids were measured for “11 outcomes, including BMI, obesity, asthma, different measures of intelligence, hyperactivity, and parental attachment.

And there just wasn’t much difference.

[This post originally ran on the National Catholic Register in December of 2011.]
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At my last prenatal visit, I saw a new midwife.  Her exam room had all the usual distracting mobiles and soothing photos of crocuses and placid water birds.  It also had, right on eye level as I leaned back on the paper-covered table, this photo  (WARNING:  not for sensitive viewers).

I was stunned—first, from the incredible insensitivity of displaying the image.  At 38.5 weeks, I am barely keeping my head above the flood of a thousand anxieties about my baby, myself, my family.  Maybe I’m a pampered American brat, but when I recline to hear my baby’s heartbeat, I don’t expect to be confronted with horrors.  But there was a suffering child, one who was not saved, and the image of her suffering was six inches away from my head.

Even worse was the message the image implied:  that formula kills.

Now, I am the breastfeedingest mother ever.  I’ve spent nearly a third of my life doing little else besides producing milk.  Sometimes it’s easy (people tend to give my babies nicknames like “pork chop”) and sometimes it’s very hard; but I am thoroughly convinced that breastfeeding is physically healthier for babies and mothers alike, and that the little ones are drinking in more than nutrition when they spend hours and hours folded in their mothers’ arms, fading in and out of sleep as they are fed.

So why would I object to the pro-nursing message of the photo?  Because—yes, this particular child probably died because she was given formula.  But she also died because because the water was likely contaminated; because formula is expensive and was probably diluted to save money; because if she had other medical needs beyond basic nutrition, these were likely ignored, because she was just a girl.  The third world is flooded with medical technology that promotes sex-selective abortions, perpetuating a disastrous societal preference for baby boys.

Formula didn’t save this baby girl’s life; but it was ignorance, extreme poverty, and cruel sexism that caused her death.

So in rural, impoverished countries, formula can kill, and in most cases, breastfeeding can save lives.  But showing this picture to an American woman who is already receiving prenatal care, the picture is a lie, and a cruel, manipulative one.  The hand-lettered caption explained only that the mother was told she could not breastfeed both twins, and that the bottle-fed baby died.  The message is clear:  don’t want a skeleton for a baby?  Then you had better breastfeed.

This is simply not true in most of modern America.  Mothers have a moral obligation to take good care of their children, and good care very often takes the form of offering them the best possible nutrition, which very often takes the form of breast milk.  But not always.  It is shameful and irresponsible to tell attentive mothers who use formula that they are slowly killing their babies.

There are mothers who want desperately to nurse, but have horrible difficulties, either physically, emotionally, or logistically.  There are moms who were sexually abused, and cannot see their bodies as nourishing.  There are moms who get no joy or peace in the first several months of their babies’ lives, because they struggle so long and fruitlessly with trying to breastfeed.

For me, breastfeeding is easy and pleasant.  But there are lots and lots of moms who are just different from me—they have different lives, different attitudes, different needs, different priorities.  They love their babies as much as I do; they simply take care of them in a different way, which makes more sense for them, for where they are in their lives right now.

I remember vividly the crushing guilt and pain I felt when, four years ago, I brought my newborn preemie in to be weighed, and the nurse gently told me that, once again, the little one had lost ground.  She was losing weight on my milk, not gaining.  Despite all the care and sympathy and support I was given, I felt worthless, useless.  I COULDN’T EVEN FEED MY OWN BABY.

I’m glad I persisted with breastfeeding (aided by pumping and finger feeding and a round-the-clock nightmare of written schedules, trips to the hospital, and a thousand tiny silicone bits of machinery to sterilize).  But if, in the midst of this ordeal, I had seen that picture of that poor skeletal baby girl whose mother COULDN’T EVEN FEED HER OWN BABY, I think I would have thrown myself in front of a truck.

Breastfeeding should be encouraged and promoted, and mothers should be given generous support by family, doctors and employers when they are trying to nurse their children.  Breast is best.  But there is a difference between educating women and bullying them, and many well-intentioned breastfeeding activists cross the line, in their eagerness to promote good health.

Bottle-feeding moms deserve encouragement and support, too.  Caring well for our babies is a moral issue; breastfeeding is not.

And the winner is . . .

Ezbs • 3 days ago

who says