Guest blog post: Get sold on awesome intimacy, not an expensive wedding

I can’t believe I totally missed this, but Dustin over at Engaged Marriage posted one of my articles as a guest post…..over a year ago! I remember sending him that piece earlier that year, and him saying it might be good for the spring, but I didn’t hear back. So…check it out. I’m going to go take a closer look at the comments.

Jason Evert is a thirty-something A-lister on the chastity speaking circuit in the United States, and to some extent worldwide. He has got mad gifts for marrying profound truths with hip and hilarious banter that makes him a hit with both teens and adults alike. I for one am obviously a groupie. I’ve seen him twice in person. But he’s not just some motivational megapersonality. He’s got depth, a good marriage, good intellectual formation, and a spiritual life to match. Somehow in between being a husband, father and full time speaker, he finds time to stay on top of his game. He researches the medicine, science, social science behind all the philosophy and theology he studied, and combined with his engaging style, he’s a powerhouse of an advocate for purity.

“Romance without Regret,”  what began as a simple talk for teens, has branched out to a full-fledged chastity apostolate, which he balances with being an apologist for the Faith (particularly in the areas of sexual morality and chastity) for Catholic Answers. But this powerhouse of an advocate for purity knows that all the motivational talks in the world don’t make a difference if someone can’t walk the walk once they get home from that talk.

Evert’s created this collection of pithy quotes from a variety of sources to be daily inspiration in helping youth walk the often difficult walk. He mixes up no nonsense saints, philosophical saints, intuitive saints and some really holy high school students who are leading by example.

This is great book prefaced with some great advice. Do not skip the introduction by Evert. These are the words of someone who’s not just studied purity, been challenged by purity, but someone who lives and breathes it. He is clearly in love with God and greatly influenced by someone who loved purity even more–John Paul II. He reiterates JPII’s teaching by declaring,

Without an interior attitude of reverence and even awe toward the other person, human love is unable to become what it is meant to be: a reflection of the very love of God. This is why chastity is so essential even within marriage, as a reverent attitude toward the gift of sexuality.

It is on this last point that I want to close with. Clearly the target market of this book is meant for teens and young adults. This is largely indicated in the introduction, but also in the style and marketing of the book. Good for them. I think this is a great idea for youth, either as gifts or devotional texts in youth group. However, the following example reflects a lack of formation about purity in adults, and shows the great amount of inspiration that adults also need in living an integrated life of love.

I was listening to the LIA show on the radio on my way home one night. Lia is Wyoming’s version of sucroChristian radio call-in show Delilah. Lia was taking a programming break to plug some short of youth chastity web site. She was promoting this web site and the general idea of purity for kids, and she said something like, “Guys, check this site out. I think it’s great. Purity is great–but not for me. I’m married!”

I just shook my head and thought to myself that this is why some purity movements don’t always work to prepare people for holy and solid marriages. People equate purity or chastity with abstinence. Abstinence is not having sex–indefinitely or for a time. They see the ring on their finger as a “get out of jail free card” from the prison they perceive purity as. Chastity is a completely integrated approach to reverencing one’s body, including one’s sexuality. When you reverence your body and your sexuality as a mystery and gift to be given to another, and know that purity and chastity is a lifelong journey, you’re that much closer to a holier marriage and a happier life.

Obviously Evert’s on board with the fully integrated vision of the human person and sexuality. He even has done a couple materials I love for married couples including “Pure Intimacy,” one of my favorite materials to gift to NFP skeptics. But I would challenge my fellow writers, publishers, friends and NFP lovers with this: keep your  sights on the adult and married market as well. If 80-90% of Catholics are contracepting and divorcing at roughly the same rate as the rest of the population, take a look around you. Are these people being served and actively invited into purity and healing? What’s more, are the parents of the kids in the youth groups who hear these talks receiving the invitation to purity as well? Sometimes so, but more often not.

Let’s get back to work.

Here’s a couple things I’ve been meaning to read or do reviews on the ones I’ve already read. Have you read them? What do you think?

Melchior Broederlam (1381-1409) Presentation in the Temple & Flight to Egypt Tempera on wood, 1393-1399

I feel sorry for Simeon, Anna, the Holy Family and the turtledoves. They get overlooked for a groundhog. In their humility, they might rejoice at the humor of this, but I for one think it’s a shame.

Today is the feast of the Presentation, called The Encounter in the east. It’s an amazing feast day in the Catholic/ Orthodox Churches (both east and west tend to celebrate it on the same day), but way underrated and under celebrated. It is also the foundation feast day of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in England, founded on vespers of the Presentation by Fr. John Henry Newman (later to become Cardinal, and whose Beatification will be May 2, 2010).

The mystery of the Presentation can be meditated upon without exhausting it. This drama in the temple has much to teach us about waiting for the Lord, God’s will in our life, prophecy, death, vocation, sacrifice,  family, poverty, consecrated life , the Cross and much more.

For me, it is a fusion of meditation on the two main vocations of the Church: that of married life, and that of consecrated life or priesthood. Here we see the relationship between the two, the image of a holy marriage which gives rise to the earliest of vocational dedication. Not only is Christ, the Anointed, dedicated in the temple, but we see very prominently the consecrated and prophetic Simeon & Anna. (See my blog entry on holy families & holy vocations here.)

It is also one of the handful of times that we see (but never hear) St. Joseph. His actions are worth much more than a thousand words, and for this reason  and many others I’ve come to love St. Joseph dearly. He found me first, and I’ve come to love my spiritual father greatly. This is why when invited to speak on NFP to a men’s group, I didn’t choose Humanae Vitae or Casti Conuubi, but rather St. Joseph.

In October 2008, I gave a talk to the Knights of Divine Mercy, a men’s fraternal group and apostolate in the Madison Diocese, called “Surge, accipe puerum: reflections on St. Joseph.” It’s not strictly about NFP, but its message is related. I used a number of sources, from books to encyclicals, but it was a friend’s apostolic motto and article on St. Joseph that sparked the Josephine theme. In the end, it became a meditation on Fatherhood (spiritual and biological), and discernment about God’s will for your family, vocation and apostolate. Where is the Lord leading you?

Fast forward to the second track for the reflection on the Presentation.

Related links/ articles:

• Feast of the Presentation overview (and suggestions for ways to celebrate) at Catholic Culture
• The Chivalry of St. Joseph by Stratford Caldecott
• Cardinal Newman’s Sermon on the Feast of the Presentation, foundation day of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in England
• John Paul II’s 1998 Homily on the feast of the Presentation

If you read Dustin at Engaged Marriage’s What You Want to Know About Natural Family Planning, this is Kathleen at Project M‘s reply, which begins

I am an educated, fancy-pants, trendy individual. I have two completely useless liberal-arts degrees to prove it. So of course, like other liberal-arts-educated and trendy individuals, I am drawn to the word “natural.” It makes us organic-eating tree-huggers think of healthy bodies, uncorrupted oceans and virginal rainforests. Read the rest at Dustin’s blog.

You’ll see that she has a major change of heart, going from “It doesn’t work” to “it’s probably a preferably form of birth control,” and not just because of the natural element. Though she’s ambivalent about the abortafacient factor (still discerning this–she is Pro Life), she gets the relational and grassroots Non-Big Pharma social factor of it. A glaring misconception (no pun intended) that still exists for her is that NFP is contraception. Yes, for non-Catholics it can be used that way, but it’s inherently different than contraception because of the way it works. Further, Kathleen is trying to get pregnant, and she misses the point that NFP can be used to achieve pregnancy as well! An early commenter lets K in on the little achieving secret, which is good. Something I hope to add to the conversation is that it’s also an infertility treatment alternative.

What are your best thoughts and evidence on the abortafacient effect of the Pill? What did you think of the entry? Overall I thought it was honest, forthright, tolerant, and well written.

Can I just say that the NFP Coordinator of the Diocese of Wichita just rocks!?

I just read her letter to the editor in the Wichita Eagle at Kansas.com, which responds to the recent mammography controversy that’s got everyone’s panties in a bunch, and rightly so. What’s awesome is that Judith Leonard takes advantage of a topic that’s all over the news–the mammography controversy–and gets to the heart of the matter–Breast Cancer!

Though the media elite and Medical Man would have you believe that Breast Cancer is a mysterious onslaught of the contemporary woman, but the correlation between contraception usage and breast cancer is astronomical.

Read Chris Kahlenborn’s articles on the link between Contraception & Breast Cancer (read: it’s Mayo Clinic credibility, not conspiracy theory). If that piques your interest, check out the book. Then make your judgements. Then you can write a book about the next Big Tobacco waiting to happen (forthcoming review).

Have you heard of Kathleen Slattery–Moschkau? She’s a mom, wife and former drug-pusher (her words, not mine) who’s reformed, and using her zeal against big pharma to promote all things healthy, whole and fun. She’s gone from rebel with a cause to writer, radio talk show host, and movie producer–still with a cause.

Well, one of her creative and great ideas is Prevention, Not Prescriptions Tuesdays, which is a jazzy blog idea to cultivate conversation, inter-blog promotion, and promote holistic and preventative health care.

Well, the outlook of Natural Family Planning and Fertility Awareness advocates definitely jives with Kathleen’s sassy and smart pro-woman, pro-wellness outlook, so I thought I’d spread the word. I’ll be doing my darndest to jump on the PNP Tuesday train. If you have a pro-fertility blog, whatever your focus is, I’d encourage you to consider it, and jump on board. Here’s the deal:

What is Prevention Not Prescriptions?
It’s a simple blog carnival held every Tuesday specifically organized around the idea of ‘Prevention Not Prescriptions’. It’s information and inspiration. It’s for the bloggers, doctors, journalists, moms, dads, teachers, alternative health practitioners and everyone else who has had it up to here! with the status quo of a society pushing and turning to prescription drugs as a quick fix for their bodies or their lives.

If it relates to healthier living, we want to hear it. Here are a few ideas of things you can post…

• Advice/suggestions
• Your personal anecdotes
• Commentary on related headlines
• Film/media reviews
• The politics of pills and health (as it relates to prevention)
• Fitness, stress, nutrition related information (and yes, even recipes)
• Anything that might get others fired up to think twice before they pop that next Rx pill

We’d love to hear from and offer up a variety of voices and topics. There are no weekly themes. And participation is super easy…

Here’s how it works:

If you have a blog entry or article related to healthy living that you’d like to share, email us the link at anytime.  If your post is from your archives, please repost it so it’s a current entry on your site, or write a new entry directing people back to your archived post.

There’s only one hitch…you must include a link back here so that others can find out how to participate.  If you don’t provide a link back to this page, you will not be included. We’ll compile all links that come in during the week into one blog entry that we’ll post on The Kathleen Show blog the following Tuesday.

• • Links must be received by Noon CT on Monday to be included in Tuesday’s post.
  • And don’t forget to join the conversation.  Create a personal Typepad profile and leave a comment about your post once it’s up.  You’ll be able to find your entry and create a profile directly at The Kathleen Show blog the Tuesday after you submit your link.
  • We’ll also have a running archive below where you’ll be able to find past week’s posts.

| Catholic PRWire

My friend Emily, the new Family Planning Coordinator in the Diocese of Madison, just emailed the link to this commentary on the TIME article and a little bit about my work in Madison. It was posted on Catholic.org by Catholic PRWire, which found it through a press release from Chicago CCL (promoting its classes). Thanks Chicago CCL for the mention! While I don’t exclusively endorse CCL, this is a great example of harnessing buzz about NFP to promote classes. Well done, Chi-CCLers.

Time Magazine Notes Another NFP Benefit: It Keeps the Rivers Clean

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA ADVISORY
Catholic PRWire

GLENVIEW, IL (November 10, 2009) – Sexual morality isn’t the only attraction to draw couples to Natural Family Planning (NFP) these days. Those concerned with the environment are finding that NFP doesn’t pollute the waterways with synthetic hormones and other chemicals.

A recent Time magazine author related how NFP rates high for such reasons. “Like all good Catholics, my husband and I had to attend church-run marriage prep before we tied the knot last year,” wrote Kathleen Kingsbury in Time’s Oct. 26 issue.

“I was surprised, however, during the hard sell on natural family-planning, that this updated version of the rhythm method was being advertised not only as morally correct but also as ‘organic’ and ‘green.’ I was even more surprised when I found out that some of the most popular instructors of NFP — known in secular circles as the Fertility Awareness Method — are non-Catholics who praise it as a means of avoiding both ingesting chemicals and excreting them into rivers and streams.”

The article, sprinkled with terms such as phthalates and bisphenol, also looks into the use of chemicals in the makeup of sex toys and tracks a trend of earth-friendly production materials in these products.

The article also says that the Catholic Church is catching on to the organic trend. “People pay $32 for eye cream because they’re told it is good for them and the planet,” says Jessica Marie Smith, whom Time says repackaged the NFP program at the diocese of Madison, WI. “We figured we could do the same with NFP.”

Ingest, Poke and Patch

In an article on the Madison diocese’s website, “Green is the New Black: How NFP is good for your soul and the earth,” Smith, the diocese’s [former] family planning coordinator, says, “Doesn’t it seem interesting that we’ll go to great lengths to ensure our meat, dairy and other grocery products are ‘all natural’ and hormone free, but then we’ll turn around and ingest, poke or patch our bodies with all sorts of synthetic hormones, the ramifications of which we’re still discovering?”

Maybe if I put this journal article from the American Board of Family Medicine up in a weather balloon and claimed a child was in it, it would get a little more press and recognition. (H/T to Birth a Miracle blog for the journal link.)

It’s one of the better articles I’ve read, refuting point-by-point the major objections to Fertility-Based Methods of Family Planning (FABM’s) as a legitimate method of family planning and fertility treatment. 

One of the strengths of the article–and NFP fans may disagree–is it’s honesty about the lack of data on the benefits of FABM’s: increased communication, enhanced intimacy (the honeymoon effect), increased respect for their partner and other psycho-spiritual effects. While there’s loads of anecdotal evidence, it’s true that the statistical evidence is lacking. This doesn’t mean that the positive effects don’t exist; I believe they do. However, as I stated in a previous piece on promoting NFP, more studies are needed, and those studies need to be published.

I might know statistics and a fair study when I see one, but I don’t know the name of the grants and publication game. Any med students, doctors or academics out there who have any suggestions? 

One small step for NFP, one giant leap for NFP-kind. Keep it up, Drs. Pallone & Bergus!

Have you read John Senior?

A friend not too long ago recommended his book, “The Restoration of Christian Culture,” and told me a little about his life and times at Kansas University. Really, a heroic life. 

The precursor to the recommended book was a much more somber “The Death of Christian Culture.” Both books were actually a series of lectures given, and later published. Anyway, I ordered them both, and am reading Death right now. It’s intellectually satisfying, poetically written and frighteningly prophetic. I’ve been told the second one is much better. Since this one is brilliant, I can’t wait to read the next.

A little sample relevant to our themes of natural family planning, love, life and children:

It is no accident that decadence leads to the hatred of children…

Conversely, he affirms:

This is the economy of the private enterprise of love: it generates. Love is fecund. Love is not only a means to an end, like a road, but is a kind of propulsion. It is like walking up an escalator, or swimming with the current–to beget children, to love children, to encourage their growth, to ease their sufferings, and to suffer oneself with them, even to our death.

He’s elucidating the relationship between the decline of Christian culture and the denigration of children, using the case of a mother who was acquitted of murdering her week old child because she was special needs and did not want her. Yet the courtroom erupted in cheers when the verdict was announced.

He goes on to debunk Thomas Malthus, the disproved 19th century economist who predicted that England’s population would outrun its food sources by 1850. (How are we doing, England?)

 As I’ve said elsewhere, children are not the problem; they are the answer. People are not walking carbon footprints, but potential solutions to contemporary problems. 

Every time a child is born, not just a mouth to feed is born, but hands and brains. [ A quote in Senior's book from Josue de Castro, a founder and director of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, and one of the five or six world-renowned men in the field of human population problems.]

I’m working on an article for Family Foundations again. It’s third in the series of three on NFP & Marketing, and it’s going to focus on new media. It’ll cover questions like

• What is new media? What are its forms
• Why is it important, growing and powerful?
• Where did new media come from?
• What are the benefits/ problems with new media?
• How can we use it to market, inform and fire up the grassroots movement of NFP?

Stay tuned, and keep me in your prayers. New job, new place, and (another!) move in the future are going to ramp up the stress factor.

My first in this series is in a back copy of FF, and the second will appear very soon.

[Update: the second and third articles in the series have been cancelled. Look for them in an upcoming post!]

In a forthcoming article in Family Foundations Magazine, I begin to break down what’s the deal with the credibility crisis in the world of natural family planning, and  ask questions about the best way to market NFP. One thought is that we need to do a better job of capitalizing on the ills of contraception, and the benefits of NFP.

This article is perhaps not the most informative in the details section, but it’s a fantastic way to introduce and promote an NFP Class. Since the fastest way to get ignored in an article or press release is to say, “Natural Family Pla….[news station clicking delete]“, it’s a clever intro. Next time: a few more details or mentions of previous studies (the Mayo Clinic metastudy for example).