SIMCHA FISHER

Facebook and other social media notoriously distort our sense of what is normal. The ceaselessly updating parade of unsorted images and ideas makes the world more hectic, more urgent, and at the same time more trivial and ephemeral, so that we feel the need instantly drum up a response to everything large and small — but then it all evaporates in a few hours, and the next urgent thing presents itself, demanding that you like, wow, weep, giggle, or grr.

Within five minutes, there’s an earthquake and lots of people are dead! Vote on my cute kid in a chef’s hat! I’m outraged that your senator was outrageous (or maybe it’s from a fake newspaper that’s lying and calling it “satire”)! Here’s a cartoon about the uterus! Pope Francis is a demon! Pope Francis is a genius! Pope Francis is a piece of soap; here’s where you can get yours! Only you can stop abortion and sex trafficking and fluoride and Kanye West! BABY OWLS! And abortion.

Like the man says:

For the world is broken, sundered, busted down the middle, self ripped from self and man pasted back together as mythical monster, half angel, half beast, but no man.

You said it, Walker.

Well, mythical monster though I may be, I have hit upon something useful and unexpected that Facebook is doing for me — something that turned out to be great for my mental health: It’s showing me my memories from previous years.

At first, I thought the “See your memories” option was a cute feature, but just another way to wallow. But after a while, I noticed a pattern. At the beginning of the year, last year, and the year before, and the year before that, and so on, I had posted a series of articles that got tons of attention. It was really good work! I was doing real writing, and expressing myself with force and originality, and opening the floor for lots of fruitful conversation among thoughtful people.

Then, I saw that sometime toward the middle of Lent, last year, and the year before that, and the year before that, I posted a bunch of articles about struggling — about feeling flat — about not feeling what everyone else was feeling. There are lots of essays about feeling lost, feeling helpless, feeling like a wanderer and a loser.

I’d have to be blind not to see it — but I couldn’t see it, when I was in the middle of it. I have a burst of creativity in the beginning of the year, and I can hardly catch up with all the wonderful ideas that spring up out of nowhere. And then it all drains away, and I start feeling about as useful, appealing and energetic as something that washed up under the boardwalk.

When I’m doing great, I think, “Yes! It’s finally coming together! This is what I’m supposed to be doing! Now I need to make sure I’m taking advantage of this special, unique time in my life and not missing any opportunities!” When I’m barely keeping my head above water, I think, “Yes. I’ve finally been found out. I’m a shallow fraud, and now everyone will know it. Whatever razzle dazzle fakery that was, the fuse has burnt down, and I better scramble for a back-up plan, because now the slow death begins.”

Yes, I’m in therapy, thanks.

The crazy thing was, this was the pattern no matter what else was going on in my life. New baby, old baby, pregnant, looking for work, just about to get hired, kids doing great, kids falling apart . . . the pattern was the same.

I still don’t know what’s causing it. Is it the weather? Is it how much sunlight or sugar or iron I’m getting? Is it the liturgical year? Is it marsh gas? All of the above? Who knows? The point is, now I know that this pattern is part of what’s normal for me. Whatever stage I’m in right now, it’s just a stage, and it won’t last forever. It’s immensely liberating to realize this. If you’re stuck at the top of a Ferris wheel, it’s terrifying; but if you know it’s all going to come around again, it’s much easier to enjoy the ride. Whee!

So, there you go. If you, like me, tend to think that whatever you’re going through is the Really Real Truth About Your Life, and things never have been or never will be any different, maybe ask Facebook. Maybe Facebook knows something about you that you need to hear.

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Image: By Troy McCullough via Flickr, CC BY 2.0, 

I’m an idiot, and will avoid prayer if I can get away with it, even though I know it will make me miserable and weak. I’m extremely resistant to change; so for me, sticking to daily prayer is all about linking it to things I can’t avoid and habits I already have. Here’s how I make sure I never have a prayerless day….

Read the rest at the Register.

Porn’s in the news. The secular, mainstream news.

TIME magazine recently featured a cover story “Porn and the Threat to Virility.” The article is behind a paywall, but it opens this way (all emphasis is mine):

A growing number of young men are convinced that their sexual responses have been sabotaged because their brains were virtually marinated in porn when they were adolescents. Their generation has consumed explicit content in quantities and varieties never before possible, on devices designed to deliver content swiftly and privately, all at an age when their brains were more plastic—more prone to permanent change—than in later life. These young men feel like unwitting guinea pigs in a largely unmonitored decade-long experiment in sexual conditioning.

The Washington Post followed up with an essay titled,  Is porn immoral? That doesn’t matter: It’s a public health crisis:

Using a wide range of methodologies, researchers from a number of disciplines have shown that viewing pornography is associated with damaging outcomes. In a study of U.S. college men, researchers found that 83 percent reported seeing mainstream pornography, and that those who did were more likely to say they would commit rape or sexual assault (if they knew they wouldn’t be caught) than men who hadn’t seen porn in the past 12 months. The same study found that porn consumers were less likely to intervene if they observed a sexual assault taking place. In a study of young teens throughout the southeastern United States, 66 percent of boys reported porn consumption in the past year; this early porn exposure was correlated with perpetration of sexual harassment two years later. A recent meta-analysis of 22 studies between 1978 and 2014 from seven different countries concluded that pornography consumption is associated with an increased likelihood of committing acts of verbal or physical sexual aggression, regardless of age. A2010 meta-analysis of several studies found “an overall significant positive association between pornography use and attitudes supporting violence against women.”

And it’s not making the men who use porn happy, either. An opinion piece in the Telegraph UK picks up one of the threads in the articles above: that porn is not only ruining relationships, it’s ruining even casual sex.  The article says:

This message – that porn isn’t enhancing real sex, but scuppering it – is much more likely to resonate with teenagers than the fire and brimstone approach of the anti-pornography feminists, internet censors or the Church, especially as kids intrinsically want to do things that they aren’t supposed to.

This sentiment caught my eye. Everyone seems to agree that the Christian warning against porn is irrelevant and ineffective, and that what we really need is an evidence-based argument for why porn damages both men and women and makes sex less enjoyable and meaningful, and even, for heavy users, less possible.

Never mind that that is the Christian message — or it should be. I guess it wouldn’t be too hard to find a preachy type who insists that porn is bad because it’s too much fun, and fun is dirty, and wimmin are evil temptresses who don’t want you to be strong and pure. There is a lot of misogynistic, puritanical, body-loathing crap masquerading as concern for purity. If you’ve encountered something like that, I’m sorry. I apologize on behalf of the numbnuts who somehow got the idea that Christ Incarnate hates the human body. And I’m here to tell you that the Christian message is supposed to be this:

Porn damages both men and women and makes sex less enjoyable and meaningful, and even, for heavy users, less possible.

Just like the secular world is finally starting to figure out.

It’s an awful lot like the conversations that are happening around contraception. The Church has always taught that contraception is bad for women. The secular world has always pooh-poohed the Church, because it’s the Church. The secular world went whole hog for contraception. And now the secular world is slowly discovering, “Hey, contraception is kind of bad for women!” And Catholics sigh and tactfully point out the cheapest place to find fertility test sticks.

But wait, there’s more! The secular psychologist and researcher John Gottman (whose book on marriage I recommend) has written an open letter saying that, in the past, his institute thought porn was usually harmless, and even recommended the mutually agreed-upon use of porn as a way to “increase relationship connection and intimacy.”

Gottman now says that, after much study, he is “led to unconditionally conclude that for many reasons, pornography poses a serious threat to couple intimacy and relationship harmony.”

First, intimacy for couples is a source of connection and communication between two people.  But when one person becomes accustomed to masturbating to porn, they are actually turning away from intimate interaction. Second, when watching pornography the user is in total control of the sexual experience, in contrast to normal sex in which people are sharing control with the partner. Thus a porn user may form the unrealistic expectation that sex will be under only one person’s control. Third, the porn user may expect that their partner will always be immediately ready for intercourse … Fourth, some porn users rationalize that pornography is ok if it does not involve partnered sexual acts and instead relies only on masturbation. While this may accomplish orgasm the relationship goal of intimate connection is still confounded and ultimately lost.

Worse still, many porn sites include violence toward women, the antithesis of intimate connection.

You don’t say? YOU DON’T SAY? If only someone had given us some warning that . . .

All right, never mind. I don’t care how the word gets out. I’m just thrilled to see that people are waking up to the threat, and are, just as importantly, are putting together practical guides for how to break free of the habitual use of porn, and how to help your relationship recover when a partner or spouse has been a user.

This help is long overdue. For the last few decades, if a woman discovered that her husband was using porn, the secular world would have sneered: Get over it, toots. Porn is normal and healthy, and lots of guys and gals like to take a look because it’s fun. It relieves stress, and makes sex sexier. So stop being such a killjoy and deal with it.

Unfortunately, Catholics might respond in a way that’s just as unhelpful. A shocked and wounded wife might hear: You must instantly forgive and trust him again, because marriage is a sacrament. Ask yourself if you’re being generous enough with your body, that he feels like he needs to look elsewhere. At least he’s not beating you! Remember those lady saints married to brutal Roman governors who eventually converted after four decades of patient suffering. Just be like that. Toots.

Horrible. Both responses are horrible. They give no help to the offended party, and they give no help to the porn user, who needs it just as badly. It’s a massive mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.

But, as always, there is some hope. First is that secular sources are starting to openly talk about porn as an unhealthy habit and even as a public health crisis. Second is that Catholics are now very willing to talk openly about the problem, to admit that many practicing Catholics in seemingly happy marriages are porn users, and that just hitting the confessional isn’t going to fix your brain chemistry or repair your marriage.

I’m giving away three copies of Marcel LeJeune‘s new book, Cleansed: A Catholic Guide to Freedom from Porn (Pauline Books, 2016). LeJeune is a frank and faithful evangelist who has decades of practical experience working with Catholics in the trenches. A recent review of Cleansed says it’s recommended for:

• Catholics who are ready to kick their porn addiction, or maybe right on the verge of being ready. This could be the tipping point into grace.
• Anyone who is looking for a strategy-based guide to fight porn addiction. I’m not a man or a porn addict, but it seems like this would be good for men in particular, especially those who already have good accountability groups, support systems, mentors, or role models for a personal connection.
• People looking for a resource for the addict in their lives: parents, spouses, friends, counselors, mentors, and ministers.
• Anyone interested in the theology of the body or Catholic teachings on sexuality. When you know how to fight good desire gone wrong, you have a weapon for when disorder comes after you. If the enemy gets to be too strong, you know where to run.

To enter the raffle, leave a comment on this post (not on Facebook, please!). (I deleted the Rafflecopter entry form because it wasn’t letting me change the start time). I’ll choose three winners and announce them on Friday, April 15.

Friends, I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a jerk, but here we go: if pornography has hurt you, there are numerous online support groups for people who want to quit porn, or who are dealing with a spouse who is trying to quit. You have my prayers, but I do not have any advice for you. I humbly ask you not to write to me for advice. You have my prayers. It is not a topic I am qualified or equipped to give advice about. Thanks for understanding.

If you have lots of kids, you’re probably used to fielding criticism from perfect strangers: you’re crazy, you’re irresponsible, you’re brainwashed, you’re oppressed, you’re selfish(!), and of course you don’t have a TV.  My standard response to that last one is this: if you think TV is better than sex, you’re doing it wrong.

So yes, lots of people want to tell you how wrong you are to have had so many kids. Oddly, it can be just as unpleasant to hear from people who want to canonize you on the spot, just because you’ve managed to give birth more than they have. “You must be a saint!” they say. “You must be so patient!” “You must be so organized!” “You must be so rich!”

Yeah, no.   Take a look at my house, take a look at the inside of my van, take a listen inside the confessional, and you’ll know that none of those things are true. I am not so anything.  I’m just a regular person who happens to have ten children. Really.

All the same, in the last few decades, I have picked up a few tricks and skills to help navigate the howling wasteland — uh, I mean garden of delights that is large family life. For instance . . .

Selective smell.  Most mortals are slaves to their noses, and must smell what is before them. To the mother of a large family, though, odors are a choice.
Do I have time to realize that someone has been tucking chewed-up salami under their car seat cover for the last six months?

Do I have the mental courage to acknowledge that my toddler, at least olfactorily, resembles a deceased horse?

Will it push me over the edge to admit just how much yogurt has been incorporated in the bed spring over the winter months?  No? Then we smell nothing. Nothing, I tell you. Hey, when’s the last time someone took the dog out to pee?  Really, that long?  Huh.

Space Making. To the untrained eye, a house that has four times as many people as bedrooms is a house that is full. But it’s a different story for someone who is half delighted, half horrified, half just plain baffled (yes, that adds up to one-and-a-half.  If that sounds like a lot, you haven’t seen me when I’m pregnant) to realize that she is giving birth, again, in, like, eleven hours and she still hasn’t figured out where the new baby will go. There are spaces between spaces, if you know where to look.

What was once an ordinary closet suddenly reveals itself as a cozy Hobbit bedroom.  What appears to most folks to be a compact laundry room becomes the perfect spot to build a private little luxury loft — complete with forced air heating and white noise machine (a.k.a. a dryer). And let’s not even talk about the husband who says, “There’s nowhere to park the van.” Scoot over, sonny. Let SPACE FINDER GIRL through.

Mold Breaking  — an uncanny, if unintentional ability to run ahead of the societal curve.

Little boy shows up for his big brother’s wrestling match sporting My Little Pony rain boots? In any other family, that would be a deliberate flouting of heternormative labels society insists on pasting on our still-fluid little ones. But in a big family, it’s called, “High five for matching shoes, mister!”

Little girl says she wants to be an astrophysicist-mechanical engineer-president-oil rigger-linebacker-CEO of Everything when she grows up? Your neighbor’s kid might say that because she’s been encouraged to ignore traditional gender roles. A kid from a big family, though, probably just took a canny look at her mom’s to-do list and is hoping for an easier gig than that.

An Endlessly Elastic Definition of Prudence. Say you have something ridiculous and unreasonable that needs doing — you need someone to adopt a group of five siblings, or take care of a large dog with intestinal uncertainties, or cater a wedding which is, oopsie, tomorrow.  Who do you ask?

I want to kick my own behind for saying it, but ask the mother of a big family. She will take a prudent look at her budget, her schedule, her long-term goals, and her life in general, and will conclude that the demands of daily living have already vaulted so far beyond what is possible, that why the heck not? Tell the stinky dog to bring along that hairless rabbit he is friends with, too — he can help me shell eggs for the wedding. Why. The heck. Not.

The Loaves-and-Fishes Touch. Okay, so it’s less of a miracle and more of an attitude. You know perfectly well what a decent, balanced meal looks like, and yet you have the ability to serve graham crackers, scallions, and can of Cream of Desperation Soup and call it “dinner” with a straight face.

You can take a half pound of chicken thigh meat and make it into a soup or a casserole which — okay, maybe it’s not brimming with chickeny plenitude, but there is a scientifically demonstrable presence of animal fiber in every square inch.

And of course there are the times when you say, “Okay, Lord, you gave me all these kids, now how the hell am I supposed to feed them?” and within minutes, a new neighbor knocks on the door and explains that his bakery and his salmon factory often have surpluses, and do you know anybody who might need . . . ?

Yeah. Superpowers. We got ’em.

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A version of this essay originally ran in the Soul Gardening Journal in 2014.

Well, I didn’t read 290 pages this morning, and neither did you. Out of sheer honesty, we’ll just have to be relieved, outraged, disappointed, baffled, miffed, vindicated, smug, and deliberately misleading about the food we had this week.

SATURDAY

Lasagna with sausage, garlic bread, salad, root beer floats

Birthday! We have a nice new seven-year-old in the house, and this meal was her heart’s desire. She said, “We’ve been having a lot of meatball birthdays lately, so I think I’d like lasagna. And . . . would root beer floods be too much?” Not for you, my dear.

The lasagna was pretty tasty! I added fresh parsley and nutmeg to the cheese mixture, which gave it an extra depth of flavor.

[img attachment=”98249″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”lasagna crop” /]

I don’t remember which recipe I used — nothing unusual, something with egg in the cheese mixture.

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SUNDAY

Chicken tortilla soup, cornbread, strawberries and ice cream

Pioneer woman’s recipe for tortilla soup. It’s good soup.

[img attachment=”98248″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”tortilla soup and corn bread” /]

I served it with cheddar cheese, sour cream, and avocados.

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MONDAY

Pizza

My lovely assistant assisted lovelily:

[img attachment=”98247″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”benny pizza” /]

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TUESDAY

Pork chops, polenta, pineapple

This is the meal we should have had on March 14, Pi Day. Because “pi” isn’t pronounced like “pie,” it’s pronounced like “pee.” But what do I care? Eat your pies and spit on classical languages.

I meant to make rice, but was foiled by not having any. So I went for polenta, which I’ve never made, eaten, or seen before. I used this recipe for baked polenta with garlic because you can make it ahead of time. Not bad at all! It had a firm crust with a creamy inside.

[img attachment=”98246″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”pork pineapple polenta” /]

My husband came home later, when it had been refrigerated, and he sliced it up and fried it, and he liked it. He suggested making it with chorizo at some point, which sounds good.

The pork chops . . . bleh. Pork chops always defeat me. They were really too thin to be much fun. I drowned them in some kind of all-purpose marinade called Goya Mojo Criollo and then cooked them until they were dry and fibrous.

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WEDNESDAY

Honey mustard drum sticks, french fries, acorn squash, store-bought cupcakes

Another birthday! And a birthday kid who was a really good sport about a lackluster meal (she’s going out to eat with her friends later).

The chicken is a good make-ahead dish, which I got from the NYT’s Mark Bittman’s 101 20-Minute Dishes for Inspired Picnics: “toss with olive oil, salt and pepper, and grill or roast until crisp and golden. Whisk together mustard, honey and lemon juice, and toss with warm chicken.”
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THURSDAY

Chicken nuggets, chips, salad, carrots and hummus

Nothing to report.  12-year-old son made the chicken, 10-year-old daughter made the salad.

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FRIDAY

Tuna noodle casserole

Robin Leach conducted a joint interview with Trump and his second wife, Marla Maples. Their daughter, Tiffany, had just turned 1 year old at the time and Leach asked Trump what attributes the baby inherited from each parent.
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There is so much mystery in the human psyche and how it develops. We can work ourselves into a panic fretting that we haven’t given properly, and that our children aren’t receiving properly; and half the time, we’ll be right. Truly, the only way we can be at peace is if, along with doing our best, we remember to turn our children’s lives over to God, over and over again. God’s generosity works both ways: He is generous in what He gives us, and He is generous in how He receives, as well. When we turn our children over to God, He will not let our efforts go to waste.

Read the rest at the Register.

Yesterday on the radio, Mark Shea and I spent nearly an hour talking about mercy — what it means, what it’s for, how we receive it, and how we pass it on. (Some faulty equipment forced me to use my phone to join the conversation, so this hour also includes stunning audio of my ridiculous dog barking, my baby crying, my older kids slamming doors, and of course someone clattering by on stilts. On stilts. Savages.) 

I had a small epiphany as we talked. Mark mentioned the parable of the unforgiving debtor. You know the story: This fellow owes his master a huge sum of money, and throws himself on his mercy, begging for more time. The master has pity and forgives the debt. Rather than rejoicing, the servant immediately turns around and finds a fellow servant who owes him a small amount of money. He refuses to have mercy on him, but grabs the poor man by the throat and has him arrested. The king finds out about it and has the first servant sent to prison and tortured.

The message gets repeated several times:

[I]f you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. 

It certainly sounds like a simple tit-for-tat arrangement: if you refuse to forgive, then God will get back at you by refusing to forgive you. Or, if you are forgiven by God, then you better pay Him back by forgiving other people. It seems fair, but it’s always bothered me a bit. I understand that the unforgiving servant is behaving abominably, but after all, the master has endless wealth. He can easily afford to forgive the debt anyway, even if the guy he forgives is a jerk. Can’t he just eat it, because . . . well, he’s the master?

Setting aside the parable for a moment, I thought about how giving and receiving mercy, how offering and accepting forgiveness, seemed to proceed in my own life, in my actual experience. The truth is, I sympathize a little too much with the unforgiving debtor. It’s horribly easy to go to confession, collect my $200 — uh, I mean absolution — and then turn around and get mad at my husband for some minor thing, like not offering to strap the baby into her car seat. And I just got out of confession, where I probably wouldn’t even bother to confess something so minor as a trifling act of omission of courtesy. How can I act like that? And what can I do to be a better servant, more grateful, more forgiving in response to the forgiveness I’ve just received?

I find that I fail miserably to forgive when I behave as if the forgiveness offered to me is a transaction, a simple tit-for-tat arrangement — as if forgiveness is a heavy responsibility that I have to lug around until I can palm it off on someone else.I find it harder to forgive others if I behave as if I am receiving forgiveness in return for going to confession. Of course, absolution still “works” — I really am forgiven — even if my contrition is imperfect and my disposition is lousy. But I’m far more likely to be able to change my behavior afterwards if I remember to receive forgiveness in the context of a relationship with God.

This means calling to mind that forgiveness is offered out of sheer love, and allowing myself to just kind of revel in it, rather than make sense of it. There is no reason for it, no sense to it. He didn’t have to do it. He did it just because He wanted to, because He loves me. It’s not about me at all; it’s all about Him.

Perhaps that was the real mistake that the unforgiving debtor made: maybe he never really acknowledged the love that was at the heart of the master’s forgiveness. Probably he convinced himself he had it coming, somehow — that it was unfair for the master to expect him to pay off his debt. Maybe he resented him, and persuaded himself that it was the least he could do.  Isn’t this how we sometimes act when people are very good to us? We twist it around in our heads until their generosity not only seems fair, but the very least we can expect, rather than unfathomably more than we have any right to even hope for.

Little wonder that, even after receiving mercy, this servant was unable to find it in his heart to forgive his fellow servant even a small debt. He couldn’t find mercy in his heart because he hadn’t ever really let it in to his heart.

Okay, now let’s return to scripture. Notice that it says, “That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.” (Emphasis is mine.) I think that was the problem all along. The servant couldn’t pass on forgiveness because he hadn’t received forgiveness into his heart.

Oh, the heart. 

Mercy and forgiveness flow both ways because that’s how living things operate. We breathe in and out. Our heart has veins and arteries, and the blood flows through the chambers both ways. One way isn’t enough. It would be absurd to imagine that we could be healthy if we inhaled as much as we liked, but never exhaled. We wouldn’t be pleased if our heart did a great job of pumping blood in, but couldn’t let any blood out. It’s not that we’re trying to be fair; it’s just how we’re designed. It’s how living things operate. We’re not dead ends; we’re a series of systems that ebb and flow, cycle, and exchange. This is what it means to be alive.

And this is what it means to forgive: first, to accept forgiveness for what it truly is. It seems like bestowing mercy would be the hard part, but maybe receiving mercy is where we need to start. Next time, I’d like to talk more about what that actually looks like, and why it’s so hard.

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Photo: The Sacred Heart of Jesus by Tony Alter via Flickr (Creative Commons)