Saving Our Children's Purity, Part II

I started with Part I here, which might be helpful to read first. Because of the deeply personal nature of this post, I previewed it with Big Girl and obtained her permission to post it as it appears for you below.

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"Do you want to sit down?" I asked her as she stood by our bed.

She sighed. "Yes. This could take a while."

And so began the torrent of tears. Big Girl is going to a NET Ministries presentation with the youth group from church, and I'm going to a Moms' Night Out. So Travel Man is taking Little Girl on a date. She wants to go see Megamind.

Unfortunately, we'd told Big Girl that we probably wouldn't go see it because it's expensive to go to the movies (all four of us) and we've been kinda spendy for the last few months. So she's upset that she isn't seeing a movie she wants to see, but Travel Man is taking her sister to go see it.

But that's the tip, and it was abandoned almost immediately for the more pressing issues: that we aren't letting her have a boyfriend or a cell phone or to go on a "date" with a boy she likes.

I had to really, really think about this. Because there's something WRONG with a 12 year old having a boyfriend. (The cell phone thing, we determined pretty quickly, was a battle she knew she wasn't going to win, but she wanted to vent about it since she thinks everyone sees her as a total freak for not having one.) That, and she was tired of school. It's hard in seventh grade, suddenly there's a lot of history and writing and these are both new - at least in the quantity that they're coming in.

But, back to the boyfriend thing. It's WRONG, for sure, but I couldn't put my finger on it. On the fly, I prayed my favorite prayer to pray when I'm in trouble and need immediate input.

"HELP!!!"

It's actually quite effective.

Travel Man had handled the movie thing already, and I suddenly had my answer for the boyfriend issue.

"If you have a boyfriend now, what's left for later?"

"Huh?"

"If you start dating now, at 12, and you have a boyfriend, what's left to happen later, say, in four years?"

"I have a deeper relationship with him later."

Oh, horrid words! She has NO IDEA what that means to a 16 or 17 year old boy!! She's so innocent!

Trying not to cringe, trying not to pull punches, I finally realize that I have to let her have the information I didn't really think I'd need to share with her for years. But, let's face it: she's not me. She's not, at 12, the size of her nine year old sister. She's not bespecled, she has no acne. She isn't a "carpenter's dream." She's not so socially awkward that she sometimes hides from people she knows in public so she doesn't have to say hi to them. She is BEAUTIFUL and smart and funny and confident and outgoing and did I mention beautiful? (Protecting her innocence might be a real nightmare for my poor husband.)

When I was 12, boys ignored me. Unless it was to throw gypsy moth caterpillars at me. I liked being ignored better.

Not Big Girl. She's amazing. She's who I wanted to be at 12. And now I see God's wisdom and protection in the late-blooming nature of my whole life.

I have to tell her that the "deeper relationship" very often turns to sex. Girls lose their virginity. They have babies. Her aunt delivered a baby for a mother who was my precious Big Girl's age. The culture is a cesspool, and even though I do everything I can to protect her, and even though she obeys me without question when we're walking through the mall and I order the girls to "look down quick!" so we can run a gammet of disgusting pictures and displays in shops, stuff is there. And it seeps in. And for boys, it is FAR worse! I try to explain as best as I can without details, that the visual makes boys' and men's brains fire like mad. Her dressing modestly protects not only her, but also the boys she knows. That it's scary-hard for those boys who want to remain pure for their future wives because the cesspool is EVERYWHERE. I get frantic (partly to snap her out of her hysterics, partly because, dammit, I've been holding this in for years): I can't walk through the mall without eight six-foot by four-foot signs of women in their underwear being plastered in front of SANTA CLAUS AT THE MALL! I can't check out at Wal Mart without magazines discussing things that children should never see! I don't mention that I'm sick of pedophiles designing clothes that try to make my innocent girls look like hookers. But she starts to see a little.

I explain again:

"Honey, if you start dating now, you have a boyfriend now, in four years, if you want to show your love, what's left? Where do you go?" Now she's just staring at me, wide-eyed. "Honey, those boys are so pressured now ... "

Here I turn to my patient husband, who's been listening to me try with all my might to help her understand what I'm protecting her from without actually going too far.

"Honey, it's worse now. How bad was it for you when you were a boy?"

"Awful. And now is just as bad, and I'm an old married guy."

I turn back to my wide-eyed daughter.

"Big Girl, sweetheart, those boys are so pressured into thinking that the way you express that deeper love is to give up your virginity. That is so dangerous for so many reasons, but let's remember the most important is that it puts your very soul in mortal danger. After being with someone for three, four years, you WANT to show them how much you love them. But you can't get married when you're 16."

She's already said that she wasn't going to do that. But I know better. Sadly, I know better.

"When you wait to have a real boyfriend until you're 16, then when that three or four years go by and you want your love to be deeper, then you're *ready to be married*! And that's why we don't want you to have a boyfriend. Because you need to save that special time for when you are ready, emotionally, to have a boyfriend."

At this point, she was starting to feel a little overwhelmed. She started getting silly, laughing a little, and changing the subject. I pressed her for an answer, though. "Even if you don't totally agree, do you at least *understand* our reasons now?" She did.

And, at 11:45 PM, she skipped upstairs to go back to bed.

Saving Our Children's Purity, Part I

Our family is weird by today's standards. In more ways than one.

The first oddity is our undying devotion to the Catholic Church and all she passes on to us from God. Yes, all. No, we don't think women priests are a good idea - it can't even be done. No, we don't think that contraception is okay sometimes. No, we don't think that abortion is okay in the cases of rape and incest - those babies are not guilty of anything. No, we don't think that homosexuals are able to get married. Yes, we love our priests and bishops and the Holy Father. We pray for them all, and we obey the Church, even when it's hard. That not only makes us weird in the general world out there, it also makes us weird to a lot of Catholics. That makes me a bit sad, but that's life, you know?

Next comes our strange decision to keep our kids with us at home and teach them here. Homeschooling is more accepted than it was 15 years ago, and I am so grateful for the parents who fought so hard to gain reclaim our right to be the primary educators of our own children. The Church teaches that all parents are their children's primary educators, and when I applied for the religious exemption in our state, I referred to this right in my explanation of why I'm homeschooling. It's a God-given right for me to teach my children, to have them educated how I see fit, in order that they gain Heaven.

Even though homeschooling is not frowned upon by most people any more (thanks, Tebow family!), we are still looked at askew sometimes by parents who cannot imagine having their children around them 24/7.

Me? I like my girls. I love having them around, and it's not because I want to shelter them. They're really neat people. They're funny and smart and witty and great to be around. I feel a little bad for parents who don't like being with their kids. I feel bad for the kids, too, because if your parents don't like you, who will?

But anyway, we are weird for homeschooling. We do things like have school in our PJ's sometimes, or take field trips that last a week, like when my parents took them on a field trip to Washington, DC. Or take tours of old churches as part of school. We read Shakespeare and the kids make my husband and I act out the balcony scene in Romeo & Juliet, or the scene in Juliet's tomb, with me lying on the couch while my husband pretends to stab himself and die on the living room floor. Because doing that while your third-grader cheers you both on is really not very normal. (It should be. Lemme tell you what, ladies. Try acting out that balcony scene with your husband and then try containing yourself until the kids are in bed! WHEW!)

We're also weird because we shelter our kids from a lot of things we feel they aren't ready for. Things that are now considered normal for kids to have or do. While they do have access to a computer for schoolwork, both girls have parental controls on the internet browser that limits where they can go. Neither of them are allowed on YouTube to just watch videos, even of stuff we think might be okay. (You NEVER know what those "related videos" will be!) They are not allowed to have Facebook accounts, which is not a big deal for the nine year old, but does make the 12 year old look strange to her friends.

They don't have cell phones, either. Oh, there have been times when they're away all day on a Youth Group trip or a dance rehearsal where we'll loan them a phone (Travel Man has a work cell and a personal cell). But they don't have their own. And they won't for a long time. We've said to them both that we'll start the discussion when they turn 16 and start doing things like drive and work. Until then, they'll live. Heck, I didn't have a cell phone until I was in my 20's, and I lived. I'm sure they won't implode.

This is actually something we've had to really explain - not to other parents, usually. The ones who say anything are usually the ones who lament the day they bought a cell phone for their child. The ones who have no regrets don't usually try to persuade us; maybe we look like we just don't care what they think. But to the kids, and especially to Big Girl, who is blazing the path and has to be the first one to ask for everything.

The thing is, there is an unrestricted internet on that phone. And texting. And calls to who-knows-who. Frankly, I don't let them just call anyone on the house phone, or just start sending emails to just anyone. (As a matter of fact, the kids are white-listed on their email accounts. Each new address sent to or received from must be approved by a parent first. Permissions can also be rescinded.) But with a cell phone, that's impossible to control. Not only can I not control much who's called, I cannot control who is sending messages to my girls. And, while at 12 and 13 that's probably not a concern, I know what happens when hormonal teenagers have cell phones with video, still cameras, and an unlimited texting and messaging plan. And why take the risk of exposing them to any of that early? At this point, neither of them have enough sense to know who should have their phone numbers. I know they'd give them out to everyone they're friends with!

Now, it's super-hard to protect their purity when we go out. I'm not even talking about the mall, where we avoid an entire section to avoid Victoria's Secret's gigantic soft-p*rn window-display posters. I'm talking about walking between Spencer's and a T-shirt place where my kids have almost nowhere to look without taking the chance of them seeing something vile. I'm talking about Wal Mart's checkout line where Cosmo sits, usually without the blinders, proclaiming that it has great ideas for … well, you know. But while Cosmo is still out in front on the smut parade, even the more tame magazines display big headlines about being sexy and the gossip magazines talk brazenly about hook-ups, shack-ups, break-ups, and babies out of wedlock as though it's all peachy-keen, hunky-dory, good and healthy stuff.

And teen girls are being pressured to start dating earlier and earlier. You're a loser if you don't have a boyfriend when you're 12. If you're not getting to go out alone with that boyfriend by 13 or 14, you're just really a weirdo. Don't forget to wear that sexy outfit! Lace leggings and a miniskirt! Yippee!

*barf*

This Culture of Death is trying to dress my girls like hookers, push them into dating early, and then will throw condoms at them and tell them that they just can't help themselves because they've got hormones and stuff and gosh if you love him then why not it's just sex and everyone does that eventually get that virginity thing out of the way and have you seen Sex and the City yet?

*double barf*

Well-meaning people have asked me, "What's the big deal? To her, having a boyfriend means they sit together and like each other."

I had to think a lot about what that means. Not to her, but for real. What, in real life, does it mean to have a boyfriend? Where does it lead? What is the reason people date? Do I even WANT her dating, or do we want more of a courtship situation? There is something I don't like about it, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

I've been praying since my Big Girl was born about how to answer these questions - and questions about growing up and human sexuality - because I needed to be ready with good, clear answers with reasons behind them that I could explain. My answer had to be more than "No," and "Because I said so."

I was finally confronted with having to give answers recently, and I'll share those answers with you in Part II.

(UPDATE: Part II can be found here.)

Wordless Wednesday: 40 Days for Life

Our family went to a 40 Days for Life candlelight vigil two days before the official kick-off. It was frigid out there. This was on Monday, February 15, at 6 PM; we were standing outside one of the local Planned Parenthood clinics in our area.

This particular picture is my younger daughter, who is 8. Both of my girls participated with me last 40 Days, and they'll both participate again this 40 Days.

Please keep 40 Days for Life and all those involved in your prayers, and pray for an end to abortion. For more information on 40 Days for Life and how you can be involved, please go to their site. You can also sign up for email updates (they'll come each morning). So far, I've seen two updates from our local vigil in the emails!

Blustery Day

It's been our plan to meet as a family on Fridays during Lent to pray outside our local Planned Parenthood. It's a part of 40 Days for Life.

Today, Travel Man and I decided it would not be a good idea for us to go outside this afternoon, especially for the girls. Here's why:

So we'll be meeting in spirit instead.

Big Girl is altar serving at a funeral Mass that begins at 11, and then we'll stay at the chapel - near Christ in the tabernacle - to say a Rosary for the success of the 40 Days campaign.

Think that prayer doesn't help? Or that standing outside Planned Parenthood, merely praying, won't do anything?

Think again:

Learn more about the 40 Days for Life, and please join us, even if only in prayer.

40 Days of Lent - 40 Days for Life

40 Days for Life will be beginning on Ash Wednesday and going through Palm Sunday. If you are looking for something you can do (as opposed to merely giving up) for Lent, this is an excellent program to join.

How do you get involved? Well, there are a few things you can do. First, and most importantly, you can pray. You can fast, as well, but prayers are so needed. And, believe it or not, this is as important - if not more important - than being at the clinics bearing witness.

But you can do that, too. For 40 days, people across the country in 165 cities will be bearing prayerful witness outside abortion clinics. We will pray not only for the children lost to abortion each day, but for those children's families and for the clinic workers inside.

Don't doubt the power of the prayers we offer. Abby Johnson doesn't doubt them any longer. And she's not the only person who has been touched, whose heart has been changed.

We don't do that, you know. We can't. It's God's work. But we are His hands.

Join us, please. If you can't be physically present, please consider fasting and praying for the intentions of 40 Days for Life throughout Lent.

[image source]

When the Choices Given to You Aren't Compatible with Life

I've actually seen this site before, and it deserves much more attention than my small-potatoes blog will give it, which is why it's so wonderful to see KJL on National Review highlighting it.

For parents who receive a prenatal diagnosis that is not in the norm, most online resources seem to be firmly set in the Culture of Death. How to deal with the aftermath of aborting a wanted child and such. (The fact that this site honors George Tiller is pretty disturbing to me.) But for a long time, there were not sites that were firmly set within the Culture of Life.

Be Not Afraid is that site. It's a support site for parents who love their children and are choosing life for them. Parents who are facing a difficult journey ahead, but who are not shirking from it.

One of my favorite parts of the article (linked below) is the following:

"If you are a scared parent who has just returned from a doctor’s visit that brought bad news about your unborn child and log onto your computer and search for “anencephaly,” she wants you to have alternatives. She wants you to know that other parents have been at the point you are. She wants you to know that you can face your pregnancy. And if your doctor won’t help you, she’ll help you find a doctor. Even if you’re in England, she’ll try.

[Monica] Rafie, you see, has been there. She and her husband were told that her daughter would be “incompatible with life.” Today she is a “vibrant” second-grader preparing for her First Communion. It took “grace and a series of surgeries,” but her daughter is alive at eight years old, quite compatible with life and a blessing to her family, despite her initial prognosis. There’s “a whole group of parents that need to be reached out to,” Rafie says. And so she tries."

Read the rest of the article here:

Parents, Be Not Afraid - Kathryn Jean Lopez - National Review Online

Oh, one last thought from the article. It's something Rafie said, and it is true, so it deserves to be repeated again and again.

“The baby who could die anyway has the same dignity as any other baby.”

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Today's March for Life

Because of some BIG scheduling conflicts this weekend, we were unable to go to the March for Life this year.

Instead, I'm marching VIRTUALLY.

Sign up at the link below to do so. You even get to pick an avatar. Don't worry about the clothes, since the weather is always perfect in cyberspace. (Yes, I actually looked them over and thought, "None of them are dressed warm enough for this weather." I know. I'm pathetic.)

This Makes Me Want to Cry...

Aggie Catholics has an interview with an abortion doctor (should I use "scare quotes" around that?) focusing on the 40 Days for Life. There are portions that are eye-opening, and anyone who sees contraception as okay, but abortion as not okay, needs to check this out.

Here's a snippet:

Q: Your website describes abortion as an "important medical procedure." Can you expand on that?

Well, it's a philosophical question. But to us, ethically, having an early abortion and taking birth control pills are the same procedure, because certain types of birth control prevent the development of a fertilized egg and leads to miscarriage.

If you consider a fertilized egg a pregnancy, which religious people do, then taking certain birth control pills is just as much an abortion as anything else. It's somewhat interesting that many people who would demonstrate against an abortion service think nothing of taking birth control pills. Ethically, you cannot differentiate between the two.

Second, in a certain patient population, an early abortion is a safer, better birth-control method than even taking birth control pills. So, from a medical point of view, there is no scientific or ethical argument that you could come up with against early pregnancy termination. As long as humans have recreational sex they will need abortion. As long as some pregnancies are abnormal, we will need abortion. You can't get around it.

Honestly, it makes me want to cry. It makes me a bit physically sick.

On the other hand, our new pastor, Father K., will be participating in the 40 Days campaign - personally - on two occasions that he asked to be "our parish's" days.

Please, please pray for Father K. (and all priests). Satan hates our priests, and especially hates ones as dedicated to the Magisterium as Father K. is. The spiritual attacks on our priests are horrible, and I'm sure none of us want to experience those for ourselves. I'm certain that many of the priests who are criticized for being dissidents have suffered great attacks that they simply were not ready for.

Pray for our priests! (Here is an image of the card, front and back, with a beautiful prayer. Won't you consider praying this prayer at the end of your Rosary, along with the Saint Michael prayer?)

Special night for Hidden Valley's homecoming queen | WSLS 10

What a fantastic story!

"18-year-old Ashton Trescott was born with down syndrome, diagnosed with Autism at an early age, and just recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's"

And now, she's been crowned her high school's homecoming queen.

Change Your View

Carl Anderson, Worthy Knight, has some words for us to remember as we read the Holy Father's New encyclical, which teaches us about Catholic Social Justice (or, specifically, charity - love).  In an article found at Headline Bistro, we see that Anderson lives up to his title of Worth Supreme Knight:

Pope's new encyclical asks us to re-examine foundation of the economy:

"'Commentators,' Anderson says, 'should avoid trying to analyze the pope’s document from their own perspectives or through a political lens. Pope Benedict XVI's comments in this encyclical, like his writing on the economy previously, concern the need for an ethical underpinning in order for any economic system to be sustainable. An ethical underpinning to economic systems must transcend politics.'

Another reaction that Anderson warns against is reading the encyclical and then 'asking not how it validates our worldview.' Instead, he suggests asking how one's worldview should change in response to the document." [all emphasis added -ed.]

This is important for everyone to remember - not just Catholics who lean to the Left politically OR Catholics who lean to the Right.

I have only printed off the encyclical so far, and will most likely be reading it on vacation, but I'm really looking forward to it.  If you haven't read the Holy Father's other encyclicals, please click through below and check them out.  Yes, I mean non-Catholic readers, too.  There is so much for us all to learn from Pope Benedict XVI!

* Deus Caritas Est (On Christian Love - God is Love)

* Spe Salvi (Saved by Hope)




Please browse my eBay items. Thank you.

IT'S HERE!!

No...not the Wells Fargo Wagon...

"Caritas in veritate"

"ENCYCLICAL LETTER
CARITAS IN VERITATE
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
BENEDICT XVI
TO THE BISHOPS
PRIESTS AND DEACONS
MEN AND WOMEN RELIGIOUS
THE LAY FAITHFUL
AND ALL PEOPLE OF GOOD WILL
ON INTEGRAL HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
IN CHARITY AND TRUTH"

Notre Dame's Response (Students, That Is)

I am sure I can find it if I look, but anyone who knows the time of graduation (and perhaps the time the president is to speak), please leave it in the com boxes.  I'd like to be sure to pray a Rosary while he's speaking.

Pro-Life in the House (Updated with Forgotten Links)

Though the show occasionally makes me want to pull my hair out, Travel Man and I really enjoy watching "House."  I think it's a vicarious thing: he says whatever comes to mind without care if it bothers anyone else.  Sometimes you just wish you could say stuff, but social contracts (and manners) tell us "no."  

He's really a sad case, Dr. Gregory House, but it's an interesting show.  A bit predictable, but what do you want?  It's television.  

This past week, we watched what was probably the MOST pro-life show we've ever seen - from anyone.  And I'm not even sure if the writers intended it to be that way.  

This post will contain spoilers, so if you've got "House" stored up on the DVR, then skip this one and come back when you've watched it.

You've been warned.  

Go away now if you don't want to see the entire plot.

Last chance!

Okay, here we go.

The show opens in the patient's perspective.  Doctors and nurses appear, blurry, slightly out-of-focus, mumbling.  Everything goes dark, then it all comes back in a slightly different setting.  Still mumbling, not clear.  Finally, we see a doctor who says, "He'll make a good heart donor."

 

The focus becomes sharper as we hear a voice cry out, "No!  I'm not dead!  I'm right here! Listen to me!  Listen!  I'm not dead!"  Yet the doctors cannot hear.  

Dr. House comes in from the side, and tells the doctor that he doesn't think the patient is brain dead, despite the incredibly low brainwaves that typically denote a lack of cerebral function.  However, House isn't AT his hospital.  He's a patient in the ER there.  And this doctor is not interested in his opinions.  House insists that the patient is in there somewhere.  "If he's brain dead, how come his eyes are following you?"

So far, we have nothing but the patient's perspective, and, quite frankly, it's a bit scary.  He's in there, trying to communicate, agreeing with House, begging for a reprieve from his death sentence.  

His wife is brought in, and she's tearful.  House appears again, in a hospital gown, and tells her (not that anyone asked him) that her husband is NOT brain dead.  He's in there, but has "locked in syndrome," which is preventing him from speaking to them.  The patient thinks/says, "I like him.  Make him my doctor!"  She looks at her husband with doubt, and House insists.  He asks a question, tells him to blink once for yes, twice for no.  When the patient responds, we know he's in there, and we know he'll be in the care of Dr. House soon.

Throughout the show, House is compelled to find a way to save this man, restore his communication abilities, and give him back to his family.  The man sees this as a gift from God, but House sees it as interesting (and nothing more).  House is accidentally doing the right thing.

All throughout the show, we are put again and again in the patient's body, thinking thoughts of love and desperation to family, begging doctors for help, crying out in pain.  None of it is heard at all.  When his children come to visit (after he blinks twice for no so his wife doesn't bring them to see him this way), he realizes that his wife is afraid he will die and has brought the children to see him "one last time."  Another doctor hurries the family out, then leans down and says, "You were crying..."  Your heart just breaks for this man, trapped inside of himself.

House works like mad to save him and release him from the prison that is his body, and finally does it.  But, as I said before, House's motivation is to break the code, solve a puzzle.  To him, the patient is a puzzle, not a human being.  But the man knows better.  "God sent you," he says to House at the end.  

The idea here, the whole thing, was so amazingly pro-life that we saved the episode to watch again.  With all the talk of "quality of life" and "brain death" and whether or not organ donors are really and truly gone when their organs are harvested, this episode was very, very timely.  We were forced into the situation, forced to think about what it might be like to be that person that doctors said was beyond hope, beyond recovery.  But, as the Anchoress is fond of saying, doctors don't know everything.  And they are sometimes wrong.  There are many people out there who prove this every day.  And many people whose lives, on paper, look like they'd be frightening and unfulfilling and pointless, but are not.

Locked-In Syndrome is real, too.

One more amazing thing here.  This episode was aired on Monday, March 30, the day before the fourth anniversary of the murder of Terri Schaivo, who was not ill, did respond to her parents and family, and was heartlessly dehydrated to death over a painful, two-week-long process.  

What might her thoughts on the situation have been?

[image source]

Amazing...

At Shoved to Them, we find a story about the sixth child reacting to his big brother, #5, who screams suddenly, startling #6 out of a nap and causing him to cry.  On the surface, this sounds like a boring, everyday story. 

But #6 won't be born for five months yet.

Read the whole thing (especially the insensitive nurse), but here's my favorite part:

Then came the midwife with the ultrasound machine. (Hooray!) The children all piled around me to get their first peek at our littlest one.


It was clearly sleeping. Nestled in peacefully and curled up in the fetal position. Then the machine beeped and #5 screamed.

#6 threw its arms wide in the classic infant startle. Then, the little hands flew instinctively up to cover the ears from a big brother's offensive racket.

The little face turned towards the direction of the crying brother, and it's mouth opened slightly. Then, its chin began to quiver. Clearly, obviously crying.

What a beautiful story!

[image source]

Wuv...Twoo Wuv...

Hat tip to Jean at Catholic Fire for this lovely video.

GIving an Effective Speech

Big Girl is going to be working on how to give a speech in English this week and next.  I'm going to show her this video to show her what can be done.  After all, Big Girl is nearly ten and a half, and this girl is twelve.

I Saw These Cameras!

The one high shot of the March (as it turns between the Capitol and the Supreme Court) - we saw that camera and wondered who it was.  I knew it wasn't the mainstream media!

Time to budget for a movie, I think.

Thine Eyes: March for Life 2009

What Is Love? (A Valentine's Day Meditation)

Found via First Things:

...These days, I epitomize the “in sickness” part of the wedding vows that Deb and I took back in 1981. Since we learned last April that I have prostate cancer, I’ve had my prostate removed, found out that the cancer was shockingly aggressive, undergone a 33-session course of radiation and am finishing up hormone therapy.

Right now, I’m not quite what you’d call “a catch.” I wear man-pads for intermittent incontinence, I’m a bazaar of scars, and haven’t had a full erection in seven months. Most nights, I’m in bed by 10. The Lupron hormone shots, which suppress the testosterone that can fuel prostate cancer, have sent my sex drive lower than the stock market, shrunken my testicles, and given me hot flashes so fierce that I sweat outdoors when it’s 20 degrees and snowing.  ...

Read the whole thing here. And ponder what love really is, and how you can find the Culture of Life with death staring you in the face.

Wow

Just ... wow.

March for Life, Part 5

Naturally, there were lots of Catholics there.

More pictures on the way, including the bravest people at the March, bar none.