I've written before about how migratory Americans and Canadians are (and always have been) compared to Europeans until very recently. We seem to have this feeling that we can just pick up and leave Chicago for New York or Toronto for Montreal, and everything will be fine. However, the older we get, the more difficult it is for many of us to make friends. Real friends, that is. Naturally we have colleagues at work, but those don't always turn into friends. (The test is whether you still get together after you have left the job.)
The Poles, incidentally, have at least two words for friends, differentiating between best friends and everyone else. I admire their hard-headed ability to reserve przyjaciel (m.)/przyjaciólka (f.) for the few and apply kolega/koleżanka to the many. I would not be surprised if there were further gradations, e.g. kumpel/kumpelka. I bet there are further gradations in Germany, too. Central Europeans are simultaneously blunt and sentimental. How they survive social life in the UK, having to cope with the Anglo-Saxon conversational stream of polite nothings, is a question.
Anyway, most of the people we native English-speakers call our friends are really just our colleagues or our acquaintances, and there is nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is to take our friends, first class (przyjaciel/przyjacióka class), for granted, and to assume we can make new friends in a new town right away.
Since I migrated to Scotland, I have made two attempts to have a social life outside of my husband's circle of friends and acquaintances. There was my writing circle, in which virulent anti-Catholics unintentionally made me extremely uncomfortable, so I quit, and there is now my Polish class. Besides Polish class, I have church, writing, travel and occasional forays into the Edinburgh art scene. Thus, I feel a bit isolated. At least there are more under-50 women at church now. There were very few when I arrived.
My hometown friend Lily suggested that I go to a local Novus Ordo Mass to meet more women, but I am such a Usus Antiquor junkie, I really didn't think I could bear that. Also, Catholic women my age (39++) tend to have complete social circles already. Women who don't move from town to town settle in among their relations, their grade school friends, their high school friends or their university friends, get married or get a partner, and divide most of their time between their place of work and their home. Many have children who take almost all the emotional energy the women have to give. And happy the partnered woman who does not spend 7 out of 7 nights keeping her man company in front of the telly.
After some dithering and feeling sorry for myself, I decided that I would stay put and see who God sent, and every once in a while God sends the parish somebody new and disposed to find new friends.Thank heavens for coffee hour. Every parish should have coffee hour, so it doesn't have to dread one day hearing, "I was a stranger, and you didn't welcome Me."
And those six paragraphs lead to my advice to the Single woman who wants to befriend families: give up your dream of meeting families and accept the friends God sees fit to send you. The truth is, I cannot imagine why a busy family with small children would go out of their way to befriend complete strangers, unless the parents of the family were unusually gregarious souls. Couples with children are emotionally stretched, sometimes to the breaking point, and if a mother of babies has any time to herself, she wants it for herself, or for girl-time with old friends.
I could be wrong, of course. But I honestly don't think a married woman with kids is going to bond with a new single woman just because the single woman seems to like her kids. There has to be something else to bond over. If the married woman is a keen tennis-player, and the new single woman is also a keen tennis-player, then that would be something, especially if the married woman has been stuck for some time for someone with whom to play tennis. However, only in chatting with a married woman can Single you find out if you have such interests in common, so by all means strike up conversations with married women with children after Mass or wherever else.
Birds of a feather flock together. With one hometown exception, my friends with children were my friends before they had their children. I have babysat for only two young families because only two young families here know me well enough to ask. Most of the people I socialize with are childless, like me. Most of them are Single. Most were not born in Edinburgh. We share the same interests and the same basic lifestyle. Orphaned by geography, I turn to two older friends for motherly advice, and childless by accident, I mother younger friends when called upon to do so. And maybe sometimes when not. And if sometimes I feel isolated and lonely, that's the price most migrants pay for migration.
Paid To Promote
Showing posts with label Solicited Advice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Solicited Advice. Show all posts
Single Friends and Stability
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
I answered an email today that made me think about friendships. I have a number of friends who are Single and probably always will be Single. And this means they have a lot of time for their friends, and their friends--particularly the Single or childless ones--have a lot of time for them.
Singles often worry about not being a priority in other people's lives--although presumably they rank somewhere in the affections of their family members--but I can tell you that my Single friends are top priority with me. (Well, top after B.A.) This is probably because I don't have children, but even if I did have children, I would certainly want adult friends to talk to after a long day or week of shrieking and baby talk.
The North American reluctance to have friends much younger or much older than oneself strikes me as foolish and shortsighted. I did not realize now normative it was for me until I spent a summer in Germany and discovered that 20 year old boys were happy to hang out with 30-something me. I was happy but troubled enough to talk it over with a fellow foreign student, a priest, and he told me that's how Europeans are. And how awesome is that?
B.A. and I recently had two Canadian Trid girls to stay, and they were astonished that our set acted as if we were all the same age. That said, we were all of us over 23. It's not like there were any children around, or teenagers who should not have been downing the Tesco plonk we guzzle by the bottle or listening to our endless thoughts on the O'Brien scandal.
What gives the multi-generational set stability are the Elders, as we over-39s have been for convenience called. We Elders have deep, deep roots in the community, and although we go on holiday, we come back to our homes. The younger members, especially the foreign students, leave Edinburgh on holiday or permanently, but they eventually come back, if only for a visit. Foreign students who return to their old haunts (e.g. Toronto) sometimes discover that everything has changed and their old friends have dispersed and moved on, or have no time for them. This isn't likely to happen with us Elders, for we are old and stable. Our sentimental young can fly free confident in the knowledge that as long as the Elders live, we will be up for a drink and a chat.
As a thirty-something Single, I found myself with a lot of twenty-something Single friends. I put this down to the fact that I was were twenty-something Singles are, i.e. grad school, and that we had the same lifestyle: Catholic, no kids, feverishly studying, longing to party, wondering where The One was. But, of course, I expected and hoped my twenty-something friends would get married because that's what they wanted to do. My surprise when I got engaged (age 37) before some of them did! And then I ran off to the UK. How very unstable and unreliable of me. Fortunately, I had a reputation for mad pranks and surprising behaviour. My friend Lily's summation of B.A. was, "I'm so thankful. I was worried he'd be too normal."
But now I am definitely old and stable and set in my ways, and even if I did have a baby, the walls of the Historical House are super-thick, so he or she could wail away comfortably in his or her room while the rest of us guzzled Tesco plonk in the dining-room.
What I am saying here is that if you are a twenty-five year old Single, of course most of your friends are going to get married and go. And therefore you must not put all your friendship eggs in the youth basket. You should go out of your way to be friendly to interesting and interested older married couples whose children have flown the nest, or to middle-aged couples who haven't had children, or to older Singles who love being Single but are also sociable. It is especially helpful, I think, to make friends with Catholic Singles who honestly enjoy their Catholic Single way of life and live it to the hilt.
You can also set down roots yourself as you grow older, and become a sort of bird house for younger Singles to visit occasionally as they flit about in their unstable, adventurous, youthful way. I adore the younger members of my set, but I am rooted in reality and realize that they have a lot of flitting to do before they settle down, and they are very likely to settle somewhere else. This is not as painful for me (age 39++) as it might be for you, not only because I have B.A. (a very big because), but because I know I have older friends who simply aren't going anywhere. Well, the grave, I suppose, but there's no need to worry about that quite yet.
Singles often worry about not being a priority in other people's lives--although presumably they rank somewhere in the affections of their family members--but I can tell you that my Single friends are top priority with me. (Well, top after B.A.) This is probably because I don't have children, but even if I did have children, I would certainly want adult friends to talk to after a long day or week of shrieking and baby talk.
The North American reluctance to have friends much younger or much older than oneself strikes me as foolish and shortsighted. I did not realize now normative it was for me until I spent a summer in Germany and discovered that 20 year old boys were happy to hang out with 30-something me. I was happy but troubled enough to talk it over with a fellow foreign student, a priest, and he told me that's how Europeans are. And how awesome is that?
B.A. and I recently had two Canadian Trid girls to stay, and they were astonished that our set acted as if we were all the same age. That said, we were all of us over 23. It's not like there were any children around, or teenagers who should not have been downing the Tesco plonk we guzzle by the bottle or listening to our endless thoughts on the O'Brien scandal.
What gives the multi-generational set stability are the Elders, as we over-39s have been for convenience called. We Elders have deep, deep roots in the community, and although we go on holiday, we come back to our homes. The younger members, especially the foreign students, leave Edinburgh on holiday or permanently, but they eventually come back, if only for a visit. Foreign students who return to their old haunts (e.g. Toronto) sometimes discover that everything has changed and their old friends have dispersed and moved on, or have no time for them. This isn't likely to happen with us Elders, for we are old and stable. Our sentimental young can fly free confident in the knowledge that as long as the Elders live, we will be up for a drink and a chat.
As a thirty-something Single, I found myself with a lot of twenty-something Single friends. I put this down to the fact that I was were twenty-something Singles are, i.e. grad school, and that we had the same lifestyle: Catholic, no kids, feverishly studying, longing to party, wondering where The One was. But, of course, I expected and hoped my twenty-something friends would get married because that's what they wanted to do. My surprise when I got engaged (age 37) before some of them did! And then I ran off to the UK. How very unstable and unreliable of me. Fortunately, I had a reputation for mad pranks and surprising behaviour. My friend Lily's summation of B.A. was, "I'm so thankful. I was worried he'd be too normal."
But now I am definitely old and stable and set in my ways, and even if I did have a baby, the walls of the Historical House are super-thick, so he or she could wail away comfortably in his or her room while the rest of us guzzled Tesco plonk in the dining-room.
What I am saying here is that if you are a twenty-five year old Single, of course most of your friends are going to get married and go. And therefore you must not put all your friendship eggs in the youth basket. You should go out of your way to be friendly to interesting and interested older married couples whose children have flown the nest, or to middle-aged couples who haven't had children, or to older Singles who love being Single but are also sociable. It is especially helpful, I think, to make friends with Catholic Singles who honestly enjoy their Catholic Single way of life and live it to the hilt.
You can also set down roots yourself as you grow older, and become a sort of bird house for younger Singles to visit occasionally as they flit about in their unstable, adventurous, youthful way. I adore the younger members of my set, but I am rooted in reality and realize that they have a lot of flitting to do before they settle down, and they are very likely to settle somewhere else. This is not as painful for me (age 39++) as it might be for you, not only because I have B.A. (a very big because), but because I know I have older friends who simply aren't going anywhere. Well, the grave, I suppose, but there's no need to worry about that quite yet.
Guarding Your Heart
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
I found an email this morning asking for practical tips on how to guard your hearts. Guarding one's heart, this reader suggests, is really hard when guys seem to show some cautious interest and then do not follow up.
That sounded very familiar to me because I come from one of those towns where Cautious seems to be every man's middle name. I know a Latina who got very depressed after moving to my hometown in Canada because men didn't seem to notice her anymore, and of course I am always charmed in Italy when seventeen year old boys roll their eyes at me and say "Bellissima!" Complete nonsense, but flattering nonsense, especially when you're 39+.
Anyway, my heart-guarding advice can be divided into having a good defense and a good offense.
The good defense is 1. being rooted in reality. This means constantly telling yourself the truth about some guy you like, even (especially) if that truth is just that you don't even know him. It is just so easy to fixate on a handsome face and make up a story to go along with it. Not that I was fixated on him, but my shock when I first heard David Beckham's voice---!
Sad to say, the only proof that a guy is that into you is that he figures out a way to spend a lot of time with you in person, and not for free therapy, either. If all he wants to do on what you thought was a coffee date is talk about your beautiful best friend, then he's not into you. And why bother thinking all day long about a man who would prefer your friend to you, anyway?
If you really cannot stop yourself from thinking obsessively about some guy, then I recommend that you give him a fake name and write outrageously adventurous or romantic stories about him. This is better than mooning about for it is productive and will underscore the difference between fact and fiction.
Meanwhile 2. don't tell people your secrets, m'kay? Don't try to speed up intimacy (by which I mean a deep, soulful, meeting of hearts) by telling new friends or crush objects or your date The Whole Truth About You, Warts and All. Your secrets and deepest feelings are precious, and there will be emotional payback if you share them with the wrong people or even with the right people too soon. You should approach all first and second dates as if your happiness depended on projecting that you are happy and confident and your life is practically perfect and no man has ever done you wrong, and (if you are asked about him) your ex-boyfriend was a great guy; you just had different goals.
The good offense is 1. light flirtation. Light flirtation means acting and speaking as if you are a fun, confident person who isn't afraid of men, thinks they are awesome and loves a good joke.
I belong firmly in the Don't Chase Men School of Thought, but this doesn't mean I don't belong to the Reel Him In School. Actually, when you think about it, there is the Hunting Him Down School--for "modern women"--and the Fishing School--for "trads."
I recommend the Fishing School. You go where the fish are, wearing fishing lure colours, sit quietly and stealthily, and when a fish comes slouching along and says "Hey," you reel him in with your smile, your sense of humour, and your other-centeredness. Other-centeredness means that when you talk to somebody, you are 100% conscious of your audience and the effect your conversation is having on him. It means noticing, for example, that he is wearing a sharp tie, and saying, "Hey, sharp tie!" You cannot sit like a lump; now is the time to shine. Fake it till you make it.
The late Queen Mother was apparently an absolute genius at being able to talk to everyone in a crowded room while giving each and every one the impression that he was the one she had come to see. This quality is called charm, and I think it a very useful quality to have.
Now, it was pointed out to me in my last year of Singleness that I only ever flirted with people that I was obviously never going to go out with, e.g. my female friends and elderly Irish priests. Flirtation when you are Single is like a high-wire act without a net, but I suppose one needs to be bold--and to pretend we don't care what happens if we tell the guy we've had a crush on for six months that he has beautiful eyes. (For the record, I think that is okay as long as you don't contact him afterwards. By the way, if his friend should afterwards sneakily ask you what you think of him, say you think he is a great guy--"Why do you ask?")
Meanwhile, once you have chatted lightly and brightly with your fish, you must let him go and go on your way, forgetting all about him until he swims into view again. Easier said than done, I know. If it's any comfort, this gets easier with practice and age. Practice on the guy behind the counter at Starbucks.
Guarding your heart does not mean looking and acting like an icicle. It means staying rooted in reality and dealing with men as they are and not as who you would like them, or fear them, to be. It means not filling your head with stuff you make up but with facts. It means not forcing deep, soulful conversations or telling your secrets to the wrong people or too soon. Paradoxically, it also means unleashing your inner Scarlett O'Hara--talking to men as if they are delightful, amusing people whom you are lucky to know but don't take too seriously. In short, project happiness and confidence, even if you have to fake it, which we all do at least some of the time. People like happy, confident people.
And don't call them. Let them call you. If they don't call you, forget them. Men generally show what they want to do by doing it. Simples.
That sounded very familiar to me because I come from one of those towns where Cautious seems to be every man's middle name. I know a Latina who got very depressed after moving to my hometown in Canada because men didn't seem to notice her anymore, and of course I am always charmed in Italy when seventeen year old boys roll their eyes at me and say "Bellissima!" Complete nonsense, but flattering nonsense, especially when you're 39+.
Anyway, my heart-guarding advice can be divided into having a good defense and a good offense.
The good defense is 1. being rooted in reality. This means constantly telling yourself the truth about some guy you like, even (especially) if that truth is just that you don't even know him. It is just so easy to fixate on a handsome face and make up a story to go along with it. Not that I was fixated on him, but my shock when I first heard David Beckham's voice---!
Sad to say, the only proof that a guy is that into you is that he figures out a way to spend a lot of time with you in person, and not for free therapy, either. If all he wants to do on what you thought was a coffee date is talk about your beautiful best friend, then he's not into you. And why bother thinking all day long about a man who would prefer your friend to you, anyway?
If you really cannot stop yourself from thinking obsessively about some guy, then I recommend that you give him a fake name and write outrageously adventurous or romantic stories about him. This is better than mooning about for it is productive and will underscore the difference between fact and fiction.
Meanwhile 2. don't tell people your secrets, m'kay? Don't try to speed up intimacy (by which I mean a deep, soulful, meeting of hearts) by telling new friends or crush objects or your date The Whole Truth About You, Warts and All. Your secrets and deepest feelings are precious, and there will be emotional payback if you share them with the wrong people or even with the right people too soon. You should approach all first and second dates as if your happiness depended on projecting that you are happy and confident and your life is practically perfect and no man has ever done you wrong, and (if you are asked about him) your ex-boyfriend was a great guy; you just had different goals.
The good offense is 1. light flirtation. Light flirtation means acting and speaking as if you are a fun, confident person who isn't afraid of men, thinks they are awesome and loves a good joke.
I belong firmly in the Don't Chase Men School of Thought, but this doesn't mean I don't belong to the Reel Him In School. Actually, when you think about it, there is the Hunting Him Down School--for "modern women"--and the Fishing School--for "trads."
I recommend the Fishing School. You go where the fish are, wearing fishing lure colours, sit quietly and stealthily, and when a fish comes slouching along and says "Hey," you reel him in with your smile, your sense of humour, and your other-centeredness. Other-centeredness means that when you talk to somebody, you are 100% conscious of your audience and the effect your conversation is having on him. It means noticing, for example, that he is wearing a sharp tie, and saying, "Hey, sharp tie!" You cannot sit like a lump; now is the time to shine. Fake it till you make it.
The late Queen Mother was apparently an absolute genius at being able to talk to everyone in a crowded room while giving each and every one the impression that he was the one she had come to see. This quality is called charm, and I think it a very useful quality to have.
Now, it was pointed out to me in my last year of Singleness that I only ever flirted with people that I was obviously never going to go out with, e.g. my female friends and elderly Irish priests. Flirtation when you are Single is like a high-wire act without a net, but I suppose one needs to be bold--and to pretend we don't care what happens if we tell the guy we've had a crush on for six months that he has beautiful eyes. (For the record, I think that is okay as long as you don't contact him afterwards. By the way, if his friend should afterwards sneakily ask you what you think of him, say you think he is a great guy--"Why do you ask?")
Meanwhile, once you have chatted lightly and brightly with your fish, you must let him go and go on your way, forgetting all about him until he swims into view again. Easier said than done, I know. If it's any comfort, this gets easier with practice and age. Practice on the guy behind the counter at Starbucks.
Guarding your heart does not mean looking and acting like an icicle. It means staying rooted in reality and dealing with men as they are and not as who you would like them, or fear them, to be. It means not filling your head with stuff you make up but with facts. It means not forcing deep, soulful conversations or telling your secrets to the wrong people or too soon. Paradoxically, it also means unleashing your inner Scarlett O'Hara--talking to men as if they are delightful, amusing people whom you are lucky to know but don't take too seriously. In short, project happiness and confidence, even if you have to fake it, which we all do at least some of the time. People like happy, confident people.
And don't call them. Let them call you. If they don't call you, forget them. Men generally show what they want to do by doing it. Simples.
We are not Ivory Soap
Saturday, December 1, 2012
From yesterday's combox:
How much influence do you think sexual sin has on the personal history of a woman? Obviously God can redeem and call anyone to anything (Mary Magdalene, for example), but do you think that women who have had some experience of un-chastity, even if not the sexual act itself, are far less likely to find themselves being called to religious life? Maybe because they would prefer to be married and experience sexuality that way, or because they no longer feel free to give themselves to God in a consecrated way? (Leaving aside canonical issues, of course.)
It seems worth discussing in this culture where very few remain completely pure until/ through adulthood.
***
Ah, the overwhelming issue of sexual sin. Well, as I understand it, most men at least when they are teenagers have quite a problem with what some confessors treat as a not-so-serious sin for pastoral reasons but which the catechism says is a serious sin. Many (at least when they are teenagers) also deliberately dwell on sexual thoughts instead of allowing them to flit through their teeming brains. And yet no-one ever says that these men are necessarily not called to the priesthood or religious life. Some men (and I know at least one) give up a life of wine, women and song for the life of men religious). St. Augustine, St. Ignatius of Loyola and Thomas Merton were all unwed fathers. (In the case of the third, this fact was too much for the Franciscans, but the Trappists found it no bar. NB It is believed the baby and mother were killed in the London Blitz.)
For the past 15 or 16 years I have resisted and decried the notion that men and women can be pure in the same sense as a bar of Ivory soap. Whereas the whole notion of spotless purity was perhaps important psychologically in the past, and roused chivalrous feelings of protection towards children, virgins and "nice women", I think its day is mostly done except in the case of Our Lady, who was preserved from all sin and perhaps other human experiences too by an extraordinary and arguably never-repeated gift from God. (As for children, everyone in my fifth grade class deserved protection from sexual exploitation, but I wouldn't call them "spotlessly pure" as a goodly number spent recess french-kissing each other behind the school.)
It simply is impossible to talk about the purity of women as if women were white wedding dresses that can be stained, uglified, cheapened and heaven knows what by sexual experiences. We aren't. Sexuality is a lot more complicated than a gravy stain, and women (like men) are not things but people. We derive our value not from our lack of sexual feelings or experiences but from our createdness by the Creator, especially in the two past thousand years because of our redemption by the Redeemer. The Father considered us worth the life and death of His Son, but this has nothing to do with our merits. It has entirely to do with the mysterious love of God for His creatures.
There is no Scriptural evidence that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, other than that she was inflicted by demons, which suggests to me that she was left unprotected by her family and then, yes, prostitution probably would have been the only way she could have survived. If so, Mary Magdalene was a victim of one of the seriously unjust systems that Christ came to overturn. One might argue that since the sexual revolution, young people are also victims of an unjust system, one which shoves harmful sexual imagery and philosophy at them constantly: in magazines, billboards, television, music, the internet and even in doctors' waiting rooms and at school. Mary Magdalene did not define her life by how well she coped with the system, but by Christ. So should we.
So what does this mean in terms of religious life for women? Well, I was turned down sight unseen by the Tennessee Dominicans, bless them, because 1. I had had an annulment (and therefore had been married) AND because 2. I was 35. It wasn't just that I had been married. It was that I had been married AND was 35. If I had been 35 and never-married, they might have pondered longer. Or if I had just got my annulment and was therefore 28, they might have pondered longer. But actually I was a mess when I was 28, and it would never have occurred to me to join the T.D.s
I'm glad, too, because although I loved growing up with women--Brownies, Girl Guides, Pathfinders, ballet class, women's ice hockey, all-girls school--I enjoy the company of men. A lot. And not just as pals. Nooo. Since I was seven or so, I have been in a state of at least serious crush almost constantly. And the older I get, the more I like men. The attractive ones who also have good characters, anyway. It would be a real wrench to learn to think and speak and behave like a religious sister, which is no doubt why no-one who knows me well has ever suggested I would make a good one.
I can't pinpoint a particular Rubicon that I crossed that made me unfit for religious life. An examination of historical circumstances shows that my parents never praised religious life for women, that not a single teacher, including nuns, ever tried to interest me in religious life until my very last day at school, that between the ages of 6 and 34 I never met a nun whom I thought was the bees' knees*, that the episode in my school's order's foundress' (Mary Ward's) life that impressed me most was that a whole sloo of eligible Catholic bachelors wanted to get engaged to her before she was 12. Me, I could not get a date to the Spring Fling in Grade 9. Boo.
Meanwhile, the most romantic place in the entire world for me was not a convent of any description but the choir stalls of the local Cathedral, for there were the best-trained teenage Catholic Tenors, Baritones and Basses in the archdiocese, and I generally had a crush on one of them. In hindsight this suggests the deepest desire of my heart was to marry a Catholic Tenor, Baritone or Bass from some choir stall somewhere, which is what in 2009 I did.
I can see that developing habits of inchastity may make it difficult to quit being unchaste, but as a matter of fact throughout the ages thousands of women have gone into the desert or into convents to do just that. I am not sure the current structures of religious life support that kind of thing these days, but I'm not a Vocations Director, so who knows?
What I think suggests that a woman has a calling to religious life is not an "unspotted past" (if such a thing is possible for the vast majority of adult women--I mean, where does the spotting start? Kissing games at 12? Fantasies about boy bands at 13? Dancing dangerously too close to your principal crush object to "Stairway to Heaven" at 17? A grope-fest gone out of control with a "fiance" at 22? ) but a real interest in religious life and a real admiration for concrete, real-life women religious. For me it's not enough that St Teresa of Avila and Edith Stein were Carmelite nuns. I'd want to meet and admire a living Carmelite nun before I pondered her way of life for a second.
Frankly, I don't think we should define our lives by our sins, or allow anyone else to define our lives that way. And I don't think we should allow our sins to determine our history. We should define our lives and make our decisions by love. Not by sin. Not by the sorry stream of tatty decisions and experiences we dump on a priest and at the foot of the Cross in the confessional. By love.
We are far less likely to find ourselves called to religious life for the same reason German women in 1919 were far less likely to find themselves called to married life: historical circumstances beyond our control. In the case of the German women (Frenchwomen, Englishwomen, et alia), the men of their generation had been slaughtered on the battlefields of the First World War. In the case of the women of my generation, the upheaval immediately preceding, during and following the Second Vatican Council almost completely destroyed the traditional life of women religious. I do not know of a single Canadian woman my own age who became a nun although two of the boys I knew from local boys' schools became priests.
The situation of women's orders has improved, though, enough to inspire silly Seraphic to call up the Tennessee Dominicans, and to inspire two of the most wonderful women I know to join the Benedictines at Ryde. If a woman is really fascinated by religious life, particularly the historical Rule of a particular religious order, then I suggest she talk to a good priest about it, no matter what her past sins have been.
*When I was 5 or 6, I thought Sister Mary Anthony, IBVM was the bees' knees. When she retired as principal of my elementary school, I cried and cried. I was inconsolable. Possibly I was not just crying for the loss of Sister Mary Anthony but prophetically for the historical circumstances that made it unlikely that a nun would ever be principal of that school again.
Update: My eye just fell upon the idea of wanting to experience sexuality in a married way. Eek. Whereas it is absolutely good and normal to want to reserve sexual acts to marriage, it is not good to get married for "an experience." Marriage is not an experience but a way of life. It certainly has more stability and trust (or SHOULD!) than a non-married relationship in which sexual acts feature, but it is not a infinite font of exciting experiences. Sexuality in the broader sense is who you are as a woman and how you, as a woman, interact with men and the idea of men. In itself it is good, but of course as a created thing it has also affected by the Fall.
Update 2: Note that I am talking about past sins. It is hard to read God's writing at all when you are in a sinful state, and you can't assume God is going to grab you by the shoulder and shout "Hey, you!" He might, but He might not.
How much influence do you think sexual sin has on the personal history of a woman? Obviously God can redeem and call anyone to anything (Mary Magdalene, for example), but do you think that women who have had some experience of un-chastity, even if not the sexual act itself, are far less likely to find themselves being called to religious life? Maybe because they would prefer to be married and experience sexuality that way, or because they no longer feel free to give themselves to God in a consecrated way? (Leaving aside canonical issues, of course.)
It seems worth discussing in this culture where very few remain completely pure until/ through adulthood.
***
Ah, the overwhelming issue of sexual sin. Well, as I understand it, most men at least when they are teenagers have quite a problem with what some confessors treat as a not-so-serious sin for pastoral reasons but which the catechism says is a serious sin. Many (at least when they are teenagers) also deliberately dwell on sexual thoughts instead of allowing them to flit through their teeming brains. And yet no-one ever says that these men are necessarily not called to the priesthood or religious life. Some men (and I know at least one) give up a life of wine, women and song for the life of men religious). St. Augustine, St. Ignatius of Loyola and Thomas Merton were all unwed fathers. (In the case of the third, this fact was too much for the Franciscans, but the Trappists found it no bar. NB It is believed the baby and mother were killed in the London Blitz.)
For the past 15 or 16 years I have resisted and decried the notion that men and women can be pure in the same sense as a bar of Ivory soap. Whereas the whole notion of spotless purity was perhaps important psychologically in the past, and roused chivalrous feelings of protection towards children, virgins and "nice women", I think its day is mostly done except in the case of Our Lady, who was preserved from all sin and perhaps other human experiences too by an extraordinary and arguably never-repeated gift from God. (As for children, everyone in my fifth grade class deserved protection from sexual exploitation, but I wouldn't call them "spotlessly pure" as a goodly number spent recess french-kissing each other behind the school.)
It simply is impossible to talk about the purity of women as if women were white wedding dresses that can be stained, uglified, cheapened and heaven knows what by sexual experiences. We aren't. Sexuality is a lot more complicated than a gravy stain, and women (like men) are not things but people. We derive our value not from our lack of sexual feelings or experiences but from our createdness by the Creator, especially in the two past thousand years because of our redemption by the Redeemer. The Father considered us worth the life and death of His Son, but this has nothing to do with our merits. It has entirely to do with the mysterious love of God for His creatures.
There is no Scriptural evidence that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, other than that she was inflicted by demons, which suggests to me that she was left unprotected by her family and then, yes, prostitution probably would have been the only way she could have survived. If so, Mary Magdalene was a victim of one of the seriously unjust systems that Christ came to overturn. One might argue that since the sexual revolution, young people are also victims of an unjust system, one which shoves harmful sexual imagery and philosophy at them constantly: in magazines, billboards, television, music, the internet and even in doctors' waiting rooms and at school. Mary Magdalene did not define her life by how well she coped with the system, but by Christ. So should we.
So what does this mean in terms of religious life for women? Well, I was turned down sight unseen by the Tennessee Dominicans, bless them, because 1. I had had an annulment (and therefore had been married) AND because 2. I was 35. It wasn't just that I had been married. It was that I had been married AND was 35. If I had been 35 and never-married, they might have pondered longer. Or if I had just got my annulment and was therefore 28, they might have pondered longer. But actually I was a mess when I was 28, and it would never have occurred to me to join the T.D.s
I'm glad, too, because although I loved growing up with women--Brownies, Girl Guides, Pathfinders, ballet class, women's ice hockey, all-girls school--I enjoy the company of men. A lot. And not just as pals. Nooo. Since I was seven or so, I have been in a state of at least serious crush almost constantly. And the older I get, the more I like men. The attractive ones who also have good characters, anyway. It would be a real wrench to learn to think and speak and behave like a religious sister, which is no doubt why no-one who knows me well has ever suggested I would make a good one.
I can't pinpoint a particular Rubicon that I crossed that made me unfit for religious life. An examination of historical circumstances shows that my parents never praised religious life for women, that not a single teacher, including nuns, ever tried to interest me in religious life until my very last day at school, that between the ages of 6 and 34 I never met a nun whom I thought was the bees' knees*, that the episode in my school's order's foundress' (Mary Ward's) life that impressed me most was that a whole sloo of eligible Catholic bachelors wanted to get engaged to her before she was 12. Me, I could not get a date to the Spring Fling in Grade 9. Boo.
Meanwhile, the most romantic place in the entire world for me was not a convent of any description but the choir stalls of the local Cathedral, for there were the best-trained teenage Catholic Tenors, Baritones and Basses in the archdiocese, and I generally had a crush on one of them. In hindsight this suggests the deepest desire of my heart was to marry a Catholic Tenor, Baritone or Bass from some choir stall somewhere, which is what in 2009 I did.
I can see that developing habits of inchastity may make it difficult to quit being unchaste, but as a matter of fact throughout the ages thousands of women have gone into the desert or into convents to do just that. I am not sure the current structures of religious life support that kind of thing these days, but I'm not a Vocations Director, so who knows?
What I think suggests that a woman has a calling to religious life is not an "unspotted past" (if such a thing is possible for the vast majority of adult women--I mean, where does the spotting start? Kissing games at 12? Fantasies about boy bands at 13? Dancing dangerously too close to your principal crush object to "Stairway to Heaven" at 17? A grope-fest gone out of control with a "fiance" at 22? ) but a real interest in religious life and a real admiration for concrete, real-life women religious. For me it's not enough that St Teresa of Avila and Edith Stein were Carmelite nuns. I'd want to meet and admire a living Carmelite nun before I pondered her way of life for a second.
Frankly, I don't think we should define our lives by our sins, or allow anyone else to define our lives that way. And I don't think we should allow our sins to determine our history. We should define our lives and make our decisions by love. Not by sin. Not by the sorry stream of tatty decisions and experiences we dump on a priest and at the foot of the Cross in the confessional. By love.
We are far less likely to find ourselves called to religious life for the same reason German women in 1919 were far less likely to find themselves called to married life: historical circumstances beyond our control. In the case of the German women (Frenchwomen, Englishwomen, et alia), the men of their generation had been slaughtered on the battlefields of the First World War. In the case of the women of my generation, the upheaval immediately preceding, during and following the Second Vatican Council almost completely destroyed the traditional life of women religious. I do not know of a single Canadian woman my own age who became a nun although two of the boys I knew from local boys' schools became priests.
The situation of women's orders has improved, though, enough to inspire silly Seraphic to call up the Tennessee Dominicans, and to inspire two of the most wonderful women I know to join the Benedictines at Ryde. If a woman is really fascinated by religious life, particularly the historical Rule of a particular religious order, then I suggest she talk to a good priest about it, no matter what her past sins have been.
*When I was 5 or 6, I thought Sister Mary Anthony, IBVM was the bees' knees. When she retired as principal of my elementary school, I cried and cried. I was inconsolable. Possibly I was not just crying for the loss of Sister Mary Anthony but prophetically for the historical circumstances that made it unlikely that a nun would ever be principal of that school again.
Update: My eye just fell upon the idea of wanting to experience sexuality in a married way. Eek. Whereas it is absolutely good and normal to want to reserve sexual acts to marriage, it is not good to get married for "an experience." Marriage is not an experience but a way of life. It certainly has more stability and trust (or SHOULD!) than a non-married relationship in which sexual acts feature, but it is not a infinite font of exciting experiences. Sexuality in the broader sense is who you are as a woman and how you, as a woman, interact with men and the idea of men. In itself it is good, but of course as a created thing it has also affected by the Fall.
Update 2: Note that I am talking about past sins. It is hard to read God's writing at all when you are in a sinful state, and you can't assume God is going to grab you by the shoulder and shout "Hey, you!" He might, but He might not.
Imaginary Vibes?
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
I got a great email today, which can be summed up as "Are these vibes? Am I just making it all up? How do make myself stop making stuff up?"
What was brilliant about this email was that it was evidence of a woman, one rather like me as I began to read the philosophy of Bernard Lonergan, S.J., slowly realizing that her thought processes might not be rooted in reality but in wishful thinking.
Is there any adventure more thrilling and important than the great hacking through mental fog towards understanding things and people as they really are and not just as we would like them to be? Is there any battler nobler than the great clash between Intellect and Will, in which Will, like an unruly dog, must be brought into proper submission and yet friendship with the Intellect?
Well, I suppose Virtue vs Sin is even more thrilling, important and noble, but personally I want season tickets to Intellect vs Will.
As far as I know, I am the only Lonerganian in the world to consistently apply Lonergan's thought to dating. You should see my Lonerganian paper on gas-lighting and emotional abuse. I got an A + from Robert M. Doran, SJ, people!!!
Anyway, my correspondent cited a number of things which made her believe in the existence of vibes between her and men around. They included glances and group invites and such other things that, frankly, suggest that my correspondent thinks men are as subtle as shy women.
In general, men are not as subtle as shy women. When a man is interested in a woman he is obvious about it, and even if the woman is oblivious (because, for example, she is busily measuring the vibes between her and some completely uninterested guy), he is still obvious to onlookers.
But the first thing we have all got to understand is that unless we are very pretty or very charismatic most men are not going to fall in love with us. You know your friend, the one that multiple guys are always in love with? Most of us are not like her. No. Most of us are The Friend of Beautiful. But that is okay because there are something like 3 billion men in the world, and even if we appeal only to 0.001% of them, that is still 3 million men knocking themselves out to bring us a coffee.
(Jeepers! Can that be right? Never believe any number I put up without testing it, girls, because I have dyslexia of the number, I really do.)
So do not be down at heart about being The Friend. Be happy and chipper and agree with Single male friends when they growl that picking up women "is all a numbers game." God has a plan, of course, but I don't see any harm in going to respectable places where you may meet new people. Look at me, exposing my sunny personality every day to hundreds of people on the internet. (Um, not that married I am looking.)
HOWEVER when you meet these new people you must think in terms of friendship, not of courtship, because there is a strong possibility that none of them will belong to the Golden Three Million and you do not want to make an ass of yourself.
If some guy belongs to the Golden Three Million, he will eventually try to bring this to your attention. There is no need for you to sift through his every word and glance. He will do the following:
He will consistently come up to you at gatherings and start conversations.
He will not go away at once when another guy comes up to speak to you. He will linger about. He may look faintly annoyed or distressed that you are speaking to another guy.
He will give you things. Not big things, I hope, but small things that cost very little money, e.g. his jacket because you look cold, his pen because you might need it, a coffee from the coffee table, a glass of wine from the buffet table.
He will ask for your phone number. He will use it.
He might blush. I would love to write that only good men can blush for no discernable reason (lots of men good and bad go red with anger), but I don't know if this is true. But at any rate, it is a sign of sincere interest.
He will get you alone in some sneaky way. He might ask you out to something. If it is a group thing, he will plot in advance how to get you alone eventually.
He will offer to walk you all the way home, without you asking, before sunset. After sunset, he might just be a nice, gentlemanly man you can be proud to know, but he is not necessarily that into you.
He will do at least three of these things. Please don't assume Scooter is in love with you just because he rushes up to you at every party and sticks to you like glue. Scooter might just be too cowardly to talk to anyone else.
You can seriously mess up your own ability to recognize one of the Golden Three Million if you take matters into your own hands and go after men who have not shown three of the above behaviours.
Again apologies for comparing men to dogs (although I very much like dogs), especially after comparing the Will to dogs, but if you set chicken before a dog who prefers beef, he will eat the chicken anyway because it is there. But when he smells beef in the vicinity he will rush off towards it instead of eating chicken again.
Oh dear. That didn't sound very elegant. But you know what I mean. Don't go after a member of someone else's Golden Three Million or you will be sorry.
Anyway, trust in God and trust in your own attractiveness to at least three million men worldwide.* Don't get impatient and make stuff up. As some other lady, one richer than I (I hope), said "You can't hurry love. You just have to wait." Put your energies into work, school, community service, hobbies and having fun with friends. Be open to meeting new people, but don't hunt them down. And, especially, make sure your Will is in the keeping of your Intellect, not the other way around.
*Don't think they are all abroad, however, as actually most men apparently are attracted to women of their own (or their mother's) ethnic group or race and this increases as they get older, as an over-40 Chinese guy made sure to tell me the one time we went to a restaurant together.
What was brilliant about this email was that it was evidence of a woman, one rather like me as I began to read the philosophy of Bernard Lonergan, S.J., slowly realizing that her thought processes might not be rooted in reality but in wishful thinking.
Is there any adventure more thrilling and important than the great hacking through mental fog towards understanding things and people as they really are and not just as we would like them to be? Is there any battler nobler than the great clash between Intellect and Will, in which Will, like an unruly dog, must be brought into proper submission and yet friendship with the Intellect?
Well, I suppose Virtue vs Sin is even more thrilling, important and noble, but personally I want season tickets to Intellect vs Will.
As far as I know, I am the only Lonerganian in the world to consistently apply Lonergan's thought to dating. You should see my Lonerganian paper on gas-lighting and emotional abuse. I got an A + from Robert M. Doran, SJ, people!!!
Anyway, my correspondent cited a number of things which made her believe in the existence of vibes between her and men around. They included glances and group invites and such other things that, frankly, suggest that my correspondent thinks men are as subtle as shy women.
In general, men are not as subtle as shy women. When a man is interested in a woman he is obvious about it, and even if the woman is oblivious (because, for example, she is busily measuring the vibes between her and some completely uninterested guy), he is still obvious to onlookers.
But the first thing we have all got to understand is that unless we are very pretty or very charismatic most men are not going to fall in love with us. You know your friend, the one that multiple guys are always in love with? Most of us are not like her. No. Most of us are The Friend of Beautiful. But that is okay because there are something like 3 billion men in the world, and even if we appeal only to 0.001% of them, that is still 3 million men knocking themselves out to bring us a coffee.
(Jeepers! Can that be right? Never believe any number I put up without testing it, girls, because I have dyslexia of the number, I really do.)
So do not be down at heart about being The Friend. Be happy and chipper and agree with Single male friends when they growl that picking up women "is all a numbers game." God has a plan, of course, but I don't see any harm in going to respectable places where you may meet new people. Look at me, exposing my sunny personality every day to hundreds of people on the internet. (Um, not that married I am looking.)
HOWEVER when you meet these new people you must think in terms of friendship, not of courtship, because there is a strong possibility that none of them will belong to the Golden Three Million and you do not want to make an ass of yourself.
If some guy belongs to the Golden Three Million, he will eventually try to bring this to your attention. There is no need for you to sift through his every word and glance. He will do the following:
He will consistently come up to you at gatherings and start conversations.
He will not go away at once when another guy comes up to speak to you. He will linger about. He may look faintly annoyed or distressed that you are speaking to another guy.
He will give you things. Not big things, I hope, but small things that cost very little money, e.g. his jacket because you look cold, his pen because you might need it, a coffee from the coffee table, a glass of wine from the buffet table.
He will ask for your phone number. He will use it.
He might blush. I would love to write that only good men can blush for no discernable reason (lots of men good and bad go red with anger), but I don't know if this is true. But at any rate, it is a sign of sincere interest.
He will get you alone in some sneaky way. He might ask you out to something. If it is a group thing, he will plot in advance how to get you alone eventually.
He will offer to walk you all the way home, without you asking, before sunset. After sunset, he might just be a nice, gentlemanly man you can be proud to know, but he is not necessarily that into you.
He will do at least three of these things. Please don't assume Scooter is in love with you just because he rushes up to you at every party and sticks to you like glue. Scooter might just be too cowardly to talk to anyone else.
You can seriously mess up your own ability to recognize one of the Golden Three Million if you take matters into your own hands and go after men who have not shown three of the above behaviours.
Again apologies for comparing men to dogs (although I very much like dogs), especially after comparing the Will to dogs, but if you set chicken before a dog who prefers beef, he will eat the chicken anyway because it is there. But when he smells beef in the vicinity he will rush off towards it instead of eating chicken again.
Oh dear. That didn't sound very elegant. But you know what I mean. Don't go after a member of someone else's Golden Three Million or you will be sorry.
Anyway, trust in God and trust in your own attractiveness to at least three million men worldwide.* Don't get impatient and make stuff up. As some other lady, one richer than I (I hope), said "You can't hurry love. You just have to wait." Put your energies into work, school, community service, hobbies and having fun with friends. Be open to meeting new people, but don't hunt them down. And, especially, make sure your Will is in the keeping of your Intellect, not the other way around.
*Don't think they are all abroad, however, as actually most men apparently are attracted to women of their own (or their mother's) ethnic group or race and this increases as they get older, as an over-40 Chinese guy made sure to tell me the one time we went to a restaurant together.
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