SIMCHA FISHER

Do Christians do good because they fear Hell?

Imagine that I go for a walk in the mountains. Halfway up, I come across a little unexpected stream, with bracing cold water that sparkles over the mossy stones. The sweet smell of the waving weeds intoxicates me, and for one giddy moment, the shadow of a falcon races over my path. There are berries and wildflowers, sweet breezes and a new kind of birdsong, something wild and delightful that I’ve never heard before.

So I tell everyone about it. Most people say, “How beautiful! I love the mountains, too.” But one guy sneers, “Yeahhh, I’d scuttle up there too, if I shared your primitive fear of carnivorous valley monsters.”

I go, “Huh?”

And another guy goes, “Why, I don’t blame you a bit. It’s probably emotionally healthy for someone with your neurotic anxiety over coronary disease to take an aerobic uphill hike.”

And I go, “Yeah, but—”

That’s kind of how I feel when I talk about being a Catholic, and two different types of atheists respond. When I posted about my little girl’s belief in God, the first type berated me for “[t]elling a 5-year-old they need to obey a magical ghost who lives in the clouds or else terrible things will happen to them.”

And I’m like, “Huh?”

And the second one is like the much more civil atheist, who said that he would have had a far less polite response to the first atheist, speaking “as someone who doesn’t worry about going to hell for doing whatever I feel like.”

And I go, “Yeah, but—”

These two atheists have something startling in common: They both assume that a major feature of Catholic life is a constant fear of Hell.

Now, I believe in Hell. And I do fear it. At least two of my daily prayers specifically ask God to preserve me from that fate. But does a fear of Hell motivate good behavior?

When someone is nasty to me, my first reaction is to respond in kind (and too often, I give in). My second reaction, though, is to say, “Wait, wait, wait. Can I do a little better?” And why would I do that?

If you can stand another analogy, imagine that I’m sitting at a table with a beloved friend and mentor—someone who has always been kind and patient with me, and who is always secretly fixing things up to make my life better. Today he has prepared a delicious meal, with all my favorites: five courses, perfectly matched wines, everything fresh and prepared with love and skill.

So I’m enjoying this meal tremendously, talking, laughing, having a wonderful time. Suddenly my host looks out the window and says, “Oh look, it’s that guy who commented on your post! Why don’t you wrap up one of these extra rolls and toss it to him?”

And I say, “NO!!! No, no, NO! It’s mine, all mine! I’m too tired! He’s a jerk! Why should I! Nobody cares about me! I can’t spare it anyway! I can’t believe you expect me to do that! Wahhhhhhhh!” and I fall to the floor, pulling the tablecloth with me, and lie there in a puddle of spilled gravy and broken glass.

Or, I could say, “Ehh, it’s just a roll, and I have this huge feast. Okay, buddy—my host seems to see something in you that I don’t. So here you go.” And I do it because I love my host. Am I afraid that he might cut me out of his will if I don’t share the roll? Maybe—but in practice, the relationship just isn’t like that. I worry less about his wrath than I do about my own foolishness: When I behave badly, it’s because I’m not thinking of him or his generosity at all.

Most of the time, when God asks us to do something good—to do something better than our original impulse—we do it not out of fear of punishment, but because we recognize that God is so good to us, so generous. And most of the time, all he asks us to do is to toss the other guy a roll. It’s not fear that motivates good behavior. It’s because we realize that God has given us a tremendous amount of love, and the least we can do is to pass it on from time to time.

Is the fear of Hell a useful way to control my sinfulness? Sometimes. But most often, if I commit a mortal sin, it’s when my heart is halfway in Hell anyway—so the fear of going there is not much of a deterrent. I behave much better when, rather than trying to avoid Hell, I’m trying to act more like I’m already in Heaven. I’m much more likely to share the wealth if I take a minute to look around and realize what a feast I have in front of me.

So yes, I fear Hell. No, fear of Hell doesn’t usually do much to change my behavior. Believe it or not, atheists, but that’s how it goes!

***

This post originally ran in the National Catholic Register in 2011.

Tick spoons are the best.

Ticks are pure evil. Pure, pure, pure, pure evil, and there are lots of them this year. Here is a product you should have on hand. It makes it fast and easy to remove those wiggling bastards whole:

You don’t have to touch the tick at all, and the head comes right out. So much easier and less horrible than using tweezers. Tick spoon! Yay.

When Hell has a hashtag

The BBC says, “if you believe in that sort of thing” because it does sound pretty goofy: A mysterious Mexican demon moving pencils around at the behest of eleven-year-old Mackynzie, who wants to know if Conor likes her or not. Who would believe nonsense like that? If Hell has its own hashtags, how scary could it be?

Read the rest at the Register.

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Would your kids know what to do if someone molested them?

I don’t care about the Duggars any more than I care about any family in the news. Many Catholics see them as role models, but they seem to have attitudes about children and women which are antithetical to Catholic ideas. Did their son molest girlsbecause of his upbringing? Maybe, maybe not. I’m not familiar enough with their parenting style to know. I do know that it’s possible for parents to do their hardest to raise their kids right, and their kids do shitty things anyway. It’s also true that families who look squeaky clean and happy on the outside are hiding a lot of interior darkness. I haven’t followed the story closely, so I don’t have an opinion about whose fault everything is.

But the story made my ask myself: would my kids know what to do if someone molested them?

There are always going to be predators in the world. Your child is reasonably likely to come into contact with one eventually, and this is true whether you home school or use Catholic or public or private schools, and it’s true if you keep your kids tucked under your wings or let them roam. It’s true if most of your friends are conservative Catholic or none of your friends are even religious. It’s a good world, overall, but there are bad people in it. You can’t change that.

What you can do is give your kids a clue about what is reasonable behavior and what isn’t, and what to do if someone is behaving badly.

This pdf guide for parents gives a reasonable overview of how to discuss keeping kids safe from sexual abuse. It’s secular, and pretty basic, so you can use it as a starting point for conversations. No one wants to talk about these things, but you must. You must. Don’t assume that they’ll be fine, and don’t assume they’ll know what to do if something goes wrong.

Don’t forget to ask your kids if they have any questions after you talk! Young kids think very concretely, about real-life circumstances, and they always remember information better if they asked about it themselves.

And also: talk to your kids all the time, about everything. If you’re not in the habit of chatting about this and that, why would they come to you when there’s something scary and weird to talk about? I know some kids just don’t like to talk — or, in some cases, they may just not enjoy talking to you. When that’s the case, it’s a good idea to tell them, repeatedly, that they can talk to you, or that they can talk to your spouse, or that they can talk to [trusted adult X]. Some kids need you to open a door a thousand times before they even think of putting a foot through.

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Only a rightly-ordered heart feels grief

e know some couples who don’t fight very much, but they don’t seem to really enjoy each other, either. They more or less leave each other alone, with a sort of low-level, courteous disdain for each other’s enthusiasms and flaws alike. They never experience the agony of rupture because they’ve carefully cordoned themselves off from any passionate unity. They are indifferent, because it’s easier. And this indifference is a tragic waste of marriage.

Read the rest at the Register.

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The Rubberbandians

Or, Why You Should Have a Bunch of Weird Kids and a Giant Dog.

I had to run to the pharmacy, and when I got home, this is what met me in the driveway.

The little one shouted, “WE ARE RUBBERBANDIANS, AND HAVE SPEARS!”

Note that they all have rubber bands on their foreheads (or, as the three-year-old calls them, “our brains.”

Also note the progress of the dog. We sometimes sing the Little Mermaid song in Boomer’s voice, and it goes, “ME WANT TO BE WHERE THE PEOPLE BE.”

The dog did not have a rubber band on his brain, but he totally would have gone along with it, if that’s what his girls wanted.

Even if it would have left a mark. Which it did.

Kids. Dogs. Sticks. I rest my case.

A little fish can go a long way!

He had to rethink his strategy. A good idea is only a good idea if people will actually use it. So instead of distributing the iron in formless lumps, he tried shaping the iron into a fish — specifically, one local to the communities he hoped to help.

Read the rest at the Register.

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Yes, I want to see your scary toe.

My son goes, “Want to see my scary toe?”

Oh man, what now? I think. One kid has weird shovel toenails, one has warts, one got stung on the foot by a bee, and one has some kind of horrible scar (and I’m such a good mother, I can’t even remember why). Of course I want to see your scary toe!

Behold, the scariest toe you will see all day:

How to set the new style Clearblue fertility monitor ahead five days for Marquette NFP

As new Marquette NFP users, we decided to buy the new style fertility monitor, which came out in January of this year. We figured it would be the standard eventually, and that sooner or later there would be no tech support for the old style monitor. Plus, it’s cheaper than the old one — although the old one occasionally goes on sale at Rite Aid.

the new one

In postpartum cycles before menses return, you’re supposed to create artificial cycles by setting the monitor ahead five days; but the new style monitor will only allow you to advance four days, which would give you an extra day of abstinence. Boo!

We read about a workaround, and my husband finally figured it out. I asked him to write up directions, and here is what he gave me. And for the record, the last time I was crying in the bathroom, it was about how bad the house smells, so there.

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So you’ve decided to get a fertility monitor. There are worse ways to spend money, and maybe you finally decided that crying in the bathroom is not the best way to sort out your fertility signs.

The new touchscreen Clear Blue Easy Monitor is meant to be used by couples to achieve pregnancy, and the company seems to be annoyed by people who use it for NFP. For example, it locks users out of being able to change the time more than one hour.

Right now, with the post-partum but not yet in cycles protocol, you can’t skip ahead to day five with the new monitor when you start a new 10 or 20-day cycle. I think this is another example of the Clear Blue people trying to discourage NFPers.

How to skip ahead to Day 5, sort of, with the new Touch Screen Clear Blue Easy monitor:

If you have already set up a cycle, you will have to reprogram the monitor to do this. You just do. I even called the company. There is no way to change the time more than an hour once it is programmed without reprogramming it. When you reprogram the monitor, do it as close to noon in real time as you can. Also, because you are reprogramming, you need to get the data on you last cycle and put it on a paper chart or a chart app.
From the home screen, touch the wheeley gears things and follow the directions to reprogram.
Set the time on the monitor to 11:50 p.m.
Start a new cycle. Set the date of the new cycle back as far as you can go, which should be four days.
Set the time of the start of the new cycle to 12 a.m.
Set the testing window for 6 p.m. to 12 a.m.
Go into the bathroom and cry.

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I also recommend not getting pet mice, if you’re trying to reduce the amount of bathroom crying.

My Dear Graduates

For some reason, nobody ever asks me to give the commencement address at their local high school or college. This despite the fact that I promised to wear pantyhose and everything, and to leave the bottle at home. Bunch of anti-Semites.

Anyway, I’m not one to be bitter. I’m not going to let this snubbing gnaw away at me. I’m just going to go ahead and write that speech anyway, and print out several copies of it, and keep them in the diaper bag in the car, next to the Luger PO8 and the farewell note. Because you never, never know!

Here’s what I have to say. Graduates, as I look out over your bright, eager faces, my heart wells with emotion and a single phrase springs into my mind: Better you than me.

Gee, I would give anything to not be you right now. What a horrible time this is for you. I mean, think about it: You’re on the verge of starting a new life. The possibilities are endless—what the future holds is bounded only by the limits of your imagination. You can be anything you want to be, if you only believe in yourself. You can shoot for the stars!

I’m so, so sorry.

Because that’s what people have been telling you, right? Isn’t that what your guidance counselor said—that there are no limits to what you can achieve?

You know that’s crazy talk, right?

I mean that literally: Only people with a mental illness would truly believe that you can achieve anything. People who actually get things done are the people who look at themselves and say, “Okey-doke. There are some things I’m good at, and many thousands more things that I am and always will be utterly unqualified to do. Starting tomorrow, my job is do the least amount of thrashing around and wasting of my parent’s tuition money as possible, while I figure out the difference between my very few strengths and my billions of weaknesses.

“Then, I need to figure out if there’s any possible way I can do what it turns out I’m good at, and also be a decent human being. If possible, it would be wonderful if the things I’m good at, and which allow me to be decent, are also things which will earn me a salary.”

And after you have that conversation with yourself, and preferably after you come up with a better plan than scrawling “FIX LIFE” on your memo pad, then you can go out drinking with your buddies.

Because here’s the deal, you poor deluded masses of inchoate ambition: Freedom is for something. Freedom is so that you can get something done. Yes, it’s valuable and precious in itself—but it’s not a resting place. Having potential is like being hungry: You want to resolve that in some definite way. All the best things in life come when you tie yourself down in one way or another, when you accept some limitations.

Think about all the things that make life worth living—all the things that people you admire are proud of. A huge project achieved? They neglected other things—fun things!—to get it done. A happy marriage? They forsook all others to remain faithful. A vocation of any kind? Saying Yes to one thing always means saying No to a dozen more. It doesn’t mean that all the rejected opportunities are bad. It just means that you’re only one person, and are here to do one person’s work.

This doesn’t mean you have to rush into it. There’s nothing especially admirable about going whole hog for the wrong thing (just ask the guy with the Betty Boop tattoo on his forehead). So take your time, look around, and don’t be rash. But for the love of mike, remember that this stage of your life is supposed to come to an end some day. Even if you never end up with a career at all, you will eventually have some huge choices to make.

Or you know what? You might not even get to make a choice: You might find yourself faced with some horrible situation, and guess who’s the only one who can fix it? That’s right, the guy in the mirror, the one who fell asleep in a trash can and his friend drew cat whiskers on his face with permanent markers. The lives of others may someday depend on you, Mr. Fluffy. Try to make at least some of your current behavior reflect that fact.

So congratulations, graduates! You did it. Some of you worked moderately hard to be here today, and I applaud you. Now go forth, act decent, call your mother from time to time. And remember, nobody’s life ever got better after drinking a rum and Coke.

***

(This post originally ran in the National Catholic Register in 2011.)

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