Spoiler Alert! Remember, Man, That Thou Art Mortal

The recently renewed craze around Star Wars brought a fresh round of rage for those who troll-fully engage in the art of the spoiler. The very idea of a spoiler is summed up in its name; it implies that you have spoiled or ruined the experience for another person. Generally speaking, no one likes a spoiler, especially if it is delivered in a public forum that is unforgiving, like scrolling social media where the user can’t anticipate what will come across the feed next. So there is this understanding, this code of social decency that says that you are a(n) –insert expletive here-, to violate this social contract of leaving the magic in the movie for each consumer to discover on his or her own. It’s the little niceties that we extend to one another that define civilization itself, one might argue. Or is it something more?

I would argue that the recent vehemence and even violence that has emerged against those who “spoiled” the newest Star Wars is indicative of a larger problem in our society. In the past, the life of adults was caught up in the business of being an adult, and entertainment had its place within that, but it was relegated to a much smaller compartment than we accommodate it today. One hundred years ago, the concept of childhood being a special and magical time reserved for recreation and leisure was a brand new concept. For good or for ill, before that time, children were simply considered adults in training. Childhood was used to prepare the next generation to take on the serious business of becoming a spouse, a parent, and a productive member of society. The focus was to create a generation worthy and capable of taking over when the present generation was ready to retire- not to golf courses and the “Salt Life”, but to the venerable position of patriarch or matriarch of the family that you had created. As the head of the family, you would offer guidance, advice, and a sense of legacy to the generations coming up behind you. This all changed, thanks in large part to, some would say, the Baby Boomer generation, though I would argue you could trace it back even to that “Greatest Generation”: the parents and grandparent of the Boomers who got the ball rolling in the Roaring 20’s and were the parents of the Great Depression. Wherever you want to trace it back to, there is little arguing that there was a sea change in the way that childhood, parenting, and adulthood is handled. The matriarchs and patriarchs of today have changed as a result. So much for grey hair being the crowning glory and mark of wisdom. No way. You know who they are. They are not regular parents or grandparents; they are WAY cooler.

With the continuing breakdown and de-evolution of the Church and the Family, which have been the underpinning of civilization, people still have a desperate need to belong, to feel a part of something bigger than themselves- to be a part of a legacy. Many of us grew up in homes that were not sanctuaries from the rigors of the world, but a crucible to be tested in, a gauntlet to run. After multiple generations of parents that wanted to be cool parents, man, so many in this generation are finding that we have to reinvent the wheel. We are starting our own legacies and establishing what many hope will be the first in the line of a new Great Family. We walk a fine line in rejecting the values and tactics of our parents and grandparents, but also respecting the Old Ways of family-centric, slow living in the midst of a very fast-paced world. We are indeed strangers in a strange land. It is normal to continue to yearn for a connection, even with that which you have rejected. Most of us don’t hate our parents for accepting a philosophy that they were taught would make the world a better place because many of them were victims of their own childhood as well.

We try to find a common ground that can connect us to those former generations and one of the easiest, least controversial ways to do that is through our fandoms. I was born in 1975, and like many kids in my generation, one of my earliest memories is my parents taking me to see Star Wars and playing with Star Wars toys, eating peanut butter and jelly from my Star Wars lunch box, Princess Leia hairbuns, Millennium Falcon play sets, that cool Luke Skywalker toy that had the lightsaber that popped out of his arm- Star Wars isn’t just a series of movies- it is an institution to my generation. Is it an institution because it was so heavily marketed and hyped? Absolutely, but as a child, you are innocent and susceptible to the influence of advertisements in a way that we, as adults, should remember and try to protect our own kids from.

The Star Wars institution is an example of any of the other phenomena that we have created to fill the void left by the failure of the Church and the Family. God knows a bit about His creations and starts telling us from the very beginning of Genesis with the creation of Eve that it is “not good for Man to be alone”. Every human being has a drive to belong to something bigger and more eternal than themselves. Our modern mode of living tries to defy that. With 60 hour work and school weeks, we find ourselves living parallel lives even with those that we call our families. Many leave the nest to college with little to no support as some test of adulthood that most of us fail. It is considered “normal” to have your own apartment in your 20’s and 30’s until you find someone to (maybe) marry. We busy ourselves pretending not to be isolated, but then a cultural touchstone like a new Star Wars movie comes along and there is a sense of belonging, of history. Finally, we have something to share with our parents AND our children. Our kids look at us with a renewed sense of awe because we are experts about who shot first, and the Sarlaac pit, and Ewoks. There is a connection. And it is really rather sad. It reveals our emptiness and our isolation. You can insert any fandom here, really. Whether it is Doctor Who, Monty Python, Star Trek, or the Walking Dead, our passions only get really enflamed about the media that we consume- in other words about things that don’t really matter.

We are passionate about whatever creates the most sound and fury in this moment. We “binge-watch” series of shows on Netflix that involve the possible wrongful imprisonment of one man in “The Making of a Murderer”, but try to talk to people about the record number of incarcerations in this country compared to all other countries and their eyes glaze over. Water cooler talk about surviving the zombie apocalypse is all the rage, especially when there is a new season of the Walking Dead, but bring up actual end-of-life issues that every human being will face that can’t be solved by a cutting off someone’s head with a machete, and the air becomes palpably too heavy. We are perpetual children. We have traded discussions of Saturday morning cartoons as children with “serious” discussions as adults about the new Superman vs. Batman movie that will be out soon. We have bought the lie that we are too stupid to care about what is actually happening in the real world and in our lives, but can hold forth on exhaustive dissertations of the political implications of Game of Thrones. How many people that can fathom a White Walker invasion are living in countries of the world that are currently dealing with an actual invasion of monsters bent on raping and killing the population until they gain control? Most of the people you hear talking tough about what they would do if confronted by a White Walker or a zombie would be the first to roll over and accept servitude to an evil ideology rather than look like a meanie-head. We have been well conditioned to care far too much about things that just don’t matter, probably partially because it is just easier. The things that do matter in from our childhood are far too painful and complicated to do anything about.  The things in the world that matter, we are convinced are too big and too complicated for us to do anything about.  Reality all seems futile, so why not submerge yourself in a fantasy world?

I have sensed a renewed aggressiveness in the spoiler community, and I suspect that it is not just trollery. I suspect that it grows out of anger that we are the Neros who are fiddling as the world burns. We are the generation that Yeats spoke of when he said “The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” I love sci-fi and fantasy entertainment, so don’t misunderstand. I am not saying that you have to cut off all electricity and shun the world completely (though many who are better than me have). I am asking you to look into your own heart and check your priorities. If someone posting a spoiler about a movie upset you for days, perhaps it is time to discover what things really matter. Hint: It is not whether a character old enough to be your grandpa makes it to the next movie or what weird (possibly incestual) ancestry a character claims as their pedigree. Are Jon Snow or Glenn dead? Who actually cares? They aren’t real people. The single mother next door who is struggling to pay her power bill is real. The widower down the road whose driveway is blown over with snow and won’t be able to get out to grab a quart of milk is real. They deserve your mental and emotional energy. Your interactions with them will change the world and bring you closer to God. And (SPOILER ALERT!!) there is nothing else that matters more than that.

Extending the Olive Branch: An Open Letter to My Friend, Who Probably Won’t Be After This

I had to write this letter today to an old, dear friend that I will regretfully probably have to let go after today. It occurred to me that there are probably lots of people like me who have a really long fuse or are too anxious to avoid confrontation, but find themselves at a crossroads and must part company rather than continue down the path of least resistance. This is for us, and hopefully, for them.

Dear Friend,

I noticed that you joined the Pink Out for Planned Parenthood. If you have ever valued our friendship, I would like to ask you to do something for me. Please just read all that I am writing and consider what I am saying prayerfully, and with an open heart. For years, I have been willing to agree to disagree with you, because I thought that you hadn’t been exposed to the truth, and that is why you held on so tightly to the lie of Planned Parenthood helping women and the lie that abortion isn’t the taking of a life. I had hoped that my positive influence and a quiet witness would eventually sway you. If you believed that abortion was not the killing of a child and that Planned Parenthood’s provision of “health care” was necessary 15 years ago, I’d call you naïve, but you’d have a point that many impoverished people didn’t have access to health care. Now that the impoverished who formerly fell through the holes of health care are covered by expanded Obamacare, those people can make appointments and be seen for a small fee (if any) at any health department or ob/gyn, where they can actually receive total health care from STI testing and birth control to prenatal and postpartum care. If, tragically, the baby miscarries, ob/gyn doctors perform D & C’s in a safe, surgical environment where the woman can be kept overnight for observation and pain control. All this, as opposed to Planned Parenthood who are all about that cash and dash. At best, they can give you a pap and some birth control, but mostly they are an abortion business, as Cecile Richards finally admitted in front of Congress. She also finally admitted that they don’t do mammograms, just give referrals. ALL the tax dollars that go to them for mammogram referrals, which every real doctor or nurse does as part of their mission as health care providers or which women could do for themselves by a simple Google search.

Yes, Cecile finally admitted that abortions are indeed 86% of what they do, for which they made a $127 million profit last year. Why are we funding them with tax dollars as a non-profit if they made $127 MILLION profit last year? That funding could be going to help homeless women and children or abused women in shelters instead of contributing to the ethnic cleansing of poor Black and Hispanic neighborhoods as was PP’s founder, Margaret Sanger’s aim that has been well documented. They have also been exposed advising pimps on how best to use abortion to keep girls “working”, advising women on how to use abortion for sex selection, and advising young girls how to “get around” statutory rape laws: https://www.facebook.com/liveaction/videos/10153625666113728/

But that’s all of the old reasons that you and I have talked about in the past. What about the new things that have come to light?

I have been hearing rumors about fetal remains being sold to researchers at universities for the 23 years that I have been involved in pro-life circles, but it’s not the kind of thing you would share with others who weren’t also pro-life because it seemed so “out there” and without proof, seemed like a crazy charge to level with no proof, other than hearsay. I mean, who would believe that anyone, even abortionists, would purposely manipulate abortions to get good samples, up to and including allowing babies to be born alive before harvesting? It’s ghoulish to even contemplate. And, yet, here we are. Those videos that show well-known high ranking women within Planned Parenthood admitting to doing just that are stomach-churning. The videos, which two independent studies (one commissioned by Congress) have declared as legitimate, show the people who are the decision makers at PP admitting to breaking three federal laws, haggling over the price of different organs, and gleefully playing in the remains of very well-developed, later term aborted babies, even declaring “It’s a boy!”. Since so many pro-choicers decided not to watch the videos based on the now-defunct premise that they were a lie, I will include a link here to an article that summarizes the videos, in case you now want to know the truth: http://thefederalist.com/2015/09/29/a-quick-and-easy-guide-to-the-planned-parenthood-videos/

You are an intelligent, scientifically fascinated, and compassionate lady. If all of this fails to move you from the position of supporting Planned Parenthood, then I think it is time for us to part company. It makes me sad because I value your friendship, but if you continue to embrace these monsters in light of what has been revealed, you do so in defiance of logic. At that point, it is an ideological and religious choice you are making. That ideology and that religion will lead you to destruction. It is not out of compassion, because this organization has been shown to lie to women by delaying their procedure in order to get a later gestational age to please researchers and even admits that they sometime steal fetal remains that the mothers did not consent to have donated. They monetize each organ, take a large profit, but convince those mothers that do consent that those fees are simply to cover the cost of transportation. They are using women, not helping them. They are allowing the procedure of the abortion to be altered because to perform the abortion “by the book” would destroy the samples and they would lose money. Aside from being unethical, this is cruel on a level that surpasses that which I thought could not be surpassed- they are dissecting babies alive- babies that are old enough to survive with medical care, babies that feel pain, babies that have a soul.

I don’t want to hear about medical advancements that may be achieved. Dr. Mengele learned a lot in his totally legal concentration camp experiments about skin grafts by sewing twins together, among other atrocities. The usefulness of that information and it’s utilization to save lives still doesn’t excuse the methods used in these discoveries. We could have found the same information through a longer, but ethical process that didn’t involve torturing innocent people. But then, Mengele and his ilk believed that the Jews were less than human, much like abortionists try to contend that the fetus isn’t fully human until birth, making it totally legal to kill. Legality does not equal morality. You have carried a baby. You know better, science notwithstanding. Otherwise, why did you put your baby’s first sonogram in his baby book under “First Picture of Baby”? It is logically inconsistent, but this isn’t about logic.

It is truly frustrating to speak to intelligent people who try to deny what every scientist, medical doctor, or nurse knows- IT IS A BABY HUMAN. Having to say it out loud shows how far down the rabbit hole we have come. It’s like arguing against people who still believe the Earth is flat. Facts only get in the way of their belief that they will fall of the world if they sail too far. I am pleading with you- don’t be that person! There is no universe where a loving God could approve of what these people are doing. And no room for a decent person to continue to believe they are decent to support this abuse. Your heart breaks for animals that are neglected and abused; I can’t imagine you turning a blind eye to this. But after this, you need to understand that that is the choice you are making purely out of ideology, in defiance of facts- you will be turning a blind eye to the abuse of women and children at the hands of an organization that profits from that abuse. The abuse of the children can’t be undone, because it is abuse unto death. This is my last stand. If you choose Planned Parenthood over our friendship and over decency, I won’t hate you. I will still pray for you and I will always leave hope in my heart that you will make the right choice in the future, but I have to walk away from you. It is just too much.

In love,
Your Friend

The Ultimate Weapon Against the Culture of Death

The third installment from the Center for Medical Progress exposing the human trafficking of aborted babies by Planned Parenthood has been released.  I want to warn you that at 8:40 in the video, things get graphic.  It has been a well-executed campaign, partially because the CMP didn’t go straight for gory shock and awe, but have unwound a story for the viewer.  If you haven’t watched the first two videos, I would recommend starting there before you watch the most recent installment.  Some people need to see the graphic truth of it to be convinced while others don’t. After I saw The Silent Scream as a sophomore in high school, black and white though it was, I don’t feel the need to see that inhumanity ever again.  You can link to the third video here: http://thefederalist.com/2015/07/28/third-video-of-planned-parenthoods-organ-trafficking-scheme-released/

It’s tough for me, though, because while I don’t outright reject the graphic depiction of abortion, I think it should only be used where the gain is balanced by the harm it may cause.  Let me elaborate: I don’t support people who carry signs to protest abortion depict broken, twisted little bodies.  Aside from the fact that the children shown have already been exploited once,  I think those signs as a tool of engagement are largely counter-productive.  For any person that you shock into believing that the gore represented truly aren’t, as Planned Parenthood contends, simply unformed tissue or “POCs” (“products of conception”), you hurt parents who have lost babies due to miscarriage or stillbirth.  You force parents of children that are too young to understand but old enough to be afraid to confront the issue, not on age-appropriate terms of their choosing, but in the most brutal and ugly way possible.  You re-break the hearts of post-abortive parents and grandparents who may be repentant and live with their own personal Hell daily.  Meanwhile, the flash-in-the-pan attack on your senses isn’t enough to convince those who are undecided or who are opposed to you- it further entrenches their belief that “This couldn’t be true because it’s too horrible to be believed.” The scorched earth that is left between those and who we aim to help is too vast to cross.

I also realize the value of the truth. I guess you could say that I have skin in the game.  I don’t fault those who hold the camera that doesn’t blink, because it was that image of the baby running away from the abortionist’s tool playing through my mind at age 17 while an agent of Planned Parenthood at my local health department spent 45 minutes trying to browbeat me into aborting my baby that allowed me to say “no”.  If abortion had been a vague notion, I might have buckled under the pressure, which is why I try not to judge other girls who have bought the lie that an abortion makes the baby just “go away”.  There but for the grace of God, go my eldest daughter and I.  Being a teenage parent wasn’t easy, but being an emotionally immature kid trying to live with the consequences of having followed through with the “free” procedure they were offering me would have been devastating.  That is probably why a majority of post-abortive women report depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation, if not attempts.

So how do we view or share this newest video that rightfully exposes the ghoulish aim of the Planned Parenthood organization?  In the same way that a Roman Catholic catechism teacher lovingly, but firmly showed myself and 20 other 15 year olds The Silent Scream: in context.  You don’t throw it in people’s faces and hope that it shocks them.  That’s not how Christ worked, and it is not the example held up for us.  Christ worked through relationships that He built with people by connecting with them where they were.  It takes a heart that is inclined toward the person you want to influence to accomplish that.  You build it into a conversation that is about respect for life, a scientific exploration of human development, and an intolerance for the iconoclasm that is abortion.  It is an iconoclasm that not only shatters that tiny human being, but the parents who will forever mourn, and the society that hardens itself to accept it as just one more “right”.  Abortion will not be hated out of existence.  It must be loved out of existence.  This is where that “Loving your enemy” thing really makes the rubber hit the road.  As Abby Johnson recently said, we have to leave room in our hearts to love even those who work in the clinics enough to show them the way out.  We have to love the mothers and fathers as much as the babies.  It doesn’t mean abandoning that righteous indignation that rises up in the soul of every person at the realization that the things depicted in these videos are true, but it does mean not allowing that indignation to carry us on a wave of unchecked passion into believing that to help save one group makes it okay to hurt others with impunity. Lord have mercy on us if we push abused, scared, and exploited women into having that abortion because we present to them as a scarier alternative than the scrubbed, white-washed tomb that is Planned Parenthood.  It is an incredibly hard line to walk, but then, Christ never promised that it would be easy.

The Benedict Option and Hickory Grove

It has been fifty years since the actions of one overbearing school board opened up an entire conversation about religious liberty, education, and the role of parents in the determination of how their children are raised.  It was also a prelude to our present struggle as people of faith against a government that becomes increasingly hostile towards those who reject the state religion of the United States- that of Classical Liberalism.

Fifty years ago, a small Amish community in Iowa was targeted by state and local authorities because they had quietly and peacefully rejected the authorities opinion that they needed a state-certified teacher to teach their children.  The Amish elders deemed that a life that was rich in agrarian values which relied heavily on the apprenticeship model of educating the young beyond the eighth grade was sufficiently served by a focus on the three R’s- reading, writing, arithmetic.  They had continued to thrive in their traditional world quite happily for almost as long as the US had been an independent entity from Great Britain.  Most Americans, then as now, regarded the Amish as a quaint, if backward people, who chose to cling to traditions and a way of life that most of us would find difficult to take on, but one that is also deeply admirable.  The shock that was generated by seeing photos of these peaceful people, who simply wanted to be left alone, pursued into cornfields, their parents thrown in jail for non-compliance, was enough to generate absolute outrage among most Americans.  The publicity nightmare that ensued forced the authorities to allow for religious exemption to compulsory public schooling.  Millions of grateful homeschoolers can thank those brave, simple farmers that stood their ground and paved the way for all the freedom we enjoy today.  Their example can also serve as a springboard for the ongoing discussion of how Christians should conduct themselves in increasingly treacherous cultural waters.

Recently, many intellectuals have begun to bandy about the so-called “Benedict Option”, referring to St. Benedict and his retreat from Roman society to monastic fortresses which allowed for the preservation of the Scriptures and other ancient literature and art in advance of the barbarian invasions that would destroy most of that civilization.  The Amish, theological differences notwithstanding, have created a model that  should be examined by anyone who is interested in creating an intentional community that flows counter to the culture.  Even they have not escaped wholly unscathed by the deterioration of our neighbors’ poisonous culture, with the rare story here and there in the news of illegal drug production or reality television focused on the rite of passage known as rumspringa, in which young people are given a season to decide whether they want to submit themselves fully to the rigors of an adult Amish life.  Those flaws pale in comparison to the moral evisceration the rest of Western society has seen in this last fifty years.  What can be learned from the Amish communities- good, bad, and indifferent- that can assist us going forward as we find a greater necessity to move farther away, both physically and ideologically, from our hostile neighbors?  Better, what can we learn from the early Roman Church that labored in captivity?  We should turn back to writings like the Shepherd of Hermas and the example of early saints to see how they dealt with the marginalization and defamation of their Christian faith.  We must look to people of faith like Dietrich Bonhoeffer or St. Benjamin of Petrograd who stood firmly in opposition.  It is a conversation that must begin in earnest now.

Slip N’ Slide

An article from The Telegraph from three years ago has recently been making waves.  It reports that an article entitled “After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?” appeared in The Journal of Medical Ethics, written by an Oxford professor of Ethics, Julian Savulescu . If you have the stomach for it, you can read it here.

The truly hideous “bioethicist” from Princeton, Peter Singer, has long been a proponent of allowing the extermination of children after birth, and it appears he has a fan club that is gathering steam for the big campaign. This is one of those times when an “I told you so” is truly not satisfying. People laugh when you talk about a slippery slope, then you see “medical ethicists” publish this in a reputable medical journal. If you follow the logic, then their argument makes sense. If we agree that a person’s humanity is defined by their ability to survive on their own (viability), then a newborn is no different than a baby in utero, and you can legally abort a pre-born baby during all three trimesters in the US.

Hmm, who else is dependent upon others for life? Children under the age of 6 would probably die of starvation, exposure, or by accident if you turned them out in to the world on their own. So, too, would most students who major in Ethics, but I digress. Alzheimer’s patients, mentally disabled people, physically disabled people, and so many more would fit the same criteria that they are advancing. If it is not a matter of humans becoming human at the moment of conception (when their DNA becomes distinctly their own) and respecting them simply because they are created in the image of God, and we choose to see human life as no different than that of the animal kingdom, red in tooth and claw, then we are truly lost.

If one’s worth is based on another party’s opinion of their viability and relative convenience or utility, then all bets are off. The only thing that keeps us from going the way of other civilizations and accepting wholesale slaughter of “inconvenient people” is the much maligned Christian ethos. Christianity is the only thing that has ever changed that in any civilization. This argument isn’t new.  In every pre-Christian society, upon that society’s baptism, infanticide is one of the first things to go. Infanticide’s return is also a bellwether that a post-Christian era has begun- for example, most of our “modern” abortion techniques were pioneered by Nazi doctors.

The difference here is that we aren’t talking about the way that your great-grandparents ignored the Nazi genocide or about how people in ancient civilizations were so barbaric; we are talking about you.  How will you respond? This isn’t a drill. This is really happening. Will you protect the defenseless and the weakest among us and be considered a hero to future generations or will you be one whose grandchildren scratch their heads about and wonder how you could have tolerated such an evil? Who do you think the Enemy is?

On one side, there are those who are ready to call the killing of newborn children morally permissible. They claim to be champions of “the very values of a liberal society”, if you believe Professor Savulescu. He knows what side he is on and the gods that he serves. They are the gods of liberalism, convenience, and utility. On the other, there are those that think that all life, even that deemed less than perfect, is a miracle and a gift. The God they serve is the essence of beauty, mercy, and love. At the very least, people in this camp are smart enough to realize that being on the “Worthy of Life” list today doesn’t ensure your spot there tomorrow.

The battle lines are clearly drawn. It’s time to plant your flag.

Courting Eternity

In our house, we don’t date. We court.

For us, specifically, what does that mean? My eldest daughter, (AKA The Test Kid), has recently embarked upon this adventure, and I am excited to report, is officially being courted by a young man of sterling character (AKA The Intended) that I am excited to add to our family. They met via Facebook through mutual Orthodox friends, and after The Intended expressed more than a passing interest in The Test Kid, she instructed him to talk to us. He asked permission to seek her hand in marriage, to which we told him “not yet”. We felt that she needed a year to mature a bit more and to experience her first year away from the family at school without the added stress of potential relationship drama if things didn’t pan out. He was encouraged to pursue a better friendship with her with no expectation of strings attached for either of them for a year. They began having strategic conversations about everything from favorite breakfast cereals to opinions on Middle East politics. How do I know this? First, because my daughter has a solid relationship with her parents, and tells us most of the stuff of note that happens in her life. The other way I know is because my children have NO reasonable expectation of privacy until they are adults, which doesn’t magically happen when the clock strikes 12:01 on their 18th birthday. They gain their privacy when they are engaged to be married. Adulthood is not autonomy. Autonomy is an illusion that no one, if they’re honest, ever really experiences. The only people who make decisions without ever considering the influence of those decisions on others around them are narcissist sociopaths.

As the saying goes in Orthodoxy, we are saved together, but we are damned alone. So if I did a spot check of her messages to find that she was up chatting until the wee hours of the morning, I would point out to her that she didn’t do that with her other friends, and he was still just a friend, so to cool it. And they did. The Intended was vigilant in observing our guidelines and expectations. He knew that this was his chance, not just potentially to win her admiration, but also our approval. He understood that those two things were completely intermingled. Our daughter defers to our judgment and knows that, while we respect her opinion, it carries the weight of that of a stock holder versus the president of the company. We listen to what our kids have to say, but our family is no democracy.

The Intended sought not to undermine our authority, but to bolster it. As he worked to get to know, not just The Test Kid, but also the family. It became obvious that they were growing more and more fond of one another, so we added phone and video chat conversations to the mix. At the end of the year, we informed him that he was invited to travel the thousand or so miles to our town to be our guest. He needed to meet all of us in person, and I do mean ALL of us- her siblings, her grandparents, her godparents, and her priest. Any one of those people could have thrown a yellow flag onto the field and asked for an instant replay, to use a sports analogy. The Intended was prepared to answer questions openly and honestly about any concerns. Why would someone submit themselves to this scrutiny? That answer is simple: because he believed that our daughter was worth the hassle, and she believed that he was up to the challenge. At the end of it all, he was given our blessing to court our daughter with the express goal of an engagement of marriage only at such time that they are both in a more settled place, he in his career and she with her schooling. When we are ready to plan a wedding, the engagement itself may be rather short. Some future events are still a bit amorphous, as she is The Test Kid, and as the first, gets to be the guinea pig. One thing I can tell you for sure is that our process has made a joy to consider adding this man and his family to our own. There is no cleaning of guns or weird power struggle between my husband and The Intended. Why should there be? He has met and surpassed our expectations and is everything that we could want for our beloved daughter. We are excited to soon call him our son.
So yes, in our house, we don’t date. We court. Why?

• Dating encourages deceit and courtship encourages honesty.

When you date, because of the superficial nature of your relationship, most everything is an illusion. You present the Facebook version of yourself, because you suspect that this person is going to be one of many that you will date, so why put all of yourself out there to be rejected time and again. After a time, daters may break up because the other person “changed”, when in reality, it was probably who they were all along. How much more hurtful to finally reveal yourself, only to have the true you rejected. With courtship, you are less likely to tell those little white lies, if for nothing else, because until you know each other very well, there is someone nearby to keep you accountable. Since the object of courtship is to find someone to marry, you want to reveal as much of the important stuff as early as you can. That way, if something is a red flag, you can end the relationship early before as much emotion is invested.

• Dating feeds off of individualism, while courtship encourages family solidarity and accountability.

Dating is about me, me, me. What I need in this moment, who I find attractive, or if I’m lonely. Courtship involves the larger community around you and assumes a level of not just intrusion (which can happen), but also support. The nature of the courting relationship dictates that extended family and friends are getting to know the couple, as well. How often do you hear of an abusive relationship that begins with the abuser separating the abused from their friends and family? The family provides a chorus of accountability. Dating encourages the isolation which makes abuse easier. It is much more likely that a scuzzball can pull the wool over your eyes when infatuation is at its peak, but getting past your grandparents, your parents, your best friends, and your priest? That’s a bit harder. And it should be. This is the rest of your life we are talking about, after all.

• Dating is about sex, while courtship is about commitment.

Dating as we understand it changed with the introduction of the automobile. Quaint as that sounds, ever since modern dating was invented, it was about taking the budding relationship off of the front porch swing where the family sat nearby in earshot, and into the backseat of the car. A person’s first sexual experience used to happen much later in late adolescence and then, only when you were relatively sure that the person you were sleeping with was the person you were going to marry. If an oopsie moment happened, you just moved up the wedding date. Postmodern dating has devolved into the hookup, which doesn’t even require first names being exchanged. Not everyone wants to engage in as much mindless, soulless sex as they can as a means of finding “The One”. Courtship allows you to learn about the person: who they are, what they believe, what they are passionate about. With dating, the carrot at the end of the stick is a sexual encounter, but courtship’s carrot is marriage, after which you get to have intimate, meaningful, procreative sex with your spouse. Incidentally, studies show that married people have more and better sex than non-marrieds, though that perception is skewed by every mouthpiece of the culture. Don’t believe the hype.

• The goal of dating is temporary, while the goal of courtship is eternal.

Dating is tied up in the idea that your physical attraction for someone is enough to overcome any obstacle to your eventual happiness. Most people today have never sat down and taken stock of themselves: what they believe, what are their standards, what do they want for their life and how to accomplish that when it comes to the most important decision you can make in your adult life- who will share it with you. Dating keeps you in the moment. Courtship, in comparison, asks you to start with a certain standard. For our family, the requirements are pretty easy. The suitor (or when our son embarks upon this, the suitee) must be an Orthodox Christian in good standing, well-read, respectful, and willing to submit to the courtship gauntlet. Our daughter was saved from a great many awkward conversations from about the time she was twelve with creepy guys whose intentions she knew to be less than pure. She just “let them down easy” because they weren’t Orthodox, and certainly not even thinking about marriage. She has been raised to be a confident, self-assured young woman. This is because we aren’t looking at the person as one more in a long string of people that will cycle through our child’s life until they finally find The One. That right person may not be the first candidate, but I’d lay a bet that by courting they won’t be the twenty-first.

• Dating ignores the reality of human shortcomings while courting respects them.

Just because we raise our children to be pure and chaste, doesn’t mean that they aren’t human. Some things are as simple as chemistry. I don’t care how many Promise Ring ceremonies or how many True Love Waits studies you throw at the most well-intentioned person, if you give them voluminous unstructured alone time with someone that they find attractive, it is only a matter of time before holding hands progresses to a peck, a peck becomes a kiss, etc., etc. It is what we are designed for, and in this age, how many are really all that well-intentioned? Courting wisely keeps the physical to a minimum by having a chaperone around to keep things honest. We have done it both physically by hanging with the couple when they video chat or are in actual physical proximity, and we do this virtually, because they consent to the possibility of being spot-checked in their texting back and forth, too. Could they get around it? Absolutely. Where there is a will, there is a way. But the courting couple isn’t looking to buck tradition, and appreciates the support that is necessary to make their wedding night all that it should be. If you are putting this much effort in with a goal of chastity in mind, why would you shoot yourself in the foot?

• Dating is practice for divorce, while courtship is practice for marriage.

What is the life cycle of the unsuccessful dating couple? Find someone who is attractive and pleasant to be around. Creep them on Facebook. Creep their exes on Facebook. Hang out. Go drinking. Hook up. Get invested. Get irritated. Get bored. Break up. Repeat. If that is what you are practicing, is it any wonder that people then get divorced? With courtship, you discuss the issues that matter in depth before there is any plunge into emotion. Money, religion, raising children, political views- you know, the things that matter and that any marriage counselor will tell you are the things that people divorce over. Those issues that will sink the ship of the superficial relationship are hashed out or decided as grounds to dissolve and walk away before there are children and 50% of all future earnings on the line. What’s more is that the issues are discussed in the broader context of those who are older and, ostensibly, wiser. The habit being formed, instead of blowing up and breaking up, is that the couple can turn to grandparents, parents, and their clergy if they need the help of the wider community. They learn how to communicate productively, and how to stick.

There is so much more that I could say on this topic, and probably will continue to elaborate on in the future. Your children deserve so much more than the hook-up culture. It’s our job as parents to help our children find the “one that (their) soul loves”, which is a bit more of a weighty challenge than finding “that really hot guy/girl that other people will envy seeing me with”. We are warned that charm is deceitful and that beauty fades, but as you examine the dating culture, it doesn’t add up to much more than that. I am not saying that all people who date are doomed, but why create a huge, unnecessary obstacle to overcome, when a bit of structure and discipline can give the new couple a better foundation to build upon? The more happy marriages that can be fostered will lead to contented and more stable children. In the end, isn’t that a much better legacy to pass on than what our young people currently dread? So, no, though our family and friends solicitations were well-intended and tongue-in-cheek, we don’t need to do a series of background checks, we don’t need to clean any guns or swords around him, and we don’t dread “giving our daughter away”. This stage in our life and theirs is in the blessed, sacred order of God’s plan. How exciting is that?

Conquering the Internet Pornoculture

In a recent article found here- http://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/the-day-my-kid-found-hardcore-porn-on-his-iphone, a mother expresses her horror at discovering that her 10 year old was accessing porn on his phone. Now when I was a kid (oh, yeah, I went there), my phone consisted of two tin cans and some twine, and access to porn was a picture of tribal women from a National Geographic.  It’s easy to say “Really? Maybe the problem is that a 10 year old has a phone to begin with…”, but if you give your children access to anything that has internet capability and a wi-fi signal, this could be you. I can’t find the story right now, partially because it’s tricky to search about porn on the internet, but I remember reading that it takes about ten random clicks to accidentally access pornography online, and that’s without even trying. Have you ever known a kid to click and just keep clicking when they can’t figure out how to make Dora jump over the rock? I have.

The average age of first exposure to hard-core pornography is now 10 years old, thanks to iPhones, tablets, and laptops. Even if you think you’ve got it covered, check again. I regularly check browser histories, not because I suspect misuse, but because by doing so, I can hopefully prevent future problems. Since my 20 year old got her first social media account at the age of 17, she has always been required to provide passwords to her social media accounts and email. My 12 year old son isn’t allowed to play games on massively multi-player mode. We are the gatekeepers to our children’s eyes and ears which are the gateways to their souls. Even if it makes you unpopular at times, restrict their access to the internet unless there is an adult with them.

Computer access is the Pandora’s Box of the 21st Century. Father Seraphim Rose once said that pornography is the Devil’s iconography, and he reposed before the advent of internet porn. What is available to be seen today is absolutely unimaginable. This isn’t the stag film of your grandparents’ generation or the Playboys under your friend’s dad’s mattress, we are talking about your child’s first exposure to sex being something that in no way resembles what a mature, respectful, loving relationship looks like. It is violent, twisted, deviant, and vile. What they see scares them and rightfully so. Many of the people “performing” are mentally disturbed, drug addicted, acting only under compulsion of their handlers, and/or riddled with sexually transmitted infections that you can’t see. It is devoid of humanity by its very nature, and robs the viewer of their decency just for having watched it.

What we see can’t be unseen, and we will carry it with us for the rest of their lives. New studies that are coming out show some of the shocking repercussions from exposure to pornography, specifically what is found online. Did you know that your brain doesn’t distinguish between people you’ve “been with” in reality vs. virtually? Porn users can argue that it’s not adultery or promiscuity, but the human brain begs to differ. What’s more, many men who use porn are finding themselves functionally impotent, leading to the crazy consequence of doctors reporting a marked upsurge in the number of men in their twenties who are requesting Viagra. Why? Because a little bit of porn only goes so far. Studies report that users need more and more to get the same charge over time, and many people watch porn with multiple windows going at the same time, a virtual orgy, if you will. When they turn around and try to engage in physical intimacy with a real flesh-and-blood partner who 1) probably doesn’t look like a porn star, 2) needs more than the click of a mouse to turn them on, and 3) irritated you earlier when they left their wet towel on the floor AGAIN, and these guys find that they can’t perform. In other words, reality isn’t good enough. Men and women are undergoing plastic surgery on very delicate parts of their body to look like the cosmetically enhanced porn stars they are used to and report being repulsed by the unmodified reality of the human body.

How can we combat the seemingly overwhelming odds that our kids will be exposed to something at a young age that has successfully twisted many adults? We can try to make sure that they dwell on these things: whatever things are noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, and praise-worthy. Let’s be honest- most of what is on the internet doesn’t fit this bill, even the non-porn offerings. I know we can’t keep them innocent forever, but it is our duty as parents to keep them as innocent as we can for as long as we can. Be willing to be the unpopular parent of a technologically backward kid because they’re the only one of their friends without a smart phone or tablet. Make your house the unplugged house, where there is a basket by the front door for everyone to deposit their phone. Set the example. Don’t use technology as a babysitter so you can play on your phone or laptop. Designate certain hours of the day as “tech free”. Unplug and take the kids outside. Bake something. Take a bike ride. Spend a whole day with no technology. Most of our tech usage tends to be self-centered and self-aggrandizing. Spend multiple hours a day for a week working on a project for widows and orphans.

How can we follow God’s invitation found in 2 Corinthians to “come out from among them and be separate” if we can’t even be troubled to unplug long enough to raise our own children? The promise for doing this is so amazing: “I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God and they shall be My people.” This is a much more worthy goal for my child than to be the kid with the most trophies on Super Smash Brothers or the best collection of LOL Cats videos. The internet can be a life-stealer. We need to be bold enough to cut that allegorical hand off and cast it into the fire, if not for our own sake, then for our children and for consequent generations. I guarantee that on your death bed, you won’t be wishing you’d spent one more hour on Facebook.

True Love? Not Quite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsmUOdmm02A
Ok, so I know that I am at least one year late on this song, but I try, obviously rather successfully, to avoid mainstream culture because it becomes more toxic with each passing day. I heard this song on the overhead in a store yesterday, just playing for anyone to hear. Like most background music, it was ignorable enough, but had a catchy hook that grabbed my attention and made me listen up. Here are my observations:

Ladies, I understand Girl Power and all that good stuff, but if this song resonates with you, then you need to talk to the producers of Jerry Springer and at least get your 15 minutes of fame on daytime tv. What she describes is so dysfunctional, that it is beyond me that anyone would like this, even tongue-in-cheek. But it was her biggest hit last summer. What does that say about the state of gender relations between men and women? If you took this song and had a man sing it, would you find it plucky and cute? It’s abusive- and it’s scary that no one points that out. If this is reflective of the “battle of the sexes”, then it explains so much to me.

Largely thanks to no-fault divorce and the “liberation” of everyone’s sexuality, men and women hate and kind of fear one another. Why? Because they treat one another, individually and as a whole, like crap. Women regularly refer to men as just another one of their “kids” and give no respect or even try to find a way to speak to and treat a man in a way that would actually get through. They simply don’t care. They have been told their whole lives to go get what they want and don’t let anything or anyone stand in their way. They are like bulldozers, and who wants to try to snuggle up to that?

I think most people in the West go through this cycle where it seems like everyone in your life is getting married, then everyone is having kids, and I have arrived at the point where most everyone I know is getting divorced. Things have changed on that front, though. When I was a kid and my parents’ friends marriages were dropping like flies, it was because the men were having a “mid-life crisis” and had stepped out on their wife with some young thing, causing the break-up of the marriage. That is not the case anymore. In the three instances that spring readily to mind, the guys, while certainly not perfect, were trying to make things work. They were put through years of jumping through hoops and trying desperately just to make her happy. Then one day, they are served with divorce papers and she goes Crazy Train. She uses the kids as a weapon; she moves in with other men (or women, because whatever, right?); even though she makes more money than him, she constantly mismanages her own and requires more and more of his. The pendulum has swung, alright. Go Girl Power?

The upshot to all of this is that, if you take two steps back, you will realize why men would rather play video games or surf porn than try to have a relationship with a woman. Who the hell would sign up for that? Just leave your manhood on the dresser and she will put it in her purse until such time that she wants to throw your lack of it in your face. That’s the price of admission. They think it’s better not to have kids than to end up like their poor, sad sack buddy who now has to watch the revolving door of men with their ex- and their kids. And the courts completely back the harpy’s every move, leaving the men with no recourse.

I am not saying that it’s admirable for grown men to spend all of their time on Call of Duty, Farmville, or Pornhub, but I see why it happens. Both men and women are acting like absolute pigs. Feminism used to be about making sure women weren’t second-class citizens. Today, it’s about punishing men for being men. It’s about making men submit to whatever craziness (see Pink) that women want to throw at them. All heterosexual sex is rape? All the men better nod. Double standard that says a men should be happy to be a stay-at-home dad, but then runs him down for being a beta male? All the men should say “Amen!”

It’s scary to me, as the mother of four girls and a boy, to imagine my children trying to find functional spouses in the current climate. I want my kids to have a shot at having a loving marriage to a non-crazy person. We are feeling our way through how to do that, and it is very hard. We have to say “no” to things that our parents allowed us to do. We have to be willing to be counter-culture. What I know for sure is that my children aren’t being raised with “mainstream” values because wading into that stream is taking a dunk in the sewer. I know that whatever Pink thinks is “True Love”, couldn’t be farther from the truth.  I want them to experience the beauty of a Christian relationship, based on mutual respect and struggling together against the world, rather than making war on each other.

When the Holidays Are Too Much, Because They Aren’t Enough and Other Conundrums

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristen-howerton/can-we-bring-the-holidays_b_2903040.html

Above is an excellent rant that encapsulates the overwhelming expectations of the culture where holidays are concerned.  Are you feeling the drag of trying to keep up with the ridiculously overblown expectations your kids have picked up from the culture?

Reason #578 to Homeschool: We establish the expectations for holidays, and the Feast of St. Patrick had 1% to do with leprechauns (we watched Darby O’Gill and the Little People).  The rest of our day was spent discussing the saint and his work with the people of Ireland.  There was no green beer, no “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” green mardi gras beads.  We listened to Celtic music (both the authentic and the Disney fabricated “Brave” soundtrack that’s actually not that bad), and we talked to our kids about their Scotch/Irish heritage.  You don’t have to homeschool to celebrate the life of St. Patrick as it ought to be, but it certainly isn’t as much of an uphill battle.

To be fair, this observation of St. Patrick’s Day had it’s beginning as a reaction against a public school observance that our eldest was subject to when she was 8.  The teacher spent the two weeks leading up to the day creating “holiday magic” by leading the kids to believe that the Leprechauns were moving things when the kids were out of the room and other such mischief.  Pencil fell on the floor?  Leprechaun must have knocked it off when you weren’t looking.  Papers blew off the desk?  Darn Leprechauns.  “The Leprechauns” also moved name tags to different desks, hid crayons, and made messes FOR TWO WEEKS.  By the time March 17th came, the sadism of “the little people” had left my daughter anxious and jumpy all the time.  We only figured out what was going on when she brought home an excellent poem she had written about how much she hated “tricky and mean” Leprechauns.  The teacher probably thought this was creative and cute, but when you are 8 and an adult you trust very convincingly sells the insecurity of magical beings trashing your secure environment by upending the order that all kids strive for, that can be very upsetting.  Our daughter hated St. Patrick’s Day until we became Orthodox and “re-baptized” the holiday.

I think in the wake of three generations of family breakdown, most people are desperate for holiday traditions and meaning, but they have lost the compass for what really matters.  The echoes of traditions based in religious observance and family stability can be seen in Elf on the Shelf, Leprechaun Mania, and every other quasi-holiday that has been created and promoted by day cares, public schools, and “crafty mom” social media.  We know what we failed to have as children so, by God, we going to make sure our children have the best goodie bags for the 100th day of school.  In a culture of dysfunction, that is when we remember feeling important and valued as children, when we brought the “cool” treat that validated us.  So the celebration of a hundred meaningless holidays becomes a burden and a popularity contest with the bar perpetually being raised, because there is no real satisfaction gained in such superficial and material pursuits.  Where there is no spiritual depth, you will find a bottomless pit of desire for meaning.  That pit can only truly be filled with the pursuit of the Beauty, Truth, and Love that naturally springs out of the worship of God.

If you love making everyday a celebration, the Orthodox church and its traditions lend themselves to every crafty compulsion you might have.  Every day contains celebrations of multiple saints and miracles, and when we celebrate the “major” holidays, we really blow it out.  Fasting fosters not only spiritual depth and discipline, but a true appreciation of the feast.  There are hundreds of traditions that imbue meaning to some of the busywork that occupies some otherwise tedious trappings of the holidays that the wider culture observes.  Dyeing eggs?  What a ridiculous mess!  That is, until you understand the story of Mary Magdelene with the Emperor.  Now, what was just a chore becomes a lesson about the courage of this faithful mother of the faith.

Such depth and meaning can be found in so much of what Orthodox Christians as faithful keepers of tradition have to contribute to the observance of holidays.  In truth, when you have the joy that comes from understanding God through the ancient traditions of the Church, celebrating isn’t reserved to special days.  You can find reasons to celebrate moment to moment.  You realize that the celebration isn’t in the competitive Stuff that makes the holidays dreadful, but in the disposition of one’s heart and spirit that rejoices in every God-given breath you take.

“Who’s the Daddy?” and Other Normal Questions

Attention was recently brought to a biology assignment for ninth graders just outside of Detroit where the kids were given the task of trying to figure out the parentage of a child who was conceived in less than ideal circumstances.

“The 9th grade biology worksheet sent home with students this week featured questions about a mother trying to determine the identity of her baby’s father. Possible answers included: the cable guy, the mailman, the cab driver, the bartender and the guy at the club…. A parent sent the incomplete assignment back with the note: “We teach our children not to sleep around.”

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2014/02/12/whos-the-daddy-homework-assignment-prompts-parent-complaint/

And the State wants to review MY curriculum to make sure my kids’ standards of learning are sufficient. What a joke. I suppose we should be happy they weren’t using the Punnett squares to try to figure out the probability of having a girl vs. a boy to decide whether or not to opt for a sex selection abortion, but I digress.

This is one way deviant behavior is normalized and reinforced by the culture. If kids accept premises like these just to get through this one assignment to get the grade, what does that do to their thought process and their spirituality? It teaches them that it’s okay to compromise their values for material gain. It’s a spiritual death by a thousand cuts. After they have vaulted over that line in the sand “just a little bit” hundreds of times, they will arrive at adulthood with a somewhat pliable concept of what it means to be a moral agent. How can we presume to expect them to be willing to give their lives for Christ if THIS has been what they have practiced their entire academic lives? How can we teach them moral relativism in the small things, and then expect that they will give up everything- their comfort, their status, their very lives for Christ?

News flash to the parents in the news story: Your kids are in public school. They are likely being taught 40-60 hours a week to disregard you as an authority figure in exchange for acceptance from their friends and the power that they gain from pleasing their teachers. Do you really think that the 15 hours a week you get with them (when they aren’t doing homework, hanging out with friends, texting friends, online, or participating in school related activities) and their Wednesday night youth group/mandatory Sunday morning is going to move the needle as far as your influence on their spiritual growth goes? When you spend a majority of your time swimming in the sewage, hopping out from time to time might get you clean momentarily, but it won’t keep you from swallowing and ingesting large amounts of garbage. It also normalizes the sewage to where you are more comfortable wallowing in the filth. You do your children a disservice if you think this is an effective model to raise Christian children.

I am not bashing parents who have no other option but to have their kids in public school due to economic hardship or logistical considerations that make homeschooling or Christian school impossible. I pray for you and all the good Christian teachers who have chosen a vocation that means they do spiritual battle of Sisyphian proportions every day to try to build a hedge around all of the kids they encounter. I am looking at you, parents who delude yourselves into believing it’s not that bad. It’s that bad and worse. Don’t expect to teach your kids that it’s okay to compromise your values if it means you get to go to school dances, participate in sports where you can share the same mascot as the Old Man did, or be a cheerleader like Mom was. Homeschool groups and Christian schools have replicated some of these things, but it would be different than what you grew up with, and you want your kid to be “normal”.

The trends that are normative today have a very dark trajectory. Statistically “normal” kids today are spending a vast majority of their waking hours away from their parents. They are accessing porn virtually by age ten, which will eventually give them an encyclopedic knowledge of sex that would make a 20th Century prostitute blush. They will have at least one sexually transmitted infection by the time they are in college. They have no problem cheating on homework. They won’t be interested in marriage or children, but if they are, the chance of them having one spouse that doesn’t have children with someone else is highly unlikely. They think they can be spiritual and moral without religion.

Those of us with “abnormal” children have kids that have the confidence and educational foundation to independently study topics “just because” that interest them in the way doctorate students attack their chosen field. Abnormal children have an acute sense of right and wrong, based on the education they receive 40-60 hours a week that infuses Christian principles seamlessly into every school lesson, instead of “baby Daddy” questions. Even if my kid picks up a less-than-desirable friend from one of his extracurricular activities (oh, you know the ones), they are only spending approximately 15 hours in the week around them at most, and are securely anchored with their majority time in the values of our faith and our home. These weirdos are given autonomy to spend extra hours in their day pursuing art, music, sports, or engineering, and that’s what they want to do. They spend huge amounts of time happily with people who are all ages (not just within nine months of their own birthday or grade), of varying ability, gender, financial strata, and social position. They also tend to volunteer hours of their time in their community, not out of compulsion, but desire. Their faith infuses all that they do.

We are taught in Matthew 7 that the narrow gate leads to paradise, and the wide path that is traveled by many (normal?) people leads to destruction. Don’t be afraid to allow your children (or yourself) to be abnormal, if it is to the glory of God. May my children always be weirdos!