tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5643637212918782109.comments2023-07-24T00:50:28.276-04:00Time for the FamilyTime for the Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11913058932504799191noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5643637212918782109.post-53131625370342869852015-03-20T18:48:15.864-04:002015-03-20T18:48:15.864-04:00Shaina: I love this! Because it's really beaut...Shaina: I love this! Because it's really beautifully written, but also because you used the term "hot mess." I loled, for reals.Rachelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5643637212918782109.post-207113254694692532015-03-17T16:06:56.904-04:002015-03-17T16:06:56.904-04:00Beautiful, Emily!Beautiful, Emily!Bethanynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5643637212918782109.post-3431608562991359902015-02-24T18:47:22.904-05:002015-02-24T18:47:22.904-05:00This reminds me of a GK Chesterton quote I love (p...This reminds me of a GK Chesterton quote I love (paraphrasing...) about how the world is both a castle to be stormed and our cottage to return to every day. A place for adventures...and our home. Bethanynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5643637212918782109.post-4012838869459245812015-02-24T16:30:46.698-05:002015-02-24T16:30:46.698-05:00Family of two here as well...and it's a diffic...Family of two here as well...and it's a difficult journey staying (and remaining) open when you struggle with infertility. Your words were so poignant when you wrote "We have been open to life our entire marriage, and so far the number of children God wants to give us appears to be a big fat zero." Don't all the families of two dreaming of children feel that way? It really tugs at my heart the way you wrote it though. Well done in articulating something I struggle to find words for...<br /><br />I wrote a post a while back about the comparison of the big Catholic family vs. the families of two and what is innately "good" (you can read it <a href="http://conceivinghope.blogspot.com/2014/10/good-catholic-families.html" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>). Love that you mentioned this concept, because it's so true that a couple never gets the public recognition (even within the pro-life circles!) that other families do. It's not about recognition, we all know that. But at the root of our yearning...we all kinda know that our families are to serve a bigger purpose. As the catechism states, it's for the good of the spouses too (and isn't that part even mentioned FIRST?!). <br /><br />Thank you for this beautiful post! <3 Conceiving Hopehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03770621765962940873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5643637212918782109.post-60853365266882389142015-02-23T23:01:01.392-05:002015-02-23T23:01:01.392-05:00I'm right there with you, 10 years married and...I'm right there with you, 10 years married and still a family of two. I wrote something similar to your thoughts in a blog post a few years back (http://www.thefemininegift.org/2012/08/of-fruitfulness-and-infertility.html) and still love the quote I found from Josemaria Escriva: "God in his providence has two ways of blessing marriage: one by giving them children, and the other, sometimes, because he loves them so much, by not giving them children. I don't know which is the better blessing. In any event, let one accept his own."<br /><br />May you accept your own as I try and accept mine. Sarahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10030430757861849145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5643637212918782109.post-65749124784212613932015-02-23T18:56:11.879-05:002015-02-23T18:56:11.879-05:00Thanks Em. Something I've been thinking about ...Thanks Em. Something I've been thinking about lately with regard to JPII's emphasis on the original experiences in TOB is how, if not properly integrated, experience can become tyrannical.<br /><br />When our world is governed by largely impersonal laws (whether scientific or juridical) that have nothing to do with my interiority, then my experience becomes merely anecdotal, and therefore keeps me silent, unable to really go beyond beyond myself.<br /><br />On the other hand, when one is trying to articulate a philosophical/anthropological/social principle about humanity, anyone who has an experience that trumps this principle get to trump said articulation.<br /><br />I have to think about this connection more, but I do think this tyranny of experience is what leads to the affective illiteracy touched on in <i>Called to Love</i>. If experience doesn't mean anything, why bother to be able to articulate it?Rachel M. Colemannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5643637212918782109.post-76006116230683481042015-02-23T14:54:01.155-05:002015-02-23T14:54:01.155-05:00It's always amazed me how the experience debat...It's always amazed me how the experience debate works into Theology of the Body a different way too .. "How can a celibate man in Rome know anything about marriage or family?" Likewise, "How can anyone who is single have anything to say about marriage or children?" <br /><br />It's such a frustrating view because, as St. John Paul II pointed out in the beginning of "Love and Responsibility," one can have a wealth of "secondhand experience" through conversations, reflection, observation, etc. If we could only base our statements or worldview on what I personally have "experienced," things would be so much more limited!<br /><br />Thanks for this look at experience that doesn't "trap us in ourselves."Emily Mackehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00622404593494742572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5643637212918782109.post-50596434289975706692015-02-04T22:33:43.813-05:002015-02-04T22:33:43.813-05:00Emily,
Thank you for such a great reflection! I ...Emily,<br /><br />Thank you for such a great reflection! I have a vivid memory of one one of our classmates asking a certain bearded and bespectacled professor of ours if a woman should ever work outside the home. He leaned back in his chair, smirked, and said "Heh." After a long pause, he said, "Well, in order to answer that question, we've got to get clear about a few things: Who is woman? What does it mean to work? And what do we mean by a home?" What you've written above helps us approach answers to all three. Thank you! Katie Vidmarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15754199303578965858noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5643637212918782109.post-58273650282881212562015-01-20T09:50:35.594-05:002015-01-20T09:50:35.594-05:00Gail this is said so rarely and I think it hits th...Gail this is said so rarely and I think it hits the nail on the head, especially with the New Evangelization: "It is difficult to change ideas you don't even know you have, because they are the unquestioned basis for the ideas you know you have." This is our culture today. LPatterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01513484184251700148noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5643637212918782109.post-57346563376906812112015-01-20T08:44:45.842-05:002015-01-20T08:44:45.842-05:00It's interesting to see how this ethic of ster...It's interesting to see how this ethic of sterility is affecting everything, not just perhaps the obvious things (like children having no siblings or extended family). For example, in Mandarin Chinese, there are different words to represent the different relationships a child has with his cousins and aunts and uncles, depending not only if they are paternal or maternal, but also if they are an in-law, and where they are according to age. 姨 = Aunt, mother's sister; 姑母 = aunt, father's married sister. It goes on and on.<br /><br />But, given China's one child policy, these words are being wiped out in a generation or so. Language is deeply tied to culture (what we can and choose to name and articulate indicates directly what we value as a people), so I would venture to say the death of language is a very strong indicator of the death of a culture. Or at least its revaluation (see of course, <i>1984</i> amongst others).<br /><br />I think we tend to think of these things as a matter or choice, which doesn't affect us beyond our own little nuclear families, but like you mention Ms. Finke, there are a lot of other issues at stake, even if they are not surface level.<br /><br /><br /><br />By the way Katie, that is a MOST professional picture!Rachel M. Colemannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5643637212918782109.post-74020716478437789572015-01-19T08:59:20.557-05:002015-01-19T08:59:20.557-05:00I had one brother and three cousins I rarely saw g...I had one brother and three cousins I rarely saw growing up. My mother was an only child; my father had three siblings but only one had children. When I married a man with three siblings and more than 100 cousins, I had no idea how to relate to such a big family. Was I supposed to learn all their names? Memorize a family tree? I was always taught that responsible people had two children, it was just the way things were. My husband's family was not irresponsible, just different, and I was fascinated by it but not enough to have a big family of my own. It was never even a possibility I considered. Not until many years after my marriage, when my own two children were enjoying their many (but nowhere near 100) cousins, did I hear Pope John Paul II talk about this very subject. Although he was referring to France, he said that one-child families led to exactly this situation, no aunts or uncles or cousins: a poverty of love. That is when I realized that the secular ideas I'd been raised in had left me with a poverty of love, and that I had given my children the same thing. My children have a bigger extended family than I did, but just one sibling. Catholic thinking about marriage and family is not the same as the general one in the West, which is the air we live and breathe. Yes, it's from fear and a certain kind of selfishness, but they aren't overt. They are just the way we live, part of the assumptions we make about what a "good parent" does, how a "responsible person" lives, what it's "possible to do," etc. The average American woman, married or unmarried, rich or poor, has 2 children. If it's that common, there are underlying assumptions that are emotional and cultural, things that undergird all conscious thought. It is difficult to change ideas you don't even know you have, because they are the unquestioned basis for the ideas you know you have. Figuring out how to deal with that is a major task for the Church today, but I don't think many people have realized it yet.Gail Finkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02117490028494416722noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5643637212918782109.post-33747900519201579322015-01-07T21:34:34.305-05:002015-01-07T21:34:34.305-05:00Thank you, Emily for the beautiful insight. I am ...Thank you, Emily for the beautiful insight. I am eager to share this post and the website with my adult children. Thank you for all you do.Thank You God For The Memories- theresahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04367001369209052968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5643637212918782109.post-56583285125031846322015-01-05T12:37:34.210-05:002015-01-05T12:37:34.210-05:00Well stated. My wife and I are involved in marriag...Well stated. My wife and I are involved in marriage prep work, and the picture you portray of couples expectations fits our experience.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5643637212918782109.post-56845436542259706202015-01-01T19:39:33.112-05:002015-01-01T19:39:33.112-05:00Your website is long overdue and much needed today...Your website is long overdue and much needed today. Thank you. May God bless your efforts.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com