Purple Pilled

It has been a month and a half since I've had any nicotine in my system. Thanks be to God. Building on the momentum of paying more attention to my health now that I'm over 40, I decided in solidarity with my wife to follow the whole food-plant based diet recommended to her by her Napro doctor to help us get and stay pregnant. So no meat, no dairy (and no caffeine). Pretty extreme on the surface, but also pretty beneficial in a lot of ways.

We've been feeling pretty good on the diet for a few weeks now, and I've even lost some weight too. But I'm not immune to temptation. When I saw an ad for two dozen donuts for $13 on Friday the 13th, I got a hankering so strong that I drove to the nearest Krispy Kreme store (half an hour away!), bought two dozen donuts, and ate five in a sitting. Mea maxima culpa. 

There's nothing wrong with a Krispy Kreme donut here and there every once in a while. But as I was chatting with a buddy on the phone this evening, he made a comment that stuck with me: 

"The Devil takes a good thing and takes it to extremes."

He is right. I should mention that this buddy of mine is just a good hearted, sensible Catholic guy. He has been my kind of 'canary in a cage' the past year or so. He was feeling social media wasn't such a good thing for him last year, and jumped off. He got me thinking about that, and a few months later I had departed as well. He also was a measured sense of reason when it came to issues of talking about the vax, and because I trusted his intent and sense of reason which seemed to square with my own, I put a good bit of stock in what he had to say. And we both have been feeling pretty disillusioned with the #metradtoo tribal movement of Extra-Catholica Catholicism, though we both attend and love TLM. 

We've both noticed that a lot of Catholic big name trads are starting to really drift towards the fringes and/or gone off the rails. These are the Red Pilled Catholics (as opposed to Blue Pilled "normies") who have woken up to the matrix of Novus Ordo beige Catholicism, and have added healthy doses of anti-mask/anti-vax/anti-pope/anti-NWO extra-catholica toppings to their faith. Which is fine, except that the fence around the property tends to get built up pretty high as a consequence so that new-comers feel they need to don the extra apparel to make an appointment. I've been trying to figure it out, but maybe it's just what my friend said, 

"The Devil takes a good thing and takes it to extremes."

I think the drug of followings+social media+sometimes monetization equates with the temptation towards consistently having to raise the bar to get them clicks. We were talking about organizations like Catholic Answers and their apologists, who are on pretty solid ground catechetically, and I mentioned how they can be sensibly 'boring' (in a good way) in that they don't sensationalize the faith or its claims. The same goes for slow steady financial growth through passive investing in boring, low-cost index funds versus, say, riding the wave of bitcoin mining or margin-calls. "Boring" in these scenarios is not a pejorative; in fact, it's a laudable expression of the underrated virtues of prudence, temperance, and moderation. 

So what's with the title of this post? What is a purple pill? I'm not sure, as I just made it up for those who maybe, like me, are feeling a lil' mix of Normie and Eyes Wide Open. If we were presented by Morpheus with a choice of Faith OR Reason ("You can only choose one")....well, it's a non sequitor for a Catholic, is it not? What does it mean to be saved by faith AND works? Live by faith AND reason? Tradition AND scripture? Or even just the way the saints who lived in sanctity and the mind and heart of Christ (Red Pilled) but who were still walking among and serving the "normies" on this earth who have not yet finished the race and been crowned with Eternal Life.

I see some of these Red-Pilled folk and maybe it's just like staring at the sun for too long; prudence dictates we protect our eyes during a solar eclipse. Even the saints who experienced the ecstasy of the Divine did so often in glimpses, rather than engulfment 24/7.

But then I'm also living among a sea of Blue-Pilled people asleep at the wheel, even in the Church. I've seen too much, peered down on my knees into too many rabbit holes to know that I can't be an ostrich with his head in the sand. And yet I still need to live my daily life, provide a salary, raise my kids, love my wife, serve my community.

My counter to my friend's claim is that there is, in fact, one thing that we should be extreme in, and that is love. We are living through Mt 24:12, a time where what is written is being fulfilled, "because of the abundance of evil, the love of many will grow cold." And so we must be extreme in love to become saints. But extremes in religious posturing, red-pilled postings, hard-core judgments, doomsday prepping and predictions, I'll take a pass. We are to be wise as serpents AND innocent as doves. Maybe I'll try my hand at being a red-pilled Normie and see how far I get. 

Reasoned Order and Creative Mess

Attending a large R1 research institution as an undergrad, I was surrounded by engineers. My parents were math teachers. My brothers are engineers. My roommate was an engineer. We hate what we don't understand, and for the life of me I couldn't understand or relate to the left brain and so loathed it on campus.  For a quick general breakdown, those who are predominately left or right brain might be characterized by the following:

Left Brain:

• Logical
• Focused on facts
• Realism predominates
• Planned and orderly
• Math-and-science minded

Right Brain:

• Emotional
• Focused on art and creativity
• Imagination predominates
• Occasionally absentminded
• Enjoys creative storytelling

The thing is, when I became Catholic my freshman year and joined the Newman center, obviously there were a mix of these "logical, fact-focused, math & science planned and orderly realists" among people of faith in the Catholic community. And of course there are degrees of both hemispheres in individual people.

As a predominately right-brained person, I feel a little self-conscious in a more traditional community because of the way I am. But I have grown to appreciate the order and predictability of the Old Mass, and have no tolerance for liturgical "creativity" that I experienced in the Novus Ordo. I find liturgical dance, spoken word, improvisation and such things cringe worthy.  I never felt at home in the Charismatic movement, or Praise & Worship type services. 

 I'm in a strange period now where I am leaning on the order and predictability of the ritual and assent to faith while grinding through a creative and imaginative dry spell--in writing, in my worship and prayer life, and just my life in general. And thank God it's there. I don't get off on it the way left-brain Catholics who geek out on liturgical nuances or theological tit-for-tats might, but I appreciate it. I may be checking the boxes, but I'm ok with that for now. 

Albert Einstein once said, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a world that honors the servant, but has forgotten the gift.” I find this to be true in what the world values. 

In the movie "Romero," the Archbishop is invited to the home of a well-to-do couple. Pleasantries are exchanged, and then the businessman husband/father lays into Archbishop Romero in the kitchen:

"You religious people ...You live in your souls. You do not understand what we do ...producing, selling, bringing dollars in...Capital, to develop the country, to create jobs ...to build a prosperous economy. That is what affects people. But for that we must have law and order."

Succeeding in the world is a wholly pragmatic affair, one I never really caught on to, as I'm sometimes reminded. I never did any internships, got a useless degree, for ten years I thought I would be a monk, I never made much money and never really cared, don't have much to show for a career. But I've always prayed, and I know God is faithful. I know it is not a futile endeavor...but that itself takes faith. 

My primary sins, as a right-brained creative/imaginative type, often comes by way of impulse--if I fall, I fall hard but don the sack cloth and ashes in tears as well. I live in my heart, not my head. This is why I love the King Davids over the King Sauls, and the Peters over the Thomas.' Were I to be tempted by apostasy, I think it would be at the hand of hurt, rather than issues of belief or doctrine. 

Although it is only speculation (since I have a hard time understanding them), I wonder if the sins of the left-brained type people differ in nature. What are there primary temptations? Do they struggle with reason? With Pharisaism? With the 'sins of certainty?'--of thinking that "if i just do x, God will do y"? Of the logical progression of right belief+right worship=sanctity? I don't know! I want to ask them!

In the early centuries of the Church, most of there heresies revolved around the nature of Christ. Adoptionism, Docetism, Apollinarianism, Arianism, Monophysitism among others wrestled with how GOD could become MAN and possess two distinct natures, which are united but not combined. 

Christ as perfect man had a distinct sex (male) but embodied the totality of human nature as well: he wept, he longed to gather his people as a hen gathers her chicks, he expressed tenderness and empathy. He sought to short-circuit the law-minded ways of thinking (by his teaching, by parables, by his witness in washing feet and healing on the Sabbath) to raise the disciples' heads to the work of grace. 

St. Paul for his part was a radical zealot of the law who became the Apostle of grace. Grace is messy! Not always neat and orderly! Paul's road to Damascus moment was a blinding subjective encounter with Christ which literally knocked him from his (high?) horse. The law counts for nothing, according to Paul.

And yet for Traditionalists, there is comfort in the spiritual equations: if I say A, I merit B. If I practice X, my children will grow up Y. If I believe and check the right boxes, I can rest assured in certainty that God will not abandon me. Perhaps this is the 'sin of certainty' that leaves no room for the creative action of God to actualize our reality in a way that doesn't make logical sense. You see the antithesis to this line of reasoning in the life of David in 2 Sam 12:21-23:

His attendants asked him, “Why are you acting this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!”

 He answered, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.’ But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”

But sometimes God does leave us alone, withdrawing from us and leaving us to the mystical 'dark night,' which for the left-brained can (I imagine) be a bit of a disconcerting place to be. In the same way I have no affinity and cannot understand St. Thomas Aquinas as a right-brained creative, a left-brained believer may struggle to relate to the boundary breaking ecstasies of the St. John of the Cross's and St. Teresa of Avilas. 

I think for right-brained, creative types, it is good to learn and establish order and right worship from the beginning to learn how to 'color within the lines.' If you look at Pablo Picasso's early work, he was a realist--it was only later, after learning the rules and form of art, that he began to branch out into more experimental work. 

I think it can be difficult for left-brained people, though, to do the same with their 'weaker arm.' That is, perhaps in the life of faith, practicing more contemplative ways of praying or just "being" with God in adoration rather than always "doing." Or journaling or something, to discover how God is speaking to them. I don't know. I'm not one of these people. But I think it's healthy to work on the things that don't come to us as part of our natural disposition. 

For myself, I struggle with the sin of envy in my self-consciousness--that I invested all my capital in a spiritual economy, rather than a practical one, and so I'm behind the curve in my career. And so I envy those left-brainers who the world values and pays accordingly, who can provide well for their families as lawyers or engineers or scientists or accountants or whatever. And so it comes out in anger and envy, because I feel dumb, broke, emotional, exposed, and impractical (though this is highly exaggerated in my mind). As a result, I hate the way God made me--to be feeling, intuitive, creative, etc. These are "bad" things. I judge others, and I judge myself, and harshly so.  This is my sin (among others).

But this is how God made me. I try hard to rest in that. It can be hard to accept yourself, and just let yourself be loved sometimes, the way you are. God didn't make me with a logical brain. He didn't make me a planner or a reasoner. But I'm not a reject, a 2nd quality fruit; I have to trust that. Although I haven't had a good cry in years, I always welcome it when it comes.  If anything, I may even have a degree of buoyancy and elasticity to take the unexpected things God throws us and not be broken by them. Maybe it is my term insurance against apostasy. Faith and reason, works and grace, the human and divine nature of Christ--there is always this tension in the life of faith, and sometimes one is prioritized and weighted more above the other. But we have two hemispheres of the brain for a reason, even if one tends to dominate. It's what makes us humans, not pre-programmed cyborgs. 

Being Present In The Marital Act

 *Note-this article was submitted to Beauty So Ancient and accepted but was never published. I'm sharing it here; it it is ever published by BSA I will remove it from my blog, as they would have the rights. 

Marital intimacy is easy to take for granted, at least (if you’re like me) married and your spouse and you are in good health--spiritually, physically, emotionally, and sexually. As Christians, however, we recognize that sex in a marriage is more than just mechanics or routine. As the Church teaches, marriage is for the dual purpose of procreation and bonding--both of which the marital act, thankfully, accomplish well in most cases. But even beyond that, the spiritual elements of marital intimacy are so closely tied to the communicative and life-giving nature of the Godhead that they are integral and necessary for a marriage to be considered sacramental. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: 

"Conjugal love involves a totality, in which all the elements of the person enter - appeal of the body and instinct, power of feeling and affectivity, aspiration of the spirit and of will. It aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul; it demands indissolubility and faithfulness in definitive mutual giving; and it is open to fertility. In a word it is a question of the normal characteristics of all natural conjugal love, but with a new significance which not only purifies and strengthens them, but raises them to the extent of making them the expression of specifically Christian values." (CCC 1643)

With such a heavy weight of responsibility to uphold these values and participate in the divine nature with integrity, it is the grace of the sacrament that makes possible what may seem to be, in many cases, impossible--lifelong love and fidelity. 

“By its very nature conjugal love requires the inviolable fidelity of the spouses. This is the consequence of the gift of themselves which they make to each other. Love seeks to be definitive; it cannot be an arrangement "until further notice." The "intimate union of marriage, as a mutual giving of two persons, and the good of the children, demand total fidelity from the spouses and require an unbreakable union between them."

The deepest reason is found in the fidelity of God to his covenant, in that of Christ to his Church. Through the sacrament of Matrimony the spouses are enabled to represent this fidelity and witness to it. Through the sacrament, the indissolubility of marriage receives a new and deeper meaning.” (CCC 1646, 1647)

For the rich young man Jesus encounters in Matthew 19:16-30 who goes away sad after realizing all he would have to leave behind, our Lord turns to his disciples and tells them in no uncertain terms how hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom: “Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Mt 19:23-24). In no certain terms, it is an “impossible” undertaking for men, and only possible with God (Mt 19:26).

Another seemingly “impossible” standard is the purity of heart Jesus commands in chapter 5 of Matthew’s gospel, taking the Judaic law to a whole other level: “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh. on a woman to lust after her hath committed. adultery with her already in his heart” (Mt 5:28).

The act of adultery is a grievous injustice to the vows of fidelity one undertakes in a marriage, not to mention to one’s spouse. But such acts do not often come “out of nowhere.” Our Lord is an astute knower of human nature; for the ‘first causes’ of such acts emanate a priori to the act itself: “For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person” (Mk 7: 21-22). He also cares for human persons and human souls so deeply that he wants to spare them the hurt of such dysfunction that sin causes. If you want to uproot a tree, better and easier to do it when it is a sapling than a full grown one.

The term “mindfulness” gets a bit of a knee-jerk reaction in the negative sense among faithful, spiritual Catholics, as it is often used in the context of near-east, new age spiritualism. But in other ways, it is a neutral endeavor that involves focusing on the task at hand. If one is eating breakfast, one can be “mindful” of what they are eating--savoring the flavors, noticing the textures--if they are doing just that: eating. But often we are multi-tasking: reading the paper or thinking about what we have to do for the day. By the time we are finished our meal, the experience of eating is a kind of afterthought. 

Breathing in the Eastern tradition has always been the anchor for existence (after all, if you’re not breathing, you’re dead, and so meditative practices have been tethered to the breath as a way of grounding the consciousness. As human beings, without exception, we all breath, though rarely take note that we are doing so. Mindfulness as I see it in this neutral sense is simply being present to the most fundamental things, and practicing that by focusing on the most essential to our physical life--breathing--is a way to start.  

When it comes to the “task” of the marital act, the temptations for men and women can take shape in very different forms. For many women, sex truly can be viewed as a task--sometimes willingly undertaken, and sometimes grudgingly, but a task nonetheless. The stereotypical joke is that during sex women may be making a grocery list or thinking about something else entirely apart from what is taking place in the moment. They may be “somewhere else” entirely. 

For men, sex has the nature of an appetite. However, when that appetite is seen as necessary to be satiated at whatever cost, it is problematic, to say the least. Compounded by the prevalence of online pornography and the rate with which men have or do view it, men themselves may be not only “somewhere else,” but with someone else. This is the adultery of the heart our Lord warned us to avoid--the cataloging of mental images to be referenced and brought up as in a Microfiche at the very times when they should be the most present to their spouse--during the marital act itself.

Although I don’t have data or anecdotes to support it, I have a gut feeling that men “substituting” another actor in this most intimate act is fairly common. It may be a porn star, or a woman on the bus, that they are thinking about or bringing to consciousness willfully (or even unwittingly) while engaging in relations with his wife. Let’s be clear: this is a degradation of the sacred space of the marital bed, even though it has only may only have been occupied by his spouse. It goes beyond the innocuous example of being present while eating a meal to what one is eating--it is a sin, originating in the mind but willfully entertained, and done so without an admission of guilt or even an awareness of the man’s wife. 

When I speak to my son about keeping our thoughts pure and maintaining chastity, I try to reassure him that sexual urges and normal and that they may be excited by a fleeting image (an advertisement in public, or even an attractive cartoon character on TV), but that while “the first look is free” (meaning, it can sometimes not be helped when it comes across one’s path), but the second look will cost you. Meaning, our consciousness, like our thoughts, can not always be kept under control (the proverbial “monkey mind”), but we can train the mind in cooperation with grace (especially the grace of the Sacrament in Matrimony) to attain virtues that may seem otherwise unattainable. 

This “mental substitution” of another actor for one’s spouse during sex is not only bad training, and carrying with it a degree of moral culpability, but it undermines the enjoyment of sex by counterfiting it with something illusory. It’s a kind of hybrid form of virtual and actual porgnography by way of this mental substitution, and undermines the sacred bond where it is lived out the intimacy of the bedroom. Not to mention--it makes for bad sex, because the man (or woman) is not fully present to their spouse, and so not cognizant of their needs and the subtle physical cues that fully communicative intercourse depends on. 

Rather than see this as a condemnation, or an unattainable state of being (chastity of heart and body), perhaps men and women can rise to the challenge of being fully present during the marital act by putting their partner first, deferring their own needs, and engaging all their faculties (including the mind) to the “task at hand.” 

Not being perfect, we will fail at times, of course. But it is something worth getting up for again after a fall. Taking custody of the eyes, cutting out things in our lives that lead to unchastity, and self-deferment in the countless daily acts that make up a married life, is a good start. Though it might take a lifetime, spouses may find that as the years and decades go on, a house built on a good foundation of being present to one another inside and outside the bedroom, and turning away from the lure of unchastity of mind and heart, will bear fruit in due season one hundred fold. 

Anathema

 After reading Fr. Nix's "Several Reasons Why You Should Not Take The Jab" which he published today on his blog, and going through the check mark of things on this list (listed below), I felt like I needed to write. 

The reasons, summarized from his post (for expansion on the points, click link above):

1. It was made from cell lines from aborted babies.  

2. It might kill you.  

3. It is pushed by government coercion.  

4. It is going to be the first of dozens of jabs you need.  

5. It is not stopping COVID.  

6. It is not a vaccine but rather an “mRNA spike-protein inducer” that promises “cumulative damage and chronic inflammation to cells for years to come.” 

7. Fauci’s NIH has admitted to funding the Wuhan lab.  

Let me start by saying I have almost no friends anymore who are not Catholic or at least Christian people of faith. A good number of my friends are also traditional Catholics and everything that entails. I have many friends who, like Fr. Nix (who I consider a friend as well, albeit loosely) who are bulldogs of tenacity, a trait of digging into a position or stake of ground and not letting go that I admire. Probably because I don't possess that trait myself. 

 As I was sitting down to write this evening, I came across two proverbs; one from scripture, one from an unknown source. I had been thinking about them a lot. The first:

"The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that is wise hearkeneth unto counsels." (Prov 12:15)

The second:

"A wise man changes his mind; a fool never will."

I am a story teller. It's what I do here. I am not a religious, an influencer, or anyone important. I don't have any authority or sway, and so it has always been my prerogative here and in my offline life to tell stories using myself as the subject, because I own the rights and don't have to ask permission. If it is of benefit to others, what a grace; please take it as a free gift. If it's not--if it causes scandal or leads one farther from Truth, then please go (but tell me first, in charity!) One of the freedoms of not being a person of prominence is I can make my own decisions and let you do the same, without feeling undue burden. We all need to make our own choices--moral, practical, financial, familial--and we all need to take responsibility for them.

I had also been thinking about the things Fr. Nix wrote. I don't disagree with them, and even if I did I'm sure he would have a pretty swift counter as he does so well. 

I've been thinking about my historical lack of prudence in putting myself in pretty dicey situations to follow the Lord where He leads--from crossing into Mexico and meeting an ex-con in a deportation shelter and traveling with him to meet his family in the middle of nowhere, to flying to Thailand to attend an 11 day silent Buddhist retreat in the middle of the jungle, to being engaged to an ex-exotic dancer/bartender/tattoo model...I could go on but you get the idea. Prudence is not one of my strong suits.

I had also been thinking about my mortality more. Not in the traditional sense of "I'm scared to die!" but "Lord, if you want to take me now, please do." This with a wife and three young kids as well. I'm not afraid to die. I don't want to suffer any more than the next guy, but I don't always make my decisions obsessed with how to prolong my life. Most days, I just want to be with the Lord. But it's often harder to live than to die. 

So, with all that being said, I made a decision to "take the jab" in April. My wife, a healthcare worker, did as well. No one coerced us. I didn't pore over hours of research. Much like the reasoning I used in discernment in moving my family to the Latin Mass to preserve my children's faith, it was a calculated risk, not any kind of silver bullet. I knew some people who were getting it and many who were not. To this day, I think people should be able to conscientiously make these choices for themselves. 

I'm not writing this to justify my decision, or get out from under the guilt I sometimes feel. I wasn't 'scared of COVID" or "scared of dying." If anything, I was somewhat brazen early on. I was initially very much against getting vaccinated; when I reflected on why, it was pretty simple--most of the people I know, and many I trust, were dead set against it. 

Somewhere along the way, I wanted to figure out my reasons for not wanting to "take the jab" and considered a court scenario where if I was put on the stand and asked simple questions such as "Sir, why did you decide against the jab?" and I would say something like, "Well, this priest said if I did I was complicit in the murder of innocents; it's a spike protein untested unapproved experimental gene therapy mRNA thing that alters your nucleotides or something like that; I just don't trust it, it's too new and I dont want to put foreign things in my body; plus the NWO is pushing it and if I do it's as bad as offering a pinch of incense to idols or Caesar." Etc. 

The fact was, though, that my reasons for not getting it--though potentially valid--I didn't feel would hold up in this court-hearing scenario. I have no beef with vaccines. Though this one is surely different, though? It probably is in some ways. Like I said, it was a calculated risk. I may see long-term adverse effects somewhere down the road (I had no immediate adverse effects from the shot, nor did my wife). But I figured that getting COVID, or long-COVID, was a risk too. Again, this is not something I lost sleep over or fretted about. I was not "living in fear" as many have said about others who were more concerned about the virus than I was. I had no ideological stake in the game. My father in law was sick and elderly, and my wife a healthcare worker, so it seemed...prudent. Again, I am not a prudent person by nature. 

The fact is, I didn't think much about it. I had the opportunity, I made an appointment, and it was over and done. I will take responsibility for that decision, and will have to answer for it at my individual judgment. I have no desire to take up this crusade either for or against this massive thing that dominates the news and has real implications to restrict freedom of choice, government coercion, etc. It has real implications for real people who choose to forgo "the jab"--loss of employment, travel bans, etc. To this point, it certainly does seem like a kind of soft communism Fr. Nix alludes to. 

At some point, this crusade got taken up as a litmus as to what kind of Catholic you are. Are you a "mask wearing" Catholic? Are you a "COVID denier?" Are you "scared of a little virus?" Are you "Anti-vaxx?" If you want to fit in, you learn how to speak, what to say and what not to say. I have told maybe four people in four months that I "took the jab." I have felt shame, not because of the decision itself, but because I am too sensitive to what people think. And I knew where most of the people I am friends with stand. 

I still remember the pain of losing my friend, early in my conversion 2.0, over Obergefell. He couldn't reconcile my evolution from supporting gay marriage to being against it, and affirming the lifestyle not as something indifferent or to be celebrated, but sinful--with our friendship. I never spoke to him again. And that was ok. It hurt, and I cried, but I understood. God was pruning and it hurt like a mf. But He does it for our good. 

It's very hard to know what to believe today. Who to listen to. Where to get your information. I'll be the first to admit I may not have made the right choice in "taking the jab." The older I've gotten, the less interested I am in judging others. That has extended to caring less about how I, too, am judged. 

For some people I know, this may be a hill to die on, and such a concession an anathema to any kind of friendship. For others, maybe not to so much. I'm not as concerned with that, or my standing as a Catholic. I wrote about the distraction at work by Satan's hand in Extra-Catholica. I do love my friends, so I hope they will forgive me. If they think less of me, or that it invalidates anything good I may have written or lived prior, that is not really my concern. 

Maybe there are other people like me out there--who feel like Catholic defectors, who may have wanted to resist the vax but coming up short on why with reasons that held water for them personally, who are not sure their standing now--does this make me a liberal? A traitor? A coward? I'm not a wise man, but I did change my mind. I don't know what that means exactly; but the responsibility is mine to live with. I share it now as permission to exit gracefully if you choose, I will not be offended! I will continue to write about the faith as our family lives it. And I still wish God would take my home tomorrow. 

These are not easy times to discern in, and I will be the first to admit I may have made a mistake. But I made it with the information I had, knowing and weighing various risks, and with a clean conscience. Judge as you must. I'll keep telling stories like I always have. I may not have mastered prudence in my lifetime. But I'll always be honest with you, I promise you that much. 

Faith, Marriage, and Death By Divorce

 Last week I went to the bar to have a beer with a buddy of mine who has found himself newly separated, and was moving into an apartment that weekend. He's one of the first in my group of friends from my twenties to go through this; I'm sure he won't be the last. 

Out of respect, I don't want to go into any of the details of what has brought his family to this point, but I have been thinking about it all week. Though things look lost, there's still a chance to salvage and renew what is left of the marriage. Neither he nor his wife are people of faith, though, so I'm having trouble in talking with him of underscoring that core element that sustains many marriages during times of adversity. 

The only real advice I could give him was just to be a stubborn S.O.B. and refuse to concede his marriage to divorce. Simply don't sign anything. Heap coals upon her head by being faithful. I don't know how this works in the age of no-fault divorce, which has wrought untold damage to our society, and allowed people to walk away from their vows rendering them meaningless. But it's the only thing I could come up with. Fight. Fight for your kids sake. Fight for your vows. 

Our Lord uses the marriage analogy in scripture intentionally to relate himself to his people--Christ is the bridegroom, and the Church his bride. The bridegroom does not divorce his spouse, even when she is unfaithful, for God hates divorce (Mal 2:16). He commands Hosea marry the prostitute Gomer to illustrate the faithfulness of God to his harlot bride Israel.  

The thing about divorce, the more I read from those who have endured it as children, is how much it can affect the life of faith. Marriage is built on trust and faith by way of vows. When that floor drop out--esp in cases of infidelity or seemingly foolish 'throwing away' of lives built on something one thought was solid--children can start to doubt that God will always be there for them, since their father or mother wasn't. They believe that God cannot love in any permanent, unselfish way, because of what they see in their parents conceding to self-centeredness and putting their own needs first and backtracking on the promises they made. It is an absolute scandal and while I'll concede that some situations might warrant separation, the majority of divorces are simply based in self-centeredness. I wonder if parents knew the affect a divorce would have on their children years later, if they would still go through with it. 

A friend of mind edited a book in which she publishes the stories of adult children of divorce and how, even years later, it continues to affect them. I sent it to my buddy in the hopes it would sober him to the situation, that kids aren't always as resilient as they let on. I also sent him her followup book about marriages that were redeemed from the brink of divorce, often by grit and grace, and a refusal to give in to the temptation to divorce. This is one story from the first book, one of the more tragic and hard to read ones. I'll share it for the sake of those who haven't read it yet. The final battle, remember, will be over marriage and family, the last outpost of which Satan will try to overthrow the Kingdom of God.

Q. What effect has your parents’ divorce had on you?

A. My parents’ divorce has been pretty traumatic for me. I was 13 when my dad said he was leaving, and it was a huge shock, as we never thought that would happen to our family, especially after eight kids and over 25 years together—and after they had renewed their vows just a year before!

Although divorce was all around us in our extended family, we did not anticipate this happening to us at all. My family was involved in the Church and we all attended Mass weekly. My dad was a physics teacher at the all-boys Catholic high school, and that allowed us kids to get discounts on our Catholic education. With so many of us, my dad also worked as a janitor at our parish. My mom was a lector, my siblings were ushers, and my brother and I were altar servers. My mom and dad loved to sing and joined the prestigious Fatima Choir that operated out of another local Catholic parish.

My siblings and I never imagined that our parents, who had been together so long, after having so many kids and with such involvement in the Church, would ever just throw it all away. I was 13 years old and in 7th grade when my dad told us he was leaving my mom. At first he just told us things were “not working out,” and he was going to move out of the home. I assumed he’d be nearby, and we’d still see him. I later found out that he was leaving her for another woman who lived in another state—a woman he is still with but never married—and that we would almost never see him after that.

We stayed in our big, old house in a bad neighborhood, a bunch of vulnerable sheep now without a shepherd. A few years later, we were victims of a home invasion by some neighborhood thugs. My mom and oldest brother were home at the time; the criminals held a gun to my mom’s head and beat my brother very badly, dislocating his jaw in two places. We were, again, traumatized as a family. My mom, my little sister, and I ended up in an apartment across town, and the boys scattered to various apartments.

We kept going to church with our mom, but the divorce really changed how we saw God and life. Amazingly, despite being abandoned and depressed, my mom never lost her faith in God and remained very devoted to Jesus and Mary. I look back now at her life in complete admiration! She was an exemplary, saintly woman! But sadly, my faith, and that of most of my siblings, wavered tremendously.

My siblings and I all went through pagan, secular, hardly-believing-in-anything periods. In those years, we were hopeless, often aimless, depressed, and engaged in premarital sex. Some of my siblings have substance abuse problems, and others are on a multitude of prescription anti-depressants. I remember when I was in high school, someone from the Oprah Winfrey show called my mom and invited her to be on the show about families that break up after 25+ years of marriage (a cousin had given them her phone number). She politely declined and said she did not want to humiliate my dad on national TV. At the time, I was upset, because I was hoping for a free trip and a T-shirt or something, but I have later come to realize what an incredibly classy mom I had!

My oldest brother, who had been beaten by the thugs, later committed suicide. Within a year and a half, my mom was found dead in her apartment. She was only 57 and lived 12 years after the divorce—and I am certain that the trauma led to her early demise.

For many years after my dad moved away, I felt kind of like an “illegitimate” nobody. It felt as if all the 26 years he spent with my mom were, at least to him, a big mistake, a massive detour. I would often feel as if “I shouldn’t even exist.” But thankfully, our mom always told us we were wonderful gifts from God; that we were, in fact, meant to be. I really don’t know where any of us would be if we didn’t have that profound motherly love. As I have come back into the Church, I am often struck by her wisdom and see the logic in all the things she was trying to do. I am so thankful to be alive, and I hope my story will help others who are going through things like this.

My dad is still alive, and one of my brothers (who has had difficulty keeping a job and has abused drugs) is living in his basement. I do think my dad feels some remorse over the whole thing, but he feels like there is no way to fix it at this point. His girlfriend has suffered a brain aneurysm and needs constant medical attention, which my dad provides. I don’t talk to him much because it tends to make me feel bad. I’m sad we don’t have a good relationship and that I might not see him much before he dies. I worry about his eternal soul. May God have mercy on us all! 

Contributor #54

Female, 39 

Age at parents' divorce: 13

This reflection was made 26 years after the divorce.

Primal Loss: The Now-Adult Children of Divorce Speak