Stunted

I have so many things that I want to blog about-- half ideas just swarming around in my head, with some things pinned down and other things just mere passing thoughts.
Right now, I am having an ADD tornado of wanting to blog about:

•  The new law being passed in Mississippi juxtaposed with the 7 Billion people fanatics flipping out over the Duggars having another child. 
• Glee having an episode about losing your virginity (which I am watching right now) and the mainstreaming of secular culture 
• The article about the sterilization clinic, and something to do with birth-control

I am still making my way through Discerning the Will of God and I don't really feel any closer. I need to really get my prayer life in order. I have been feeling the need to buckle down and hit a better routine for many aspects of my life, but right now my job is just insane and I come home and find myself just zoning out. Maybe I should start saying the rosary on the elliptical. I am having a dry spell in my spirituality and I hope that everything will get back to normal (or better than before) soon!
In the meantime, enjoy this beautiful song, because my brain is fried.

Mondays and Birthdays... Is That How the Song Goes?

Sorry for the delay, dear readers (all 3 of you!) I have been away because last week I celebrated my birthday!

Hurrah.

It was, for some reason, a particularly hard birthday for me. I turned 27 (I know, I know, try 50! Try 78!) but I don't think it had anything to do with the number. I can't exactly explain what it had to do with in particular, though if you read my post Purgatory, you will know that maybe it had something to do with the fact that I have no idea what to do "when I grow up" and I'm starting to increasingly feel as if now I AM a grown-up and maybe I should really have this figured out. It also didn't help that for the hour or so I talked to my mother-in-law, she would NOT stop talking about having children. I'm not ready for that, yet. But then, when will I be ready? In the words of my grandfather, which are so symbolically apropos here "Daylight's a wastin!"

In any event, my darling Hubb's took Christine over at Feminism: The Catholic F Word's advice and got me the book Discerning the Will of God. It just came in the mail yesterday so I am anxious to start reading it. I had been fasting on Fridays hoping to open myself up to hear His voice, but I have a confession to make: I'm really bad at praying. In all the time I took CCD classes and whatnot as a child, I don't think anyone really taught us HOW to pray. So I basically keep an interior monologue to God or Mary or My Great Uncle Jules or St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross and sometimes I feel like I am going insane.

Anyway, I am going to start reading this book and see where it takes me. I will post as I go through it, if I can.

Feast of Blessed John Paul II

Happy Feast Day of Blessed John Paul II everyone!

It is hard for me to really try to think how much influence this man had on my reversion. He was always just kind of in the background my whole life, all the time.
I distinctly remember when he came to Denver for World Youth Day. I was in Louisiana visiting my grandparents, of course, and my Aunt who had just had my cousin went to one of the events. I remember she bought a t-shirt for one of my other cousins but not me. My grandparents are really Catholic and I remember sitting in their living room of the house on the farm and watching the evening news where they were talking about JPII and what he was doing. I was only 9 or 10, so it's strange that I recall that so clearly.

Even as I lost my faith, I always loved to watch the Pope say Christmas Eve mass and my mom and I would watch it on PBS, even when we didn't actually go to Mass.

When I was a freshman in college, my friend had gone thrift shopping and brought home a plate with a portrait of JPII on it, commemorating his US Visit in the 80's. Even though I wasn't a practicing Catholic, I hung that plate up in my kitchen, and it's still in my kitchen today.

In 2005, I remember feeling really sad when he died. I was fascinated by the conclave, and I didn't envy then Cardinal Ratzinger having the biggest shoes to fill in the world. My mom and I went to Europe that year, and visited Rome and I was overwhelmed by the amount of John Paul II-love that I encountered everywhere. That was when wanting to be Catholic again started taking hold in me. The faith that the people had as they visited St. Peter's, the way people looked when they talked about the Church and the former Pope (and the current Pope), the interest and peace that emanated from the faithful. I wanted that.

I was confirmed the day JPII was Beatified, and I think that was a little wink from him.

I credit Blessed John Paul II and the Blessed Virgin Mary for bringing me back to the Church, in tandem. Working together of course, as his motto was always totus tuus.

My NFP Testimonial

I wrote this NFP testimonial for The Guiding Star Project. I would like to post more on my NFP experience later on, but for now, I just wanted to post this. It's not quite in the same "voice" that I use on the blog, since it was for the website, but maybe it will be helpful for other women wondering about it. 

The number one obstacle to my returning to the Catholic Church was its teaching on birth control.

Looking back now, I find that absurd, as I had been known to tell many, many people prior to my return to the Church that I hated birth control and was going to go to my doctor and demand a better option. I had a lot of issues on birth control. I was put on it as a young woman to control my acne. Yes, my acne. The first “pill” I was on made me absolutely insane… it made my hormones spike and plummet and for at least a week every month (not the one where I was on my period) I was cranky, agitated, anxious, overly emotional. For 7 whole days, due to one little pill, I displayed classic signs of clinical depression. After about 3 months like that, I went back to the doctor, who cheerfully told me that there was virtually no shortage of the type of pill I could be on, and they would find one that was “right for me!”

So we tried a second pill, this one made me bleed for 3 weeks straight. A third killed my libido, which was devastating for a newlywed. A fourth gave me intense migraine headaches. I was so fed-up, but had no idea what my options were. When I went in to speak to my doctor again, her next idea was a copper IUD. That was where I drew the line. I am squeamish about a lot of things, one of which is things being inside my body. For this reason, the shot, the ring and the IUD were completely out. But I was allergic to latex and had no desire to have children, so I stuck with the pill.

When my husband and I decided to have our marriage convalidated, this was the bone of contention for me. He had been urging me to get off the pill altogether, he had heard the study about it being carcinogenic and, being a bit of a “natural health” buff, he was very concerned about the long-term effects on my health and fertility. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to give up the “control” on my fertility, and I didn’t like what I thought was the Church’s teaching on having to have a bunch of children. I would rather be sick than possibly get pregnant with a man I married for better or for worse. But, we were required to take the class, and we were required to “live as brother and sister” until we were sacramentally married, so it seemed as good a time as any to go off the pill.

nfpworksblog.com

When I received my materials to take the class (we had to take it online because no in-person courses were offered in our area), I opened it with trepidation. As I started to take the class, I got very frustrated. It seemed impossible to remember all the rules, it felt like a sneaky way to make people give up and have 10 kids. My husband embraced it, though and learned it like a champ. He was always the more logical of the two. As time went on, though (and after switching gynecologists to a nurse mid-wife who was helpful), I learned how to chart, I learned how to see the cycles and it made a lot of sense. I feel better than I have in a long time; I’m not bloated, or having headaches or cranky. And, guess what? I don’t have acne any more either!

But the thing I have learned the most aside from the charting and being in tune with my body is that all the things our culture tells us about “the pill” are false. They tell us it will make us free, but we are chained to it because we have to take it every day. We feel like if we don’t, we can’t do anything “fun” without the pesky fear of taking responsibility for our actions looming over our heads. They advertise it to us like it’s this really great thing, telling us all about the awesome side effects it has: lessening PMDD, getting rid of acne and fewer, lighter periods. But they never tell us that it can cause other issues like cancer or infertility after prolonged use.

NFP has opened up many new things for me. I feel like I understand my body so much better now, something that I never knew before. When they teach you in school about your menstrual cycle, it’s more like an advertisement for tampons, they don’t really tell you what is going on in your body. So many women think something is wrong because they have no idea, and their doctors don’t either! (When I went to a doctor’s appointment with a friend the other day, I was appalled when her doctor told her that he was a little concerned about her “white discharge.”) Now, not only do I know what is going on in my body at any given time, so does my husband! There’s a reason why the statistics on divorce for NFP practicing couples is at 2%! I feel freer now, and healthier! I’m also more open to life because I feel like I am working with the rhythms of my body and not putting up any kind of barrier between my fertility, my husband, God and I. We’re all in this boat together, and I have come to value my fertility as a part of me as a woman that, rather than being shamed into suppressing by the culture at large, I am now accepting and in-tune to it! NFP is a wonderful gift that I wish more women would learn and I know so many women could benefit from if only it had the kind of funding and advertising that the pill has. I, personally, try to spread the word as much as I can. NFP is a true blessing in my life and marriage. 

Catholicism!

Better than "The Book of Mormon: The Musical" is CATHOLICISM. I could only be more excited about this if it were directed by Ken Burns. Okay, not really!

WATCH+THE+NEW+TRAILER

Purgatory

I’m having a big problem of late. My usual malaise at typical daily life which has been with me since I could figure out what daily life was seems to be getting worse. Not in the sense that I am depressed or anything, but I am about to turn 27. Now, I have done "the usual" in the sense that I went to college, I got married, I bought a car and a house, children are likely in my not-too-distant future (as in the 3 year plan rather than the 5-to- never year plan). But I still feel like I have yet to figure out what it is I am supposed to do. This isn't troubling in and of itself, this is rather normal, I should think, for anyone who holds a BA. No, I am troubled because many, many times, even as a married person in a happy marriage, I seem to think about how great it would be to be a religious sister. I guess this is because being a religious sister fits the skills I have, and let me tell you, I don’t have many. I’m not saying that to be self-depraving or humble, it’s just the truth. I always had a hard time trying to figure out what my career should be because I don’t have any specific talents other than knowing stuff. When I took one of those career tests in high school, it told me I should be a rabbi (which had two glaring issues being that I am neither male nor Jewish.) Although, rabbis do know a lot of stuff.

Now imagine them in cubicles. 

I work in a dead-end job. Literally. I do data entry. I don’t particularly want to take on a job that has more responsibility because my job affords me a lot of time to listen to podcasts and little stress. I am busy most of the time, but it is feast or famine, and I have very little stress. When I am busy, I am still able to go home at the end of the day, completely sure that nothing I did can’t wait till tomorrow and it’s not going to ruin my or anyone else’s career. I have few deadlines, and I am essentially a minion in my workplace. I like it. I also have a part-time hobby business that I barely have any time for and that is wedding planning. I enjoy planning weddings, or at least I did, before I had a bride that kind of ruined for me and am still burned out from. I liked wedding planning because it afforded me the ability to be the person who knew everything, who got to take charge in a quiet, no-fanfare-needed kind of way. So the other day, when I was informed of an opening at my parish for their wedding and events coordinator/parish support staff I got pretty excited about it. Then I found out how much it paid and that it was part-time, and I got really, really sad because it’s basically impossible for me to take it if Hubbs and I ever want to do anything other than be mid-to-late 20 somethings at the beginning stages of our marriage. We would be basically stuck in the same situation as we are right now until the job either paid more, got more hours (preferably both) or I got so stressed out from the amount of work I had to do for the amount of money and too little sanctioned time to do it in that I had a nervous breakdown and ended up taking another dead-end job. I was sad for a little while and then I kind of realized I don’t really want to do that anyway. Which got me thinking: what do I want to do?

The reason why this whole religious sister thing really puzzles (and, yes, troubles) me is because I wasn’t religious when I went to college. I wasn’t religious when I met and then married my husband. Remember how I am super trepidatious about kids? Yeah, that troubles me too. I keep thinking to myself: what if I was meant to be a Sister? I definitely never discerned anything for myself then, and I have no idea how to discern things for myself now. I keep trying to tell myself that God has a plan, sure, but he also gave us free will which I’m pretty sure means that maybe if I had been religious I would have figured out that maybe I should have run off and joined an abbey, but since I didn’t choose that path, God’s not going to slam the door on me and make the rest of my life difficult, nor would He place on my heart a desire to do something I can’t do unless I completely go against His will. Not to mention, I don’t really want to leave my husband because I think that would make me miserable anyway. I keep trying to figure out what it is about religious life that has me so enthralled and all I can come up with is: you never have to worry about money because you’re provided for--no debt, no payments, no bills, no expensive clothes to buy when your company gets bought out by another one and changes the dress code, no clothes to buy period; Lots of alone time studying and praying; Depending on what order, the chance to share your love of the faith and the Church and God and the Saints—no questions asked because no one is going to argue with a woman in a habit.

So what I can take away from all of this is: I want to study the faith and share it, and I’m sick of worrying about money. I guess the money thing is my cross to bear, but I can’t exactly figure out how to go about the other two. It’s not exactly lucrative to be a theologian, though with an MA I could teach at the Parish school. So yet again, the devil of money jumps out at me. I guess maybe what I need, before I go out and get an MA, is a crash course in discernment.

Interesting

So the blog post that gets the most hits on my blog is the one about tattoos and the majority of them come from google.it. Apparently a LOT of people in Italy want Padre Pio tattoos. Rock on, Italian ink lovers!