in defense of womanhood

My response on a facebook discussion recently If anyone here cares, please just go get a package insert for birth control. Really. "The use of oral contraceptives is associated with increased risks of several serious conditions including myocardial infarction, thromboembolism, stroke, hepatic neoplasia, and gallbladder disease, although the risk of serious morbidity or mortality is very small in healthy women without underlying risk factors. The risk of morbidity and mortality increases significantly in the presence of other underlying risk factors such as hypertension, hyperlipidemias, obesity and diabetes." One paragraph later, this piece goes on to state: "The effect of long-term use of the oral contraceptives with lower formulations of both estrogens and progestogens remains to be determined." It then goes on for about 8 pages to enumerate the possible negative effects. This comes right fromt he FDA: http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2005/021690lbl.pdf I work in an ER and most of the unintended pregnancies I have seen happen while on the pill. It gives women a false sense of security and makes them and their obgyns lazy about learning what their bodies are doing and why. Furthermore, many of those abortions that someone mentioned earlier as a reason to support birth control happen exactly because birth control failed! 1.5million abortions DOES NOT sound like birth control is actually doing it's job. kids are stupid but there's no way you can convice me that even a majority of those are teen pregnancies from kids who didn't know hat they were doing. This is not a new issue, either. birth control and abortion have both been around for thousands of years, and Christians have been against it right from the start...with one early Creed stating that people would not use birth control. Ancient Rome and Greece, the pinnacles of civilization, frowned on abortion only because they didn't know the sex of the baby or if it was defective. they were all for infanticide. I personally don't see a difference between in the womb andout of the womb. If you can kill it inside,you should be able to kill it outside. It's just a mater of geography, and geography should not dictate ethics. It's perfectly legal for a 28 week (6 month) abortion to take place...but I've seen babies who have lived and are born at 24 weeks. As for Catholics and cancer rates, I don't think anyone has studied that. In any case, a large percentage of those who consider themselves Catholic use birth control and go directly against the teaching of the church. We do know that those who use natural forms of "family planning" such as the Creighton System or the Billings Model are more effective than the pill, right about 98.5% if I recall correctly. One of these methods is even accepted by China as a method of enforcing their 1 child policy! p.s. the "brainless blob of cells" argument is horribly out-dated. it's really bad science and most intellectuals realize that now. heartbeat on day 21-22 after conception (that is after the sperm and egg become one, not when implantation occurs) and it has been my experience that the heart rarely does that sort of thing wihtout a brain around. so what if it aint fully developed yet...doesn't stop developing until you are in your 20s anyhow. As a medical person, I think that the cancer risk from oral birth control is more than most people realize, and so are the other bad effects, most especially the infamous headaches. (so she's not fertile but her head hurts to much to make love...sounds like a loose-loose situation to me). I'm against it more or less because it is tearing women apart and demeaning both sexes to a terribly great extent. It makes women the slaves of men so that she is now available for his pleasure any old time. He doesn't need to be responsible for her either because he can just leave....no hard feelings...no kid int he picture any way.

Purgatory

"Their [the holy souls] silence is their loudest call, because it is the echo of God's silence...They are silent because they live, just as we chatter so loudly to try to make ourselves forget that we are dying. Their silence is really their call, the assurance of their immortal love for us. O silent God...God of those who are silently summoning us to enter into Your life, never let us forget our dead or our living. May our love and fiathfulness to them be a pledge of our belief in You, the God of eternal life.

Let us not be deaf to the call of the their silence, which is the surest and sincerest word of their love. May this word of theirs continue to accompany us, even after they have taken their leave of us to enter into You, for thus their love comes all the closer to us.

When we pray 'Grant them eternal rest, O Lord, and let thy perpetual light shine upon them,' let our words be only the echo of the prayer of love that they themselves are speaking in the silence of eternity."  From: Encounters with Silence by Karl Rahner

We should do as much as we can for the Holy Souls, even just an short prayer for them at Mass, at adoration, lighting a candle of them, giving alms for them. In praying for the Holy Souls, God is beholden to us  Giving for the holy souls is entirely disinterested, and thus very good in the sight of God. "Of all the prayers, the most meritorious, the most acceptable to God, are prayers for the dead, for they imply all the works of charity, both spiritual and corporal," St. Thomas Aquinas points out. 

Their suffering is so much greater than anything we could experience here on earth. Is it then like another hell? Absolutely not, for the flames of purgatory are flames of love, and the souls in purgatory if given the chance to skip it and head straight to heaven, would not for they see their sin and their imperfections and they desire to perfect themselves for God. Their worst pain is to be deprived of the face of God, for they caught a glimpse of Him at their judgement and it is the most wonderful sight they could imagine.

Here on earth, if we realize that we have some imperfection or a sin upon our soul, we can work on it, go to confession, and make restitution. The Holy Souls are no longer able to help themselves or to do anything like fasting, giving alms, or praying for forgiveness. If we pray for them and assist them on this last step to heaven, how grateful will they be? They are now saints and will shower their prayers and assistance upon those who helped them in their time of need, on the last leg of their trip. Whenever I have some horribly difficulty something to deal with, I always turn to the Holy Souls.

May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen

sunshine...

Sunshine...we all long for the light. Does this mean something amazing? Do I want to become the light or the essence of light?

Nonsense. Can't things remain simple? I make my bed, I corner it and I tuck it in. The pillows go at the top. The folded afghan rests at the foot. It is good to eat, bad to eat too much or too little. Is there such a thing as being too wrapped up in oneself? Heck Yes! There are so many people walking around who give no thought to others and want everything to bow down to their every wish because, I believe, they think themselves somehow superior to those around them.

The life well ordered. Is there such a thing? I like to the think that one day I will have an ordered life. but for now my filing system lies on the floor of my loft, in 17 different piles strewn around. Oh sure...I've got file folders. It's just so terribly hard to get them in there. In my dreams, I make a lovely dinner with minimal effort every day, drink coffee from a tea cup. Of course, that's probably not right either according to Emily Post.

"Life in the Gap"

I've met so many young ladies....or known so many for years...who are open to God's will, working at doing something with their lives, and yet live in the doldrums of boredom and loneliness. Where have all the young men gone?

As a five year old with joy and happiness in my heart, nothing to do but make my bed and set the table and wear my pretty little frocks as I cared for my darling baby dolls, I used to long for a life of love and adventure. I would have a dozen children, we would live in a large house, just so, with secret passage ways and several pantries. I would be a wonderful mother and bake cookies all day. We would have tons of horses and have family races, sit on the porch and sings folk songs all evening.
As I grew older, this plan grew wings and developed...small bit of land, extensive gardens, I would work perhaps once every two weeks to bring in some spending money and keep up my skills...have a couple of kids, etc. etc. etc.

Now I am in my third year post-college graduation and I feel that I am in limbo. What's going to happen next? I've got no freakin clue. They don't prepare you for this part of life. Spinsterhood (hopefully temporary) is much more difficult than it looks! You can't stay in side or you go crazy. you can't go out because you've no one to go with. so you sit at home and....and...and what? knit? do more laundry? watch a show? eventually you run out of laundry, dishes, shows, and you read all your books...unless you are me and you keep saving them for a rainy day (which just means you are too lazy).

Only a few weeks ago, 3 girls from church, ages 10-12, asked me how old I was. they were absolutely shocked to hear that I was in my mid 20s "You are really old!!! How come you aren't married yet? my mom had 3 babies when she was your age!"
"Well," I say (buying time), "no man wants me. I'm too weird."
I am greeted by blank stares.

Last week my co-worker paid me a great compliment after watching my interaction with a slightly irritating elementary-school child: "why do you not have like 5 kids? you'd be an awesome mother." It's kinda hard when you only have 23 chromosomes to work with.

My friend, Mary Beth, has a blog entitled "Life in the Gap" and it talks about this gap of child to adult to education and then....?...single life stretching on for eternity.
All we can do is make the most of it. I live my life day to day and attempt to improve myself in the sight of Our Lord. Maybe, if I'm very good, he will show me his will!

For Greater Glory