Over and over again

seedling

Pro-lifers routinely refer to “the miracle of life,” a phrase which isn’t really technically accurate.  A miracle is, strictly theologically speaking, an event which wouldn’t happen ordinarily in nature.  It’s something which only happens because of the special intervention of God.

If you’re going to look at sheer numbers, it’s hard to imagine anything less miraculous, or more ordinary and natural than the conception of a child.  It’s something that’s happened billions of times, often without anyone meaning or wanting it to happen — often without anyone evenrealizing that it’s happened.  I’ve seen pro-choice people roll their eyes and patiently explain, “Yes, babies are cute, but they’re hardly a miracle, any more than it’s a miracle every time a weed grows.  It’s simple biology; happens all the time.”

Which always makes me think, “Yes?  Is it somehow not amazing when a weed grows?”  Maybe it’s just because I’m such a terrible gardener, but every time I put a seed in the ground, sweat and fret for those ten days of germination, give up hope, keep watering anyway, and then go out one evening to discover that SOMETHING IS COMING UP, it blows my mind.  Absolutely blows my mind.  I drag my husband out to see:  “Look!  Do you see, right there?  You can even see where the soil is actually being pushed away, because the little leaves are coming up!  Look how hard it’s trying!  I know I planted a seed there, but HOW IS THIS HAPPENING?  You can even see the little bean shell stuck to it!  LOOK!”

I get nearly the same thrill when I weed, to be honest.  Yesterday there was nothing but bare dirt surrounding my tomato plant; today, there are six kinds of green all fighting their way through out of nothingness into the light, all hungry, thirsty, ready to join the battle with beetles and downpours and sun and chill.  Some of them are feathery, some fibrous, some creep and cling to the ground with flat, sticky leaves, some are just simple, forthright grass . . . and everybody wants a piece of life.  I don’t shed any tears when I rip them out and toss them away, but I really do admire them.  Or at least, I admire the system.  Yesterday, there was something very close to nothing, and today, there’s something big enough to grab with my whole hand.  Tomorrow, if I leave it be, there will be something with a stem thick enough to snap, full of juice and intricate hairs.  Everything is ordered toward life, toward making more and more and more of itself, to being part of the plan.

And it happens over and over and over again.

When we’re talking about grass and weeds or even exquisite hot house flowers, only truly crazy people worry or marvel over every last bit of plant life:  it’s not merely common, it’s insignificant.  And, while we certainly cherish and delight in our own babies and the babies of people we love, no human heart is big enough to cherish and delight in the individual births of all the billions of babies conceived. There are just too many of them.  It’s just too common.  It happens literally all the time, every second of every day.

But here’s the thing:  it’s just that very commonness, that everyday-ness of human life that is a gift in itself.

Think of other things that repeat and repeat.  I’m not the first one to point out that repetition is sometimes a gift in itself, and not a stumbling block to overcome.  Do you get tired of hearing your spouse say, “I love you?”  Do you look at those beloved lips forming those words and think, “Oh, that old thing again.  Why can’t I have something new for a change?”  Would you want to have a marriage where the words “I love you” were an extraordinary, unexpected event, only brought about by special grace?  No, it’s the very repetition that makes it cherished, delightful — extraordinary, even, just because it is so ordinary.

So, when a baby is conceived, maybe it’s not a miracle — maybe it’s something better than that.  It’s a sign that God has given us a world which, even in its natural, fallen state, is completely stuffed with wonders.  He is not stingy; He doesn’t withhold his goodness.  This is the kind of marriage that mankind has with God:  He says “I love you” every day, every minute of every day.

My cup overflows.
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This post originally ran at the National Catholic Register in 2012. 

10 Things I Had Mercifully Forgotten About the Third Trimester of Pregnancy

Figure_of_pregnant_woman,_Cameroon_-_Staatliches_Museum_für_Völkerkunde_München_-_DSC08442

 

1. You may know where the baby is going to come out, but your joints aren’t sure. So they alllllll relax, all over your body, just in case you need to prepare for, for instance, a mandibular delivery. On the up side, the spectacle of you trying to get out of a car with your useless, floppy puppet legs is hilarious, and will win you many admirers. Among jerks.

2. Doesn’t matter if it’s a penny, a pork chop, or the last existing original copy of the Declaration of Independence wrapped around the Koh-i-Noor diamond: if you drop it on the floor, it’s dead to you.

3. People can chatter all they like about “miracle drugs” that “cure cancer” or “save lives” or other trivial nonsense like that. You know what’s a miracle drug? Zantac. One dose, and your pantry shelves are suddenly full of food again, rather than leering, taunting lava grenades waiting to detonate in your esophagus.

4. Drool. So. Much. Drool. Don’t wait for baby; break out those rubberized sheets now.

5. Your body gets so excited about growing a brand new baby that it gets really ambitious, and starts growing all kinds of other things, too: skin tags; thick, glossy sideburns; a glowering, boundless resentment toward humanity in general.

6. Right this second, check if you can reach your toenails without blacking out. If you can, then trust me on this: trim them now.

7. I’ve never read any non-fiction by Chesterton. There. Whew. That doesn’t belong in this list, but it’s been weighing on me, and what if I die in childbirth and I never get a chance to confess it?

8. Turning over in bed becomes a 46-step process. The only benefit to this is that it gives the drool puddle on your pillow sufficient time to dry before you lay your cheek in it again. Also, your husband will enjoy the soothing sensation of having the mattress tossed around like a liferaft trying to get some distance from the Titanic.

9. Hey, remember round ligaments? REMEMBER THEM, YOU POOR SUFFERING SPECIMEN OF HUMANITY WHOSE ENTIRE EXPERIENCE OF LIFE HAS BECOME SEARING AGONY THAT GETS WORSE WHEN YOU DO EXTRAVAGANT THINGS LIKE BREATHING OR TURNING YOUR HEAD A TINY BIT? Yeah, me too.

10. Of course it’s all worth it blah blah blah miracle of life and so on. Where the drugs at?

 

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Autographed books for Valentine’s Day: UPDATED

UPDATE: Thanks for the orders, folks! Leaning Into Love is sold out (from my stash, I mean; you can still order from OSV,  naturally!). I still have a few copies of The Sinner’s Guide to Natural Family Planning left. To receive an autographed copy for Valentine’s Day, YOU MUST ORDER TODAY OR SATURDAY the 7th BEFORE 11 EASTERN. I will still accept orders after that time, but I cannot guarantee they will get to you by the 14th.

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I’m not going to tell you to get your wife a book or two for Valentine’s Day, but IF you are VERY SURE that she would want a book or two for Valentine’s Day, here’s a deal for you: I’m offering …

book set valentines day

The Sinner’s Guide to Natural Family Planning (OSV list price $9.95)

and

Catholic and Married: Leaning Into Love (OSV list price $14.95) with my chapter, called “Mirrors Around a Flame: The Gift of Children”. This is a new book from OSV. You can read a nice review of it at Aleteia here.
(If the Aleteia link isn’t working, cut and paste this into your browser:
aleteia.org/en/society/article/9-wise-funny-and-totally-catholic-takes-on-marriage-5872273021992960)

both autographed by me. $12 each, $20 for both, including shipping.

*****

If you’d like to order either or both of these books,

1. Email me at simchafisher[at]gmail[dot]com and put “SIGNED BOOK REQUEST” in the subject heading.

2. Include the following information:
(a) which books you would like: just SGNFP, just CMLIL, or both
(b) exactly what you would like me to write on each book’s title page (if nothing is specified, I’ll just sign my name). If you would prefer to have them without anything written in them, please specify that.
(c) the address to which you’d like the books delivered.

If any of this information is missing, I may run out of books before we can straighten it out.

3. The cost is $12 per book or $20 for both, which includes the cost of postage and shipping materials. Please pay with PayPal. You can use the link on the right sidebar (where it says “Tip tip tip!”) or use simchafisher[at]gmail[dot]com as the recipient address. Please specify “signed book” in the “note” section. (Yes, please pay via PayPal AND send me an email. Trust me, I need the email.)

4. No Valentine’s Day orders will be accepted after February 7.  You may still order signed copies after February 7 if there are any left, but I cannot guarantee it will get to the recipient before Valentine’s Day.

5. I have a limited number of copies on hand. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. If you ask very nicely, I may be willing to give up the one I inscribed for my bishop but then chickened out and didn’t give to him.

 

If you watch garbage, you will get dirty.

darkness

We are in denial about how vulnerable our hearts really are. Watching brutality makes us brutal. Torturing our emotions inevitably makes torture seem more normal, not less.

Read the rest at the Register.

So Benedict was the pinko who green lighted Oscar Romero cause

oscar-romero

According to the AP (bold type is my addition):

The monsignor who spearheaded the saint-making process for El Salvador’s slain Archbishop Oscar Romero said Wednesday it was Pope Benedict XVI— and not Pope Francis — who removed the final hurdle in the tortured, 35-year process.

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia told reporters Benedict “gave the green light.” Speaking a day after Francis declared that Romero died as a martyr for the faith, Paglia said Romero’s beatification would likely be within a few months in San Salvador.

Paglia says Benedict told him on Dec. 20, 2012, the case had passed from the Vatican’s doctrine office, where it had been held up for years over concerns about Romero’s orthodoxy, to the saint-making office. From there it proceeded quickly, taking a mere two years for theologians, and then a committee of cardinals and bishops, to agree unanimously that Romero died as a martyr out of hatred for the faith.

I don’t know about you, but the narrative I always heard and accepted was that Oscar Romero did good work, but was a little hinky in his leanings, and so the more conservative element in the Church didn’t want to touch his cause for beatification; but Francis is enough of a free-wheeler to cut through that red tape and get this thing moving. I’m not saying that’s what you thought; I’m saying that’s what I thought, without thinking about it much.

Instead, it looks like this is installment #3,908,555 in the story titled “The Vatican works very, very slowly, and most of us know almost nothing about what goes on there” (and installment #598,773 in the story titled, “So, you thought you knew Benedict?”). I’m really looking forward to learning more about Abp. Romero, who was assassinated while saying Mass, apparently for appealing directly to soldiers to stop murdering the citizens of El Salvador.

 

Whew, 2015 is off to quite a start!

Artist of the Month: Matt Clark’s Amphibians, Minotaurs, and other Christian Art

Editors’ NoteThis article is part of the Patheos Public Square on Religion and Visual Art. Read other perspectives here.

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matt clark chicken headshotMatt Clark, 39, is a teacher, print maker, and freelance illustrator who lives in Florida with his wife and growing family (they are expecting baby #7 in a matter of weeks). This interview is one of a series with religious artists. My questions are in bold.

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You are Anglican, and make secular and overtly religious art; but on your website, you say, “I don’t believe art has to have biblical subject matter to be Christian.” Can you explain how your secular work is Christian?

Flannery O’Connor writes these stories about murder and mayhem, tattooed people, circus freaks, raging bulls . . . and you realize she’s writing about Christ the whole time. That’s the way I’m looking at my artwork — alligators, fish, saints, Moses, birds, whatnot.

matt clark fish print

I figure if God made all these things, I don’t know that we’re to draw a distinction between natural and supernatural.

matt cleark blessing of dimetrodon

El Greco was always showing heaven intruding on earth, with no clear distinction between where one stops and another begins. The scraps I feed my chickens, the bugs they dig up, they transform that into an egg. That’s magic!

matt clark chicken stare

I don’t want to sound like a pantheist — you can’t worship just as well on the golf course as in church. But I don’t like to draw sharp lines between religious and other art. Who I am is a Christian, and everything I do will be that Christianity.

It seems like your “overtly Christian” works are about making religious figures and scenes relatable and human.

matt clark st. alban

Do you see that as a form of evangelization?

I do. C.S. Lewis talks about how we don’t need more Christian apologists, but we need more books on mechanics, physics, and medicine, written by Christians, so people realize, “Oh, Christians are doing this.”

matt clark dogman

Growing up Baptist, we did more than our share of knocking on doors. It’s probably the worst thing in the world. It’s much better to live out my Christianity, and have that life move into other people’s lives. This is how we witness. I don’t ever want to make propaganda artwork. I’m perfectly willing to talk to people, but I get really itchy around propaganda.

matt clark moses aaron miriam

Since you teach at a Christian school, do you ever get any pushback for portraying or studying nudes in art?

matt clark furies

Well [laughs], the administration frowns on using nude models in elementary school. But talks about nudity with my children come early, as we go to the beach. It is Florida.

In art school, we had lots of nude models. We were doing a three-hour pose, and I remember idly wondering if the model had any tattoos. Then I realized that I would know, because she’s naked in front of me.

Some artists abuse their work and make nudes pornographic, but I believe there’s such a thing as chaste nudity. In paintings of the Madonna and Child, Jesus is almost always naked, showing His genitals on purpose, really in the flesh.

matt clark madonna and child line drawing

It’s very affirming of the Incarnation to show nudity in that way. Nudity doesn’t equal evil.

Rembrandt takes this tendency [to pornographize the nude] and he uses it. Bath Sheba is a full length nude, sitting down, right after her bath. Her maid is drying her feet. It’s very, very lovely. You see she has a note, and there’s a look of sadness of her face, and you realize that’s her summons to the palace.

Rembrandt_Bathsheba_in_het_bad,_1654

Rembrandt [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

She’s beautiful, she’s ritually clean, and now she’s going to be defiled in a profound way. You’re in the place of David. Rembrandt is saying, “Look at this beautiful nude — but look at is as David looked at it.” He draws attention to your own tendencies to dehumanize people.

When you draw humans, they look a bit like animals, and when you draw animals, or skulls, or dinosaurs, they look human.

matt clark dinos

 It seems like you’re constantly asking, “What is man, anyway?”

I do always ask that question. That’s why I love science fiction so much. “What’s human, what’s not human?” is the question they always ask.

matt clark satyr and robot

The robot cyborg always ends up being more human than the protagonist. So what makes us people?

matt clark minotaur as sinner

The first time I questioned this was in the Louisville Zoo. There was this gorilla, and I noticed his ear looked just like mine. I made the leap to looking at his face, and realized he was looking at me. I said to my wife, “He looks really unhappy” — and then he threw his fist at the glass and ran away.

matt clark katydid

We’re brought up to believe that animals are machines, only good as resources to be exploited, but I think that’s a terrible thing. I have some kind of relationship with the animal as a creature. That’s what it says in The Screwtape Letters: We are amphibious, animals, but spiritual as well. A creature, but immortal.

matt clark humilobites

I suppose it’s a way for me to work out the Incarnation: What He’s done is good, very good; in fact, so good that He’s going to become a little baby to a scared little girl in a Roman backwater. I haven’t worked it all out in my mind, but somehow all the dirt and plants and animals and rocks and sand and water . . .

matt clark stick

He liked these things so much, He wanted to be not just overseeing it, but involved in it.

matt clark wasps

And it seems like you are inviting the viewer to do just that: not just view, but get involved. You also write a lot about your work, which not all artists do.

I always appreciate when people explain things, or obscure the proper things. If you write clearly, you can think clearly. I want to think more clearly.

matt clark dream

Have you ever started thinking more clearly through the process of creating art?

Back in college, I did this big piece on Romans for my senior thesis. It was 36 or 40 feet wide. I worked 40-50 hours a week for a couple of months on this one drawing. All I did was think and look and I started to see the whole book as an argument that St. Paul was making. This was at the University of Florida. There was no bashing of Christianity, but no one cared. They just said, “This is a neat drawing. Wow. It’s really big. I like the way you did this . . . Oh, Brian, I see you’re wearing your tutu in this one!”

matt clark batman gets bored with his own drawings

I asked myself, “Why am I doing this? Am I making a giant prayer, telling God something He already knows? Who am I making this for? Did I think it would be like a big [religious] tract?

matt clark nimrod

I put myself in the drawing. I realized that the audience this drawing was for was me. The Bible isn’t something I need to yell out to other people. I’m learning these things for me, as a work of sanctification. Artists aren’t immune from their work. We’re part of the audience.

matt clark self portrait blue

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Dealing with busybodies: some practical tips

Morning_Gossip_NOLA

For a sociable or tender-hearted person, just saying, “None of your business. Buzz off!” isn’t a real option. So how do we handle busybodies with grace, tact, and peace of mind?

Read the rest at the Register.

We are not naming the baby Tuna Fish.

name the baby

What will we be naming her, after reviewing the hundreds of suggestions generously and thoughtfully provided by friends and strangers here and there? The baby will be named . . .

Something. Definitely something, shortly after she is born.

Look, I’m sorry. Probably this is why people don’t throw more parties for me! Weeks ago, I was supposed to pick a winner from among the 100+ name suggestions in the virtual baby shower Rebecca Frech threw for me, and I kept forgetting, and then I remembered, but I got overwhelmed, and then everyone got sick, and then we had to have a birthday party . . .

So there you have it: I feel that I am capable of gestating, bearing, nourishing, clothing, spiritually forming, educating, and preparing ten children to survive and thrive in this world and to glorify God in the next.

BUT. I’m having trouble picking a name.

We actually kinda sorta mostly settled on something just the other day — something that popped into my head while driving, and is a combination of a name I’ve always liked and my husband never really did, and a name my husband’s always liked and I never really did. Together, they sound pretty good, we can all pronounce it, and the kids have even worked out a Studio Ghibli-related theme song for the baby, based on the nicknames they intend to impose on her. So that’s taken care of.

But I still have to choose a name from among the suggestions, so dear Rebecca can award the $15 Starbucks card prize! So . . . . .

For pleasant rhythm, for the right combination of strength and femininity, for appealing and Catholic-ish connotations, for avoidance of any troubling towel monograms (ARF, etc.), I choose a combination of names that won’t sound too bizarre to future classmates, but which won’t be in the top ten in the next several years, and which doesn’t sound too much like any of the other names we’ve already used, but which isn’t a jarringly different kind of name . . .

 Ramona Victoria, suggested by Jessica Carney. 

Isn’t that pretty? I could totally go with that!

But we’re not.

What did we choose for an actual name?  Oh, you’ll just have to wait and see! Some of you will like it, some of you will wonder if we’re aiming at raising a vegan stripper, or possibly a British lady-in-waiting for Persian nobility.  The only other hint I’ll give you is that it’s not Una, which we initially were very happy with, until we realized that Una Fisher is Tuna Fish. It just is.

Thanks so much for the thoughtful suggestions, everybody! I really, really enjoyed looking through them. Thanks for throwing the baby shower, Rebecca, and thanks toSancta Nomina for the consult. It makes me so happy that this little girl already has so many people thinking of her and ready to welcome her.

Now! Who wants to come over and help me sort baby clothes?

How I feel after participating in a 917-comment thread about vaccines on Facebook

Oh, dearie dearie dear.

RIP Charles Townes, Brilliant Physicist, Man of Faith

Charles_Townes_statue

The idea that faith and reason are inevitably at odds with each other is one of the most persistent and least defensible myths of modern times.

Read the rest at the Register.