Dusting off the mirror

A couple weeks ago I read a post from a blogger who's going through a difficult period in her faith. She feels completely alone, as if God has forgotten about her. She's even started to think that God doesn't even exist, thus rendering her life and everything else meaningless. She called this a "dark night of the soul".

I call that a Tuesday.

Sometimes I think that those of us who came to faith from atheism have a unique perspective on periods of doubt since it's our default position. For me, the feeling that life is ultimately meaningless and that there is no Higher Power is my starting point for each day. And the feeling often lasts all day, sometimes even weeks. I get lots of practice with this whole doubt thing.

But ever since that time a couple months ago when the DVT diagnosis and its problematic treatment shook my newfound faith, I've found great comfort in some words of wisdom from C.S. Lewis:

When you come to know God, the initiative lies on His side. If He does not show Himself, nothing you can do will enable you to find Him. And, in fact, He shows much more of Himself to some people than to others -- not because He has favourites, but because it is impossible for Him to show Himself to a man whose whole mind and character are in the wrong condition. Just as sunlight, though it has no favourites, cannot be reflected in a dusty mirror as clearly as in a clean one.

Lately when I experience doubt I first ask myself if I have really dusted off my mirror (to use Lewis' analogy). Am I really surprised that I don't feel in touch with God when the closest thing I've said to a prayer in the past 24 hours was blurting out the Lord's name when Robert Best got kicked off Project Runway? When I've spent all week focused on me, me, me -- what annoys me, how I don't feel like doing this or that, who's pissed me off today, how totally inconvenient the line at the grocery store was? I often find that my mirror is not just dusty, it's caked in soot.

It's been striking to me how closely my doubts are intertwined with my sins: when I spend the day living as if my to-do list consisted only of the seven deadly sins is when I find I experience the most doubts. And, usually, as soon as I take a step back and try to live according to Christian teaching, following the Ten Commandments and whatnot, I find that my doubts dissipate. For example, when I go through the Herculean effort of forgiving someone who has slighted me it seems like the process itself lifts the fog from around me and allows me to feel the warm sunshine of God's presence.

And on the unusual occasions when even that doesn't help, I turn to God. I remind myself that I'm not involved in some cosmic game of hide-and-seek where God is constantly trying to escape me. If he exists, he wants me to know him. So I say a prayer asking for my faith to be strengthened.

I've found that this process has given me great peace in times of doubt. I make sure I'm living and thinking in a way that would make me open to seeing God if he tried to reveal himself to me (since, as I once realized, nothing would convince me if I'm not really open to it); and then I turn it over to God. The ball's in his court. If he doesn't exist then nothing will happen and...well, I have bigger things to worry about. But if he does exist then I'll get help -- it might not be immediate and it might not be a grand chorus of angels descending from the heavens, but I will receive that which I need. If he exists, he'll help me. And, so far, he always has.

More on overpopulation

I've been looking into data about population growth ever since I posted my original question about Catholic teaching and overpopulation. This post at DarwinCatholic and the studies it links to offer some interesting insights that confirm what my gut told me: you can't predict human population trends like you might be able to with other animals because the human psychological component makes it much more complicated. Check out the post, it's an interesting read.


UPDATE: Here's a collection of all the posts on this topic at DarwinCatholic. Great stuff.

Tidbits

I don't have much time to write so I'll just throw out some quick, random updates...


People of the Lie

• For whatever reason I think I'm just meant to read People of the Lie right now. It's a long story, but I kept thinking about buying it, blowing it off, and then it would come up again. I finally ordered it for my husband and the day it arrived I saw this post on Dawn's site. Weird. I picked it up just to glance through the introduction and ended up getting sucked in, so the Oxford History of the Crusades will have to wait.
• It was disturbing to recognize my old self in the patient Peck describes in the first chapter. In particular, I'd forgotten that I used to become gripped by a feeling of dread every night at sunset. But the obsessive-compulsive tendencies, depression, fixation on not thinking about death, etc. were all there as well. Somehow I eventually got over it (mostly) even without religion, but it was unsettling to think back on that period of my life. It was really bad. Really. Bad.
• One thing Peck mentions in passing is that people who suffer from chronic pain tend to regress to selfish, childlike behavior. It was a real "ah-hah" insight for me. It explains a lot of the freaking out I did a couple months ago about the clot/pregnancy/birth stuff. I knew that being in constant, often severe pain was wearing me down, but I didn't realize how much it had really penetrated my mentality.
  

Church

• RCIA starts tomorrow (Monday). Can't wait to see what it's like.
• Our parish recently had a ministry fair. I signed up for a couple things but the one I'm most excited about is cooking meals for the priests. Once a quarter I'll make two dinners for our two priests. I often worry that the pressure of handling such a large parish is wearing on them (others have noticed this as well) so I'm happy to be able to do something to give back to them, even if it's just cooking a couple of my very non-gourmet dinners for them.
• I'm excited about choosing a patron saint. A wonderful comment got me thinking about St. Augustine, and the more I read about him the more I feel drawn to him. Also, it's apropos that the day I start RCIA is his feast day.
  

Breastfeeding

• The whole "breastfeeding makes you lose weight" idea is La Leche League propaganda! :) OK, maybe not for everyone, but for me. I don't gain pregnancy weight, I gain breastfeeding weight. A few days after my daughter was born I weighed only nine pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight. I've since gained about seven pounds. I've been eating like I'm part of some sort of contest involving a cash prize. It's scary.

I'm in one of those moods where I could probably put up about five 2,000 word posts in a row, but since the baby finally just fell asleep I'll be responsible and get myself to bed.

Great political blog

I just realized that my favorite political blogger is back online. OK, so he's been back online for a year and a half. I'm not very quick.

Anyway, for those of you who like to read about right-of-center politics, I highly recommend Jaceonline. Great stuff.

Catholic teaching and overpopulation

One anti-Catholic sentiment I've heard a lot is the notion that the Catholic teaching of openness to life leads to big families, which leads to overpopulation, which leads to starvation, environmental destruction, etc. etc. You've heard this argument, I'm sure.

It would seem to be true that if, in theory, every person in the world were Catholic and open to life and people had an average of, say, four children each, that an overpopulation situation would quickly arise.

In one sense this is moot because if it's God's will it's God's will, but is there a pro-openness to life/big families case that can be made based on population and economic data? Something tells me that actual population patterns don't play out in perfectly neat patterns like we might predict. I haven't researched it much so I have no idea (though Jacqueline Kasun's The War Against Population is going to be by next Amazon purchase).

I'm interested to hear what you guys think. What do you say when you hear someone grousing that Catholic ideas about family are dangerous because they lead to overpopulation?

Some updates

- I am staying up writing all this as both the baby and my son are sound asleep. I'm insane.

- I met with our wonderful new adult education director on Friday. He's a great guy. We chatted about our situation, and he explained that we will be received into the Church at Easter. However, before we receive the Eucharist we'll need to have our marriage validated, so we'll probably do that a week before Easter. I'm particularly excited about that. The Church has completely changed the way I see my marriage, so I am thrilled to have the opportunity to have our union blessed by a priest. RCIA starts Monday the 28th.

- Still no decisions/news on the medical front. I have a hemo appointment at the end of the month that should clear some things up (assuming I grow a backbone beforehand and he will sit still long enough to talk to me). One theme of the (wonderful, appreciated) advice that I've gotten is that NFP is very effective. I want to clarify that I agree with that. The issue is that I don't trust any one method alone since nothing is 100%. Considering the high likelihood of severe birth defects if a child is conceived while on Coumadin I'm not even willing to take a .5% risk.

- As I've probably mentioned before, my dad is living in Abu Dhabi. I find it to be an amusing irony that his apartment has a "call to prayer" speaker right outside his window that blasts out the five-times-daily call to worship. It's so loud that we can't have phone calls while it's going on because I can't hear him over it, and the first one occurs before sunrise. Maybe the apartment manager installed it because he heard my dad was an atheist. :)

- I just checked in on Jennifer's site and feel exhausted from just reading about what she's been going through on the adoption front. I cannot imagine having to live through it. Please pray for her and her husband, whose faith is once again an inspiration as they go through an incredibly difficult time.

Worthiness of life

(I apologize in advance for any typos or grammar mistakes. It's been a long day.)

As I ate breakfast this morning I talked to my mother-in-law, trying to console her as she faces yet another difficult day. She has had an elderly friend living with her for two years whose physical and mental health is rapidly declining. This friend, I'll call her "Eleanor," was swindled out of her substantial life savings by a sociopathic relative. Eleanor has no children and no other family, no money and nowhere to turn. And as her condition declines and she's able to take care of fewer and fewer of her personal needs it weighs heavily on my poor mother-in-law.

Shortly after that I looked outside to see that our family dog, a beautiful Chow/Lab mix whom we've had for 12 years, had not eaten for the second day in a row and her legs had become so atrophied she could no longer walk. I took her to the vet and ended up deciding to put her to sleep. I'd known it was coming for a long time but that didn't make it any easier. She was a wonderful dog.

When I returned home I came across this article (via the excellent Mary Meets Dolly). It's a stunning display of pompous condescension, short-sightedness and ignorance by professor David Barash, in which he advocates for creating a human/animal hybrid for the sole purpose of upsetting Christians. He explains that "in these dark days of know-nothing anti-evolutionism...a powerful dose of biological reality would be healthy indeed" to dispel "the fallacy that Homo sapiens is uniquely disconnected from the rest of life."

He thinks that such a hybrid would "[bolster] a 'reality-based' as opposed to a bogus 'faith-based' worldview...the powerful payoff that would come from puncturing the most hurtful myth of all time, that of discontinuity between human beings and other life forms."

The two events from my morning immediately came to mind. I had a dog who could no longer take care of herself and whose life had become miserable, so I decided to end her life. But what gave me that right? Why couldn't the dog take me to the doctor and have me put to sleep? And what about my mother-in-law and Eleanor?

Eleanor's life is terrible. She has no family, no home, no money. Her mind is fading. She has difficulty taking care of her basic personal needs. Her life is "not worth living" by most people's standards, and she's a financial burden to my husband's mother.

Yet I think most people, even atheists, would agree that it would no be OK for my mother-in-law to just take Eleanor to the doctor to have her euthanized like you'd do with a pet. But why? Well, the Christian answer goes back to the inherent dignity of each person, that the beginning and end of each human life, including Eleanor's, is to be determined by God. And what is the atheist answer?

I spent some time thinking about this, about how I viewed the morality of euthanasia in my pre-God days. For an atheist, it's hard to know where to draw the line in terms of what (or whom) to kill, but the general rule would appear to be that the more intelligence a being is able to display, the more worthy they are of life. If human life is nothing special than I suppose this system is as good as anything else. It's no biggie to kill a gnat; you want to give pause before killing a dog; and you want to avoid killing a functioning adult human. The unborn and "brain-dead" don't have much intelligence that we can recognize or relate to, so it's OK to lump them into the same category with the lower animals and other beings whose lives we have the right to terminate.

The consequences of this are terrifying indeed and have been discussed more clearly and thoroughly in other places. But what interested me about this issue is that I finally realized why atheists are so obsessed with intelligence. We all want to be smart but it's really what the anti-religion crowd lives for. I believe that the only reason they waste their time debating Christians and trying to destroy others' faith is because they think it's a good opportunity to appear smart. And now I finally understand why. Because, without God, the only yardstick with which we're left to measure the worthiness of life is intelligence.

RCIA questions

I've been chatting with our parish's new RCIA director and the poor man always seems to be confused by our situation.

HIM: OK, so both you and your husband need to be baptized?
ME: Well, my husband was baptized in the Baptist church and I was baptized in the Catholic Church. So I guess not.
HIM: [Thinking that I am Catholic] Oh, so you don't need to do RCIA then?
ME: Well, I don't know, but I think I do. Don't I need to do something else other than being baptized to be Catholic?
HIM: Well, have you [asks questions about things that I don't understand like confirmation]?
ME: No. My baptism was the first and last time my parents took me to church.
HIM: So you weren't married in the Church?
ME: No.
HIM: So one of you was married before?
ME: No. We didn't have a religious ceremony because we weren't very religious back then [understatement of the year].
HIM: OK...[confused silence]...let's plan to just discuss this in person sometime this week.

He seems to be an extremely devout, religious man so I think he's perplexed by our case. Anyway, in having these conversations I realized that I have no idea what needs to be done here. All I know is that I need to take a class called RCIA. I don't know what goes on in those classes or what happens at the end of them.

In order for me to make my situation more clear to our adult education director, could someone give me the terminology for what it is I need to do to be in communion with the Catholic Church? My questions are:

1. Do we just need to be "confirmed" or is there something else?
2. What exactly is a confirmation? Is it just the first time you take communion or is there some other ritual involved?
3. Does my husband need to do anything extra since he was baptized in a Baptist church?
   
4. How does the RCIA class fit into all this -- what's its purpose? Is that where we learn about the Cathecism and Church history?
   

Thanks in advance.

Books and more books

I am LOVING that book meme that made the rounds through Catholic blogs last week. The only bad news is that I wasted valuable babysitter time that I should have spent paying bills jumping back and forth between blogs and Amazon.com. Anyway, here are the books I've added to my wish list from reading other people's answers:

The Lamb's Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth
by Scott Hahn

The War Against Population: The Economics and Ideology of Population Control
by Jacqueline Kasun

The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades
by Jonathan Riley-Smith (Editor)

Truth And Tolerance: Christian Belief And World Religions
by Pope Benedict XVI

Catholic Christianity: A Complete Catechism of Catholic Beliefs Based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church
by Peter Kreeft

Anguished English: An Anthology of Accidental Assaults Upon Our Language
by Richard Lederer

People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil
by M. Scott Peck

I should be getting my idea of a fun summer read in the mail today, The Oxford History of the Crusades. Sweet! Although I think it'll take me until early next year to finish it so I guess it'll be my fun summer/fall/winter read. :)

Knowing the truth when you hear it

One thing I've heard described by atheists as one of the weakest defenses of Christianity is the notion that the stories of the New Testament sound true; that they have, as C.S. Lewis called it, a "shattering immediacy". Below is an excerpt from a Wall St. Journal article that summarizes the case:

Mark's Gospel, for example, sets the scene of Jesus' arrest this way: "A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind." We're never told who the man was or what happened to him. Luke describes a tax collector named Zacchaeus, who was too short to see over the crowds following Jesus. "So he ran ahead," Luke reports, "and climbed a sycamore tree to see him." It's irrelevant to what follows. Likewise, the Gospel of John tells of a woman caught in adultery and dragged before Jesus, who "bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger." Nothing, absolutely nothing, comes of it.

Any serious reader of the Gospels knows that their many references to the divinity of Jesus are thoroughly embedded in these earthy details. Here is a narrative style that anticipates the modern, realistic novel. "I have been reading poems, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life," Lewis wrote. "I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this."

Make this claim to a skeptic and you can count on him to dismiss it as so much Christian wishful thinking and pretend like the concept of knowing the truth when you hear it is completely foreign to him. A friend recently told me that this is a classic example of unscientific thinking by Christians: it just "sounds right"? What on earth does that even mean? Rational, scientific people would demand hard proof rather than buy into this vague "ring of truth" business.

It was kind of funny to watch him work so hard to feign confusion. It's a classic example of Chesterton's observation of skeptics "pretending not to understand things that we do understand...like saying that the terrible Troglodytes of the Stone Age lifted alternate legs in rotation, as if we had never heard of walking." We all make judgment calls about the truth based on gut feelings all the time, particularly in the internet age. Anyone who regularly reads blogs will know what I mean.


Many bloggers write anonymously, giving only a first name -- if that. Yet I doubt any of their readers have ever questioned that they are who they say they are and the stories they relate about their lives are true. Why?

Because we know the truth when we see it, and the larger the quantity of writing, the more difficult it would be to keep up a hoax. I'll use the blog I last read as an example: Happy Catholic. Maybe that site is really run by a 17-year-old Scientologist who is luring in readers before slowly starting to pitch his religion to them. Or maybe it's just a really good spam site and, now that there are plenty of readers, the next entry is going to be "R U LOOKING FOR R-O-L-E-X REPLICAS?"

But if that's true, then the real writer is a genius. Because there are so many little details that give it a "shattering immediacy" -- from the jokes to the buttons to the detailed blogroll to the stories of everyday life -- that back up the assertion that the writer is who she says she is. It seems silly to even analyze it because it so obviously smacks of truth.

Each of us could be wrong about the identity of the bloggers we read. Maybe Defamer is written by a nun, A Little Pregnant was created as a spam blog for fertility drugs, and The Corner is outsourced to a company in India where a poorly paid staff writes on behalf of Kathryn Lopez & co. But does anyone seriously question this kind of thing? No. Because we know the truth when we hear it.

I don't want to insult holy Scripture by comparing it to weblogs, but I get the same impression of its writers and its stories that I do from most of the blogs I read: either the writers are who they say they are and the events and experiences they recount actually happened, or the real authors are minds of unparalleled genius (who have a whoooole lot of time on their hands).

Asking God for a sign

I was scanning through my referral logs and came across an interesting discussion over at Catholic Answers Forums. Forum member Ahimsa gives an eloquent, interesting description of his conversion. I highly recommend you read the whole story, but this paragraph particularly resonated with me and brought back an intense memory from this time last year:

A friend of mine asked me what evidence, if any, would be sufficient to convince me that the supernatural existed. This question stumped me. My philosophy at the time excluded the contemplation of the supernatural axiomatically: by definition (my definition) even the word "super-natural" was a contradiction in terms. Logic then said that, if my conclusions were definitional, they were circular. I was assuming the conclusion of the subject matter in dispute.

A couple days after I started this blog I went on vacation to the beautiful Ruidoso, NM. The subject of God was very much on my mind. For the first time in my life I was open to the idea that God might exist -- or, at least, trying to be open to the idea -- but I felt lost and confused and didn't know where to turn.

I was becoming increasingly dejected that I didn't seem to be getting anywhere spiritually. I didn't feel God's presence, I wasn't basking in the warm feelings of Jesus' love for me. I didn't feel...anything. And it didn't seem like I ever would.

The second night we were there I couldn't sleep. I was tossing and turning, the question of God weighing too heavy on my mind for me to sleep. I was depressed about some other things going on in my life and felt particularly low and hopeless. I felt like I was hitting a spiritual rock bottom, so I begged God to help me. I begged him for a sign to let me know he exists.

I felt so bad I started crying and, not wanting to wake my husband, I decided to get out of bed and go sit on the balcony. Our room boasted a spectacular view of the Southern Rocky Mountains, looking out at two large peaks. When I stepped outside I was stunned to see a storm raging silently between the two peaks. The only sound was the rustling of a mild breeze as the lightning flashed brilliantly to illuminate the great cloud, probably a hundred miles away. It was probably 60,000 feet tall with raging winds, battering the ground below with rain or hail; and yet it seemed like it was framed neatly there between the two mountains just for my amusement. An artist wouldn't have painted it as such because it would seem too contrived.

The rest of the sky was completely clear and carpeted with stars. I looked up to try to pick out some constellations and a large meteor sparkled across the sky. Then another. I saw probably eight in total that night, many of them large with long, dazzling trails. It was breathtaking.

It was the middle of the night and the grounds below were still, the hotel silent. I was probably the only person watching this display.

"Well," I smirked to myself, "be careful what you wish for." I had asked for a sign, and this was about as "sign-ish" as it gets. What more did I want? Yet I wasn't convinced. Even as my heart raced upon witnessing the grandeur before me I wrote it off as a storm and an unexpected meteor shower. I just couldn't believe that there was anything more to this than a random cumulonimbus and some dust entering the earth's atmosphere.

I realized then that there was no sign that God could give me. If this wouldn't suffice then nothing would. I wasn't open to it. Had I walked out on the balcony to see "HI JENNIFER, IT'S ME, GOD!" written across the sky I would have been impressed but ultimately written it off as a practical joke. If Jesus himself materialized to shake my hand and greet me I'd write it off as a hallucination. Because, in my mind, there was a natural explanation for everything, so therefore anything supernatural was impossible.

I arrogantly assumed that because I knew how something worked that God couldn't be involved. I watched the storm and thought, "That's not God, that's just condensation!" And the tightness in my chest and tears welling up in my eyes? "That's not my 'soul' yearning for anything, that's just chemical reactions in my brain!"

This was another major turning point for me. I realized that night that I wasn't going to see God if I was determined not to.

Turning points

One year ago tomorrow I started writing about my journey from atheism to faith. What has happened in the past year is truly a testament to the power of the internet to connect people and ideas, and to the fact that God will lead you in the right direction if you let him.

Though I think (and hope) that I would have ended up in the Church eventually I would almost certainly not be anywhere near there today without the people who read this site. In fact, I'd probably still be languishing in agnosticism and apathy. So for all of you who have patiently answered my questions, prayed for me and provided encouragement over the past year, I can't thank you enough. You have changed my life.

All week I've been thinking about how this site and the discussions we have here have impacted me, so I put together a sort of "best of" from the past 12 months. I don't mean that these are the best posts in terms of spectacular (or even coherent) writing on my part, but that the topic and subsequent discussions were turning points for me that got me from where I was on August 10, 2005: still an atheist but willing to listen to the Christian side of the story for the first time in my life; to where I am today: a soon-to-be devout, orthodox, practicing Catholic who honestly believes that the Church is the one true representative of Christ on earth.

Here's how I got from there to here:

8/10/05: All the labors of the ages
My first post. I thought a lot about that Bertrand Russell quote. I realized that I had to accept that as true since I didn't believe in God, but it just didn't sound right. In fact, it was quite obvious that that is not what's going on in the human experience.

Earlier that summer I had finally looked at Christianity with an open mind and found that its story was pretty compelling. But I didn't know where to go from there. So I started blogging, hoping that somebody might offer me some guidance.

8/15/05: OK, I'm convinced. Now what?
Coming from my background of non-belief I really didn't know where to start. So I picked up the Bible and tried to start reading it. I was actually more frustrated than I let on in this post. I almost gave up the whole endeavor because it seemed so ridiculous. I knew enough about the Bible to know that it's a collection of works written through a variety of different cultures in various languages over thousands of years. I had no idea how to know if I was interpreting it correctly. I figured that some of the stories were just histories and not necessarily directions on how to live, but I couldn't be sure.

It seemed unlikely to me that God would throw us to the wolves like that, opening people's immortal souls up to peril because they misunderstood what the Bible was saying. I thought of people I'd met who honestly believed with all their hearts that the Bible encouraged everything from racism to abortion to polygamy. I'd seen them in debates with other Christians and it always came down to a matter of personal opinion. There was no higher authority to appeal to. The racist/pro-choicer/polygamist always walked away as confident as ever that he had the correct interpretation.

The whole system seemed fishy to me. I started to think that maybe I was barking up the wrong tree and should consider another religion or path to God.

8/22/05: In hope of happy endings
The first of many times I freaked out and wondered if it's even possible for me to believe. I write a post like this about every month or so. :)

10/1/05: An impasse
In which I resist taking a leap of faith. Little did I know it's the only way I would ever find God.

10/20/05: Trying to see the light
I like this picture. And it was important for me to realize how much I'd been blocking out God.

10/27/05: A deal killer?
I realize that the Bible doesn't even say that the Bible is authoritative. So...then it's cool if I don't believe any of it? Steve G.'s response make me think for the first time that I'm going about this the wrong way.

11/11/05: "I think we're orthodox": My Sunday at Church
In my church-hopping I decide to give a Catholic church a try. And it sucks.

11/14/05: Faith in humans
The famous Constitution/Supreme Court analogy. If I had to pinpoint one post that was the turning point for me I would easily choose this one. This is the first time I started to think that I was most likely going to end up becoming Catholic.

12/14/05: I found a church
After my bad experience at the first Catholic church I went to I took Steve G. up on his offer to find a better one. I immediately knew this was it. It's still my parish today. My experiences going to Mass at this parish greatly accelerated my conversion process.

1/17/06: Why there's no turning back
When I realized I'll never go back to atheism.

1/24/06: An early mid-life crisis
My commentors introduce me to the concept of motherhood and marriage as a vocation. It totally changed the way I approach the question of what I should do with my life.

2/17/06: Time for a name change
I change the name of the site because I no longer want to refer to myself as an atheist.

4/18/06: Courage
I take a look at what's expected of me as a Catholic and a Christian and realize how ridiculous the notion of atheism being for the courageous is.

5/8/06: Contraception
I openly embrace the Church's teaching on contraception...

7/17/06: NFP and Coumadin: A dilemma
...And end up with a condition whose usual treatment regimen is not at all compatible with "openness to life". It's the first big test of my faith...

8/5/06: Coming out - Part II
And faith wins.

It's been an exciting year. Thank you all for making this site so great. I hope you will continue to join me as the adventure continues.

Coming out - Part II

Though the final decision about my faith may not have fully been made in my head (though it's close), it's been made in my heart for quite some time now. As I've said before, when I try to picture myself going any route other than becoming Catholic I get stuck. I literally can't imagine it. In some ways it feels like it's not even my choice: my doubts are still there, but that indescribable, intense pull is stronger than ever. I feel like I have no choice but to resolve my doubts since I'm obviously going to end up being an orthodox, practicing Catholic.

So that leaves me with the next step -- one that, thanks to these medical issues, I must make sooner than I'd planned: "coming out" as a Christian and a Catholic. And I hadn't anticipated how difficult it would be. I've never made a firm verbal statement of faith. I've talked about it on this site but nobody I know personally reads it. To my husband and the few Catholics I know I've come really close to defining myself as a Christian Catholic but always manage to blurt out a bunch of qualifiers like, "I guess I'm sort of a 'Christian' because my husband and I are, you know, pretty much Catholic, mostly." And to my family and most of my friends I still skirt the issue and don't dispel the impression that we're just going to church every Sunday because we think the priest is an interesting guy.

I can hear most of you thinking, "Why on earth is it a big deal to tell people about your religious beliefs?" It probably isn't if you haven't spent most of your life wrapped up in the Church of Atheism.

One thing that you've probably noticed about atheists (the people who vociferously describe themselves as such, not necessarily all people who lack religion) is that their beliefs are founded on pride. The reason they love to "debate" religion is because they think it's an opportunity to show everyone how smart they are. The quality they prize above all else is intelligence, particularly their own, and they spend a lot of time making sure everyone else is aware of their reasonableness and intelligence. And they fancy that announcing their lack of belief to the world is great shorthand for, "Check out how scientific and smart I am: I don't believe in anything I can't see or measure or prove on paper because there is nothing in the universe that's not understandable to clever people like me." A glance through the comments on the Raving Atheist or other theological debate sites will show you what I mean. It would not be incongruous to tack on "Check out how scientific and smart I am:" to the beginning of almost every anti-religion comment made on the site.

And, I'm embarrassed to say, I was always one of these people. I didn't even fully realize it until I tried to tell the hematologist of my religious beliefs last week, but I've spent my whole adult life building my ego around the very fact that I didn't believe in God. It's what made me smart (so I thought), and being smart made me valuable -- and, if I did say so myself, quite superior to the average Bible-beating yahoo. So when I went to tell the doctor that I needed him to take a moment to discuss alternatives to Coumadin because I'm Catholic and don't believe in contraception, the words got stuck in my throat. Those old demons jumped back up to yell, "You'll sound like some unreasonable, superstitious fool!"

Ah, pride. I now understand why they say it's the most dangerous sin. It's what kept me away from God for so long, and what keeps me from proclaiming my beliefs now. As I said in Part I of this post, my medical situation would be a lot less complicated if I would just be open about the fact that I'm Catholic and my beliefs are non-negotiable. I think one of the reasons I'm excited about finding a Catholic doctor is so that I can slink away from my current medical team without having to stand up to them for what I believe. I guess I'd rather them see me as a flaky patient than a religious nutcase.

Obviously, this must stop.

So I'm in really new territory here. Becoming Catholic in my heart was an experience unlike anything I've ever known. But, oddly, becoming Catholic to the world is an even bigger change, because it has an even bigger impact on my ego. It involves a 180-degree change in the way I've always presented myself to the world, and one the requires a whole lot more humility.

This is why St. Augustine's advice, "Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand," is the only path to God for lifelong atheists like myself. As I heard Fr. John Corapi explain the other day, faith must come first because it forces you to set your pride aside and admit to yourself that you don't (and can't) know it all, that your little brain cannot comprehend everything about life and the universe. And when you're willing to shut up and admit that you don't know much at all and that you need help finding the answers, a whole new world unfolds before your eyes.

Life as a Catholic for me is, truly, a whole new world. It's more gratifying and fulfilling and calming than I could ever describe, and I look forward to telling the world about it.

[RCIA starts August 28th]

Coming out - Part I

What I can't figure out is why that has to be found out on a blog instead of from the hemotologist?

Um...still not getting why heparin and/or lovenox is not an option here?

I think you should be able to find a hematologist who will work with your using NFP.

These excerpts from the comments to my last post were swirling around in my head today as I drove back and forth to yet another doctor appointment. I realized that there really aren't a whole bunch of complicated, intertwined issues going on here as it seemed when I typed out that post last night. It really just comes down to one thing: whether or not I am ready to say that I am Catholic.

Because if I'm not Catholic then I'll just use some sort of contraception (other than the Pill) and this whole dilemma goes away. I'd probably still do NFP but for now, while I'm on Coumadin, it would tie all this up neatly to have a backup for peace of mind in case I screw up my charts.

And if I'm Catholic and I truly have faith in the Church, its teachings on contraception and all, then it's time to "come out of the closet" (so to speak). There really aren't that many decisions to be made here if I'm willing to firmly proclaim my faith to any doctor and say, "I am Catholic. I am not willing to use contraception. I would not be willing to abort a pregnancy. These beliefs are non-negotiable, and you need to help me find a solution that accomidates them." I don't even necessarily have to switch doctors if I'm willing to be honest and unwaivering about what I believe with the ones I have (though I probably will switch for other reasons).

After all the spiritual flailing I've done these past few months it looks like I've reached a fork in the road. A decision is required. If I don't have faith in the Church, if I'm not Catholic, then I need to just do NFP + backup contraception and stay on Coumadin since that's by far the easiest option*. And, if I do have faith in the Church, which I think I do, then it's time to start talking about it, and living it.

Continued here in Part II

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* To answer some questions from the comments to the last post about drug alternatives: aspirin isn't strong enough to be used as a treatment for an existing clot; heparin requires hospitalization to administer (from what I understand -- anyone know of oral heparin?) so it's not given for long-term treatment; and Lovenox shots (a.k.a. low molecular-weight heparin) would cost me about $1,700/month out of pocket and is not proven to be safe during breastfeeding. The main treatment options for DVT are listed here.

Calling all Catholic hematologists

An update on the Coumadin/contraception issue...

I had the big visit with the hematologist this morning (if you don't know the story behind that, I first wrote about it here and here). It's the follow-up visit I was waiting on to decide whether or not to switch doctors. And we have a verdict on that one. He was in a big hurry, as usual, and as he was walking out the door I asked him how serious the whole Coumadin/pregnancy issue is in the case of an unexpected pregnancy. He nonchalantly replied as he took another step out the door, "Oh, the risks of birth defects are really high, you'd need to have an abortion if you got pregnant while on Coumadin."

I choked on the water I was sipping and sputtered out that it was against my religious beliefs. He said that in that case I must use multiple different forms of non-estrogen birth control (like condoms plus spermicide). By that time he had actually walked out the door, so I didn't want to chase him down the hall yelling, "But what if birth control is against my beliefs too?"

I was so upset by that conversation, and not just for the obvious reasons. Not one of the three specialists I'm seeing had mentioned anything about the risks of Coumadin and pregnancy, I only knew about it from my own online research. Also, Dr. Hemo didn't get all concerned about birth control and recommend a very conservative option until I told him I wouldn't be open to abortion, as if abortion isn't something to be avoided at all costs.

So, yeah, I need a new doctor. New doctors, actually. The whole thing is really daunting. Some thoughts off the top of my head:

- None of the doctors in my area listed on One More Soul are a) hematologists or cardiologists or b) are on my insurance plan. (Anyone know of another source for NFP-friendly doctors?)

- Two other doctors have concurred that nobody in their right mind, or at least nobody who dislikes being sued, would take me off of Coumadin before six months. If the clot returned and caused problems it would be clear malpractice. I will run this by a pro-life doctor if I ever find one, it'll be interesting to see what they would do.

- Coumadin is hard to manage, as my twice weekly blood draws have shown. I don't think a general practice office would be set up to do the frequent tests that I need. Dr. Hemo has an in-house lab where they can run the test on the spot and get me updated dosage information the same day. My dosage changes all the time depending on those results. Evidently this is important.

- The cardiologist said that twice daily shots of Lovenox (heparin) *might* be an alternative, probably the only other option. My portion of the prescription when I was only on once daily shots was $850/month, so I'm not so sure about that. Of course I'll fight it with my insurance company, but I think they're actually following the terms of the contract on that one.

- I'm such a wuss. I get really stressed thinking about switching doctors because I feel like it would offend my current doctor and his staff. How lame is that.

- I'm going to call my priest tomorrow to set up a meeting.

So that's the situation. The things I mention above are just a list of the dilemmas/concerns I'm facing, I know that some of them are not certainties (e.g. maybe a general practice office could manage the Coumadin blood tests, maybe somebody would be willing to take me off of Coumadin and prescribe something else, etc.) I just have a lot of work to do: I need to get on the great NFP message boards that have been recommended to me, get on the phone with some of these doctors and see if I can meet with my priest.

This situation is so strange, sometimes I like to think that there must be some sort of purpose to it. NFP had been on my mind heavily for the past few months (as a glance through my May archives will show) and then, just a few weeks after I embrace the Church's teachings on contraception, out of the blue I come up with a condition that requires me to be on medication that is completely incompatible with unexpected pregnancy. I don't know if I'm supposed to be learning something here, or if it's the devil testing me or what, but it feels like there's some sort of purpose -- for better or worse -- behind this situation. But what on earth could that be?

Let's talk about books!

Georgie tagged me with this great meme. My Amazon wish list has grown by about ten items after reading what everyone else has had to say for this one.

1. One book that changed your life:

The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel - It never even occurred to me that the Christian story might be true until I read this. I talked more about it here.

Runner up: Domestic Tranquility by Carolyn Graglia - The first book to make me re-examine my silly liberal beliefs about feminism and marriage.

...OK, I just thought of about five other books that are close runners up. I think I'll just do other posts about them in the future.

2. One book that you've read more than once:

Endurance by Alfred Lansing - Probably the best book I've ever read. Absolutely amazing. Go add it to your wish list right now (make sure to get the version by Lansing).

3. One book you'd want on a desert island:

The Cathecism of the Catholic Church

4. One book that made you laugh:

The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton - I love his dry, British wit.

5. One book that made you cry:

Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel - I didn't see the ending coming, the final story she tells brought me to tears. Man, I'm getting teary-eyed just thinking about it. (Next time you're in a book store pick up the book and read the last five pages. Really moving.)

6. One book that you wish had been written:

Christian Apologetics for Atheists - Nobody's done it right yet. C.S. Lewis and Lee Strobel have come close, but there's no one book that I think I could recommend to atheist friends and say "here, read this" that I think would do any good.

7. One book that you wish had never been written:

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max - I partied with this guy and his friends one time and have never been so unimpressed with a group of people in my life. As an aspiring writer, I almost choked when I saw his book on Amazon's bestseller list. I am so bitter that this jackass has a book and I don't. (Not a very Christian sentiment, I know. Still working on that one.)

Runner Up: The Attachment Parenting Book by Dr. Sears - I don't know if I'd go so far as to say I wish it hadn't been written since I know AP works for some people, but it should at least have to come with a warning label. AP was a disaster for us.

8. One book you're currently reading:

Good News About Sex and Marriage by Christopher West

9. One book you've been meaning to read:

Ack! My Amazon wish list has more than 150 items on it so I don't think I can narrow it down to just one. I'll choose one from each list (I have one each for Religion, Nutrition, Politics, and General/Fun Reads):

Great Heresies by Hilaire Belloc
The Mind on Fire by Blaise Pascal (OK, that's two from the religion list)
The Sugar Addict's Total Recovery Program by Kathleen DesMaisons
The Party of Death by Ramesh Ponnuru
1776 by David McCulloug

10. Book that you bought but haven't read:

Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America by David Hackett Fischer - Looks fascinating but I had no idea how HUGE it is when I ordered it from Amazon. I've been too intimidated by its size to start reading it.

OK, I added #10 myself because I thought it's an interesting question.

I'd love to hear what Jennifer, Adoro Te Devote, KathyJo, Colleen and Steve G. have to say for this meme.

Catholic guilt

I've heard a lot in my life about "Catholic guilt." When talking to former Catholics who've left the Church, and especially people who know nothing about the Church except for what they hear in the media, you hear a lot about how guilty the Church makes people feel, especially in matters of sex. And this, of course, is supposedly very unhealthy and damaging to the psyche.

Of course I always bought into this back in my pre-religion days. I would hear someone talking about how terrible it was to be made to feel guilty about their natural sexual desires. "Boy," I thought, "it must suck to be Catholic! I'm glad I've never fallen for that religious nonsense and had to deal with those silly guilt trips!"

...And then I would go get on my scale and start crying because I'd gained three pounds and therefore looked slightly less waifish than I had the week before.

In my atheist high school and college days I weighed around 120 pounds. Sounds pretty normal, except for the fact that I'm six feet tall. A "thin but healthy" weight for my height is around 145. When my weight "skyrocketed" to 135 one semester I was ashamed and embarrassed, often not going out on the weekends because I thought I looked terrible. Skipping the gym or overindulging in food was cause for countless wasted hours of mentally beating myself up for my lapse. I was frequently concerned about my husband (then my boyfriend) thinking that other women were more attractive than I. It bothered me deeply if I perceived that he thought some other girl was pretty.

All of that seems so absurd to me now, I hate to even think about all the time I wasted being consumed with guilt about my physical appearance. But I was dutifully following modern secular society's teachings that we women are only worthy of love and respect if we're "sexy" and "attractive" -- and the bar to fit that description is high, as any flip through the channels on TV or the magazine aisle can confirm. I really thought that being fat would be the end of the world. A typical female in my generation, my physical appearance was inextricably intertwined with my self worth. To be thought of as ugly would be to practically not exist. But, in a testament to my ability to live in denial and avoid the obvious, I really believed that my worldview was all about liberation, not guilt.

These days my self image couldn't be much different. Last week I was trying on swimsuits and as I looked at my post-baby figure my honest reaction was, "I look great!" My thighs are "huge" (by my old standards), my stomach has not bounced back into shape at all, my stretch marks are like something out of a dermatology textbook and I think the last adjective that could be used to describe me right now would be "toned". Yet I honestly feel like I look just fine. Not that I intend to "let myself go," but to see that I look like a healthy woman who has had two children makes me feel so beautiful, stretch marks and all. A little extra weight here and there just seems like superfluous detail compared to the value that I bring to my marriage and my role as a mother.

The Church's teachings on sex and marriage have been some of the most liberating ideas I've ever heard. To understand the sacred, deep purpose of marriage and the creation of children makes my previous MTV-inspired views of female sexuality seem not only incredibly trivial and shallow but an affront to human dignity.

To try to live in accordance with the Church's teachings on sex and marriage may be challenging, but it certainly doesn't make me feel guilty. In fact, it's instilled in me a profound sense of dignity and freedom that I could have never imagined back in my "liberated" days.

How not to criticize NFP

A conversation between me and a relative this morning:

HER: So I guess pretty soon you'll get on the Pill or something. Sure would be terrible to get pregnant now.

ME: We use natural family planning, which is--

HER: Oh, yeah, THAT works! [Scoffing disdainfully] That's how Leslie and Jeff got here. [Referring to her beloved youngest siblings.]

In the awkward silence that ensued, neither of us were sure what point was just made. That NFP leads to horrible things like...Leslie and Jeff? It was weird. I didn't jump on the the opportunity to get preachy, I just let her think about it.

It was a good lesson for her: when slamming NFP (which you know nothing about) because you perceive it to be innaccurate, it sounds a lot more ominous to use the impersonal, vague example of having "too many kids" or "an unwanted pregnancy." But try not to follow those examples through to actual living, breathing loved-ones. It makes it sound like new life, whether intended or uninteded by you, might just be a good thing.