The (Bad) Language of Free Will

My 7-year-old daughter came into my bedroom the other night about an hour after I’d put her to bed.  I knew she was upset because she was sucking her fingers, a habit that she has mostly kicked but sometimes creeps up when she is worried or sad. I put my arm around her little nightgown clad body and asked her what was wrong. “Sometimes I say bad words in my head,” she said as tears rolled down her cheeks, “and I am afraid that God will be mad at me since he knows what I am thinking.” I hugged her close and dried her tears and asked her if she would ever say those bad words out loud. “No way,” she exclaimed, half-laughing/half-crying. I asked her why. She answered, “because I know they’re bad and I can’t choose what I think but I can choose what I do.”

These kids, right?  Sometimes they can take the most difficult topic, in this case free-will, and make us see it in an entirely new dimension. My daughter’s dilemma is all of ours. All day long we have thoughts that drift in and out of our consciousness, some good, some bad and we have to constantly make decisions about which ones to act upon. As a Christian family, I try to make sure we are rooting our decision making in the teachings of our religion. This does not make life easy.

I often consider myself fortunate that I don’t struggle with the concept of religion. If I believe that there really is a God (I do) who imbued humans with an immortal soul (I do) it only makes sense that God might give us a primer on how to protect that gift. But without our immortal soul  – what are we? We are animals with instincts and desires and an inclination to do whatever it is that we want. Our bodies and our minds are these amazingly complicated tools with great capacities for good and evil. God, with his ultimate understanding of the nature of humanity, gave us the owner’s manual for our bodies and for our soul. That means having to sometimes choose the way that is difficult, but as our parish priest once said, “We should not confuse what is easy with what is true.”

Back in my bedroom, I confessed to my daughter that sometimes I say bad words in my head too. She giggled and used her spitty fingers to wipe away her tears. “What?!” she asked, incredulous. “You think bad things too?” I said I did. “Well, I can imagine that you think bad thoughts, but does Daddy?” I told her that, yes, even her beloved Daddy says bad words in his head sometimes. It’s normal. She hugged me and thanked me for talking to her, but if I’m honest she taught me just as much as I have ever taught her.

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Part 4 - Writing is my Hobby

This is not the post I intended to write.  Let me back up.

When Grant and I met in 1999, I was about to graduate college with no plan at all. I graduated high school with stars in my eyes and newspaper ink in my blood.  Basically, all I had to do was hand in a paper with my name on it and the heavens would open up and choirs of angels would sound their trumpets and it would automatically be canonized by the Church. Or something like that. Every teacher told me I was good. The local newspaper asked me to write a column for them. I went to work for the newspaper in the nearest big city. I was big time. In a small town.

After hesitating for a year, I enrolled in a university and declared my major "English" like I was the boss of the language. My grades were lackluster. Not terrible but not what I expected. Once I got through the base level classes and began the intensive course work - bad turned worse. I got my first paper back with an F on it. An F and nothing else: no "see me," no "do over." An F - like Who-in-the-F-do-you-think-you-are?

In truth, I was a failure.

And while I didn't actually flunk out of college, I pared back my expectations of a career in writing. And since we already know the end of this story, we know that in the long run this failure actually helped me find my true self and my true calling. I don't know about you but I always like knowing the end of a story before it's actual ending.

So lately, I have seemed to find my voice again. Perhaps it is because I am not writing for anyone else and my happiness is not contingent on how anyone perceives me in writing. I am not writing for money or grades or notoriety. My writing is simply to document this amazing, beautiful life that I lead and to leave behind an account of who I was when I was 37 and a Catholic convert, homeschooling, raising 5 beautiful children, not contracepting, cooking, cleaning, fixing hair, and living out the most romantic of all love-stories with the man of my dreams.

When I say that this is not the post that I intended to write, that is because this week I was given a chance opportunity to write an article for a local newspaper.  I had it all planned for this blog.  I'd write a 5-Day Series on my life aspirations: Day 1) The Aftermath 2)Hairstylist 3)Prom Planner 4)Writer - and I would reveal to you that in the midst of all of this hubbub my article went to print. But guess what?

It didn't.

Better Off Dead

Yesterday, while I was trying on earrings and lipstick in my beautiful home surrounded by my five innocent children, an emotionally deranged young man was walking into a Kindergarten school room in Connecticut and opening fire on them. He stole them from their families, he irreparably broke the hearts of this country, and he snatched the innocence and security away from all of the other children who had to witness this mindless act of carnage.

And then he turned the gun on himself.

Adam Lanza is better off dead.

A friend of mine asserted that, on a national level, the right to gun ownership does not trump those children's right to a healthy and uninterrupted life. When faced with a problem, in this case unfiltered evil, I think that the human mind immediately seeks to fix. Taking away the right to gun ownership would fix the problem of people getting shot, right?

Here's the problem I have: The word "right" gets my hackles up. To what do we really have the right?

I posted a picture on Facebook last year of plastic medical bins being wheeled away from an abortion clinic with the label "Hazardous Medical Waste." The picture was difficult to look at, but when you got past the emotions that it evoked, you were left with the reality. Scared, poor, single young women walk into abortion clinics every day having decided that their life isn't good enough to support a child. Their own life is in shambles. How could they possibly give of themselves the necessary means to nurture new life?

The life growing inside of their womb is better off dead.

I read a Facebook post from a friend that said until we start talking about the root causes and societal problems that lead to these massacres - they will never end. Even in Japan, where guns are outlawed, a man walked into a school room and killed bystanders with a knife. Guns and knives don't kill people - people kill people.

RU486 and Vacuum Extractors don't kill fetuses - mothers kill fetuses. And until we start talking about the root causes and societal problems that lead to this genocide - it will never end.

A few months ago, somewhere in rural China, a mother walked into an orphanage and abandoned her 6 year old daughter. After a couple of weeks, it because clear that she is never coming back. Last week, my 60 year old childless, American friends got a call that they had preliminary clearance to come to China and pick up this little girl. Their daughter. 

But that is ridiculous, right? They're 60. They are going to die. But not before they give a new life, new hope, and love to this little girl.

And the three of them will be all be better off. Alive.

So next week, let us welcome the coming Christ Child to his teenaged, unwed (at conception) Mother and his aging foster Father. Let us contemplate this poor, mixed family and their status as eventual refugees from their homeland. Let these things sit in your soul as you try to heal your very own wounds - whatever they may be - and then decide if anyone, anyone is truly better off dead.

Me, Animals and PWCMoms

Here's the dilly, folks.  I am a guest poster this week on PWC Moms.  I went out and reviewed the Prince William County Animal Shelter's Children's Barnyard.  It's a quirky little place in back of the animal shelter... and well.... read it yourself!

http://www.pwcmoms.com/?id=5656873257077972356