Light and Momentary

That Post About CCL

The most important thing I want to say about CCL is that I'm glad it's there.  An international organization helping couples use the sympto-thermal method -- there's such a need for the work they do.  I have met some lovely couples who teach for CCL.  My own practice of NFP would have been far more difficult without them.

However.

I also have reservations about CCL.  The lovely teaching couples far outnumber the scary teaching couples, but there are some scary ones out there announcing that sterilized couples are going to hell.  For a long time I could not read "Family Foundations" without some aaaggghh moments, when I turned a page and felt ambushed by legalism and more-Catholic-than-thou-ness.   

Before we go any further I have to tell you my theory of personality, which is that there are two kinds of people in the world: people who like rules, and people who don't.  Me, I am a rules person from a rules family.  When I read Newton's laws for the first time at age 12, I was suddenly suffused with a joy that lasted all afternoon (this is where you channel Rick James and sing, "Supergeek! Supergeek! She's supergeeky!") because they spoke to me of a universe that was orderly and comprehensible.  To this day rules please me:  the phonological rule that explained why one of my sons said "geese" instead of "ski" and "dice" instead of "sty," the culinary rule that tells me I can make meringues using a quarter-cup of sugar for each egg white.

There is an ugly side to loving rules, though, a tendency toward intolerance and a habit of assuming that other people's troubles are their own fault.  I can rely on my parents to sniff acerbically, "I guess the rules do not apply to him," within three minutes of reading about a celebrity who has found himself in hot water -- as if following the rules were the key to problem-free living.  Three things (in addition to Einstein's demonstration that Newton's laws don't tell the whole story) compel me to keep my love of rules in check.

The first:  as a miserable 16yo senior in high school, desperately trying to perform and achieve and fit my parents' mold for me, I went on a retreat during which I read the letter to the Galatians for the first time.  I got to the fifth chapter and read those beautiful words -- "You were called to be free" -- and the Holy Spirit blew the roof off my life.  It sounds overdramatic  but it's true:  in that moment the Voice of the living God spoke to my 16yo heart.  What it said was something like this:  "Hey, Jamie, it's awfully crowded in that box where you've been living.  Would you like to come out and dance with me?"

I am not eager to get back in that box.

The second:  it is impossible for me to read the Gospels without an inward shudder at Jesus' dealings with the Pharisees.  The Pharisees meant well, as far as I can tell -- they were trying to safeguard the truth they had been given, and lead lives that pleased God.  At great cost to himself, Jesus told them they were going about it all wrong. As much as I would like to tell myself that the blind guides and whited sepulchres business just meant they were following the wrong rules, and I'm okay as long as I follow the right ones, I cannot.  Jesus could not have said it any more clearly:  He is bigger than the rules.  It's not about the rules.

The third:  the man I fell in love with and married is a supreme Un-Rules Person (it shows you the extent of my rulesiness that I cannot think of a better acronym than URP, though I do find the title ur-URP quite appealing -- don't you think he will too?) and one of the chief tasks of our marriage has been coming to terms with this difference in our personalities.  It's ironic that I took some flak here and elsewhere for sounding self-righteous in that post about breastfeeding last month, because I am married to my very own S4 (Super-Sensitive Sanctimony Sniffer-outer).  On the notorious problem issues for married couples -- sex, money, kids, in-laws -- we can talk harmoniously.  We may not be singing the same note, but usually the blend is pleasant.  But if he thinks I'm being self-righteous on any topic -- well, that's a lit match in the powder keg, folks.

In the early years of our marriage I used to find myself frustrated by his unwillingness to listen to my helpful little pointers.  "You know," I would tell him as we were leaving for Mass, "if you finish your cup of coffee in the car you won't be able to observe the communion fast."  I was perplexed by the irritated eye-rolling that inevitably followed such pronouncements.  Our marriage became much happier when I got a handle on two basic truths:  first, my husband is responsible for his own choices; second, my rules-focused bad habits, like anxious watch-checking instead of praying in the communion line (It's only been 58 minutes since I finished breakfast!  I hope the line moves slowly!), did not honor God any more than M's bad habits did. 

In my dozen years of hanging out with NFP users, I have observed that many of them are rules people.  It makes sense:  when good info on NFP is so hard to find, a person has to be motivated to seek it out. It was my determination to live in accord with Humanae Vitae that led me to keep searching for a way to make NFP work.  As it happened, I discovered a highly effective, marriage-enhancing, side-effect-free method of family planning in my quest to Follow The Rules.  I think, though, that communication breakdowns are not uncommon when rules people talk to URPs about NFP.

"It's great!" say the rules people. "You can live in faithfulness to Church teaching!"

"I could," think the URPs, "if I wanted to be a hidebound pompous pharisee like you!"

John and Sheila Kippley have written books to help Catholics offer their bodies as living sacrifices to God, and for that I am grateful. But they have also written books (the very same books) chock-a-block with rulesy directives.  I have to admit, reading them makes me a little crazy.  Catholics do not have a moral obligation to sleep with their infants in king-sized beds free of headboards and footboards. And yet from the emphasis this choice receives in The Art of NFP, you'd almost think there was a little-known encyclical on bedroom furniture.  I will never, ever take a daily nap with my baby as directed by Sheila Kippley's "natural mothering" schema -- naptime is too valuable for me to spend it sleeping.  I do not think this makes me an unnatural mother.

Perhaps many rules people share my antipathy toward change; I can't say for certain.  But I also see in the Kippleys' books a reluctance to move forward with the times.  They dispense outdated breastfeeding advice (about which more below).  More seriously, I think they hinder their own effectiveness by consistently speaking in pre-sexual-revolution terms. 

For instance:  one chapter of John Kippley's Sex and the Marriage Covenant, a book I am so glad to have read while I was engaged, addresses oral and anal sex.  He calls them "kinky sex," saying he expects some of his readers won't have known that people actually engaged in such behavior.  And yet for today's twenty-something reader, who was in high school when Bill Clinton was debating the meaning of "is," John Kippley's "kinky sex" is more often regarded as "the presidential treatment."  How far out of step can an author be with his younger readers before they stop listening?

This is not, let me be absolutely clear, a defense of post-sexual-revolution mores.  It is instead an observation that the Holy Spirit did not say at Pentecost, "Those Pamphylians ought to be speaking Aramaic if they want to be saved."  Instead He gave the apostles the ability to speak the truth in new languages.  I believe that when Catholics talk about HV to twenty-something engaged couples, we need to meet them where they are.

It is inaccurate for me to keep talking about the Kippleys as if they were Mr. and Mrs. CCL now that they have retired and CCL seems to be moving in a slightly different direction.  I'm intrigued to see where the new executive director will take the organization.  But as long as CCL uses The Art of NFP and Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing, the Kippleys' voices will come through loud and clear.  As I mentioned in a recent post, I've been thinking about this stuff because I just read Sheila Kippley's new book, Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood. 

One frustration for me in Sheila Kippley's writing on breastfeeding is her reliance on dated information.  She talks, for instance, about how soothing it was for her to blow air from a hairdryer on a traumatized nipple.  While I'm glad it worked for her, it's not evidence-based:  these days the focus is on moist wound healing.  I am troubled by her book's inclusion of a "solution" which may well slow the healing process for a mother in pain.

A second frustration is her reductivism.  Breastfeed your child or he could be a serial killer.  Be with your child full-time for the first three years or he might commit suicide as a teenager.

But I think my biggest frustration is the insistence (at least to my ear it is insistent) on good Catholic mothering as a package deal. Remember the scene in The Once and Future King where Wart becomes an ant?  There's a sign at the entrance to the ant colony: Everything not forbidden is compulsory.  Sometimes I feel that I have stumbled into that ant colony when I read the Kippleys' books.  This latest one makes much of Fr. William Virtue's contention that women have a serious moral obligation to breastfeed.  It's a theme I have noticed in the Kippleys' writing:  if it's a good thing, you ought to do it.

I am thinking of the Catholic Church as a great banquet where the main dish is, say, a fabulous curry -- rich and steaming and perfectly spiced.  The tables are groaning, filled with things you can choose to sprinkle on top or try on the side.  You don't like coconut garnishing your curry?  No problem.  No spicy eggplant for you?  Hey, it's your plate.  We're here for the curry; the rest is just trimmings.

I am re-reading that paragraph and thinking it sounds like an enthusiastic argument for cafeteria Catholicism.  Regular readers will know, I hope, that I am faithful to the magisterium.  I believe everybody who chooses to come to this banquet table needs a heaping helping of curry.

But it is my hope that faithful Catholics can eliminate the competitiveness ("I'll see your mantilla and raise you one green scapular") and the cookie-cutter-ness ("All Catholics should boycott goods made in China because of Chinese human rights violations") that mar the joyousness of the banquet we share.  And joy is a key idea for me here:  I was surprised to find so much joy in the service of the Lord Jesus.  Ditto for breastfeeding.

Of course it's not just about the joy.  There are days when Christian service feels like drudgery, days when breastfeeding is a pain in the neck ("in the nipple" would be more apt, I suppose).  But I would love to see less emphasis, in future Kippley books and in CCL publications, on shoulds and oughts, and more on the many-faceted delights of the feast we're called to share.

Quickly

While I was away I finished Holly Pierlot's book, A Mother's Rule of Life. It's the best book for Christian women I've read in a while  -- each chapter had at least one insight that made me say, "Wow, I never looked at it that way."  I have been trying to implement some of her ideas, with some success, but the hours of free time she describes are proving elusive.

There are all these things I want to blog about but I have been too busy folding laundry and going to bed early to get them written down.  And I was just going to take a minute to tell you that our priest friend is coming tonight for dinner and to hear Alex's first confession, and why I'm so excited about it, but the baby is fussing and the 3yo is calling for help and the 5yo crumpled his older brother's picture again.  Argh.  Oh, wait, I'm supposed to be cultivating serenity.  Picture me smiling beatifically, with a hint (or several) of frazzledness around the edges.  I'll try again later.

TVP: Tidying Up

I am taking down the Vegetable Project recipes from my sidebar, and putting them in this post instead.

Chuffed Starred

I had a Mrs. Malaprop moment tonight when I asked my MIL to hold the baby so I could chuff the starred.  If you want to do some chuffing of your own, here's how:

Prepare chard leaves by washing thoroughly and then cutting along the tough part of the stem -- two or three inches should do it.  Blanch the leaves quickly (say a one-minute dunk in a little boiling water) and set them aside.  Dice the stems, along with a rib of celery, a large onion, and a couple of fat cloves of garlic, and cook them all with a pound of ground turkey.  You can add a handful of oats (raw) if you want to, or leftover rice (cooked) or whatever suits you.  It's flexible.  Think meatloaf.  (My MIL was notorious for her meatloaf -- Jello, butterscotch pudding, dental floss remnants (okay, I made that up) -- if it was in the fridge, it was fair game.)  Taste and see if it needs seasoned salt or Worcestershire sauce or whatever.

When the filling and the leaves are cool enough to handle, preheat the oven to 375 and spray a 9x13 baking dish.  Spoon tomato sauce over the bottom.  Overlap the edges where you cut out the tough stem, and plop a generous spoonful of filling onto the chard leaf.  Fold the top half of the leaf over the filling, and tuck the sides under.  Place the packet seam side down in the baking dish.  When all your starred is chuffed, ladle a little more tomato sauce on top.  Cover and bake for half an hour or so.  Use a spatula to remove the chard packets; tongs will allow all the stuffing to fall back into the baking dish and may induce swearing in the patience-impaired.

You can also make a vegetarian filling like the one I use for involtini.

I Do! I Like Greens Beans and Ham!

My husband does a lot of the cooking on the weekends (he thinks to himself, "Hmm, deal with fractious children at the dinner hour or retreat to the relative quiet of the kitchen?"), and one of his standby dinners is Ham & Beans.  Quick, cheap, easy:  soften a chopped onion in olive oil, add chunks of ham, stir in a couple of drained cans of beans and heat through.  Serve with something green and painless like frozen peas; grownups like hot sauce to go with.  (Do you say "go with" minus any object for the preposition?  It sounded very bizarre to me when I moved away from the upper South to go to college, but now I say it all the time.*) 

Tonight I had some beautiful organic kale in the fridge.  I also had chard and turnip greens, so I thought I needed to use some of it quickly.  The key, I think, in feeding greens to small children is making them inconspicuous.  Blob of leaf spinach on the plate = mutiny (at my house, anyway); same quantity of spinach cut up finely in a quiche = thanks for dinner, Mom!  After you stem the kale, cut it into narrow strips vertically.  Pile those narrow strips together and, going horizontally this time, shred.  Add to the Ham & Beans recipe with the onions and be sure to cook it until it's tender.

Dinner for a Scorching Day

If you have leftover meat lurking in your fridge, you can make a easy dinner without heating up the kitchen.  This comes from Nigella Bites, with a couple of alterations.

Combine one minced clove of garlic, 1T. sugar, 1½ t. rice vinegar, 1½ T. lime juice, 1½ T. fish sauce, 1½ T. vegetable oil, and red pepper flakes to taste.  Add half of an onion which you have sliced finely and leave to stand for half an hour.  If you use a red onion, it will turn a lovely color while it is steeping in the dressing.

Shred 8 ounces of cabbage (I think that's about a third of a small head) and one carrot.  Cut some leftover chicken or beef into skinny strips.  Toss in a big bowl with the dressing and add fresh mint or cilantro to taste.  I add salt even though the fish sauce in the dressing is salty.

The 8yo and I thought it was delicious but the middle boys were not convinced.

*Mary was the only person who responded to my question about "go with" last month.  Here's what she said:

Just read your recipes and your question about "go with" with no object.  oooh, that freaks me out.  I grew up in western Pennsylvania, where we have our own share of weird regional phrases and manners of speaking, but that one I can not abide.  It's like an unresolved chord at the end of music or something.  Go with WHAT??? WHAT??  I went to college in Philadelphia, which is where I first heard it, I think, amongst the Jersey-ites.  Here in Nebraska, not so much, although a friend from Chicago says it.  "Do you want to come with?"  Come with what?  Or whom?   Aargh.

Anybody else?