It's About Service

Today is Holy Thursday, and I am at the blow-my-nose-every-45 seconds stage of my cold. I have overseas guests arriving in three hours, a paper on the Theology of Woman to write, and Holy Thursday Mass an hour-and-a-half by bus away. This is a bad day to feel this bad.

However, like real mothers, I dragged myself from my bed of pain to do what housework is necessary, and like women with 9-to-5 jobs, I will get down to writing my paper. What I am doing now is service that nobody has asked me (directly) to do but nevertheless ought to be done, which is to address Catholic Singles and Other Singles of Good Will about the Single Life from a Catholic perspective.

On Holy Thursday there is attached to Mass an optional service in which a priest washes the feet of twelve other priests or, lacking that many priests, twelve appropriate priest stand-ins. Most fittingly, those would be the "viri" demanded by rubrics, but some of us are just happy if the feminae selectae remember not to wear pantyhose. Incidentally, there is a fashion for women lay ministers to wash feet, too. My nose hurts too much to go on about what THAT does to theology of the ordained priesthood.

At any rate the contemporary, un-traditional and confusing involvement of laity is supposed to remind us that all Christians are called to service, which actually I can remember without watching a woman in the sanctuary whipping off her pantyhose as an alb-covered woman with a sponge waits politely. Service is not about rituals most fittingly done by and for priests but about being truly helpful. If stuck, see the corporal works of mercy and the spiritual works of mercy.

But service is more than individual acts. It's about a shared way of life. It is about serving without expectation of human reward, serving for God's sake, or for humanity's sake, or serving's sake, no matter what your state in life or your chosen profession. If you are a salaried or by-the-hour professional server, paid for your service, you may not have enough time or energy to experience the true joy of Christian service, which would be unfortunate.

Mysteriously, there is something spiritually wrong with being paid for Christian service. I don't know exactly why it is so, but it is so. What is way better is being gratuitously rewarded, either in money or something else, for Christian service. Priests in my hometown are usually financially dependent on their bishop (and probably helped out by their families ), sometimes working around the clock, snatching sleep when they can, seven days a week. I don't think of them as working for a paycheque, exactly. Meanwhile, nobody pays mothers and fathers for being generous mothers and fathers, or childless marrieds for being substitute mothers and fathers, or singles for being generous with their time and talent on behalf of the community.

Sometimes these people aren't even thanked, although you may recall that of the ten lepers miraculously cured by Our Lord, only one went back to thank Him. And if nine people miraculously cured from a dread disease forget to thank the Son of God Himself, I guess it is understandable when someone forgets to say "Thank you" to me or his mom.

The Lord seems to expect us to do service for people who can never give us anything in return (and may forget to say thank you). I am reminded of His advice to one of His hosts "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, otherwise they may also invite you in return and that will be your repayment. But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous" (Luke 14:12-14). The emphasis here is that you profit from not being materially rewarded. And I notice that Our Lord suggested a service His host enjoyed and was good at--hosting.

I host a bit, and the good thing about opening your home to foreign students (if you do) is that almost all students are at least cash poor and because their homes are in foreign lands, it is less likely that they will have the chance to open their homes to you. Of course, it is very nice when they do, but you don't expect it, and it doesn't matter. Meanwhile, the Poles have a saying that I really love--"Guest in the house, God in the house." I think this is literally true in some mystical way.

Anyway, I am not feeling so brainy, thanks to my cold, so I will drag myself back to the point of this post and say that Single Christians are equal in dignity to Married Christians or Consecrated Christians in that Singles are equally called to service. Priests are always telling lonely bored Singles that the way to cheer up is to serve others, and I am not surprised if the Singles roll their eyes around the minute the priest's back is turned. I think I probably did. However, this actually turns out to be TRUE.

One of the intolerable sufferings of my PhD years was that I couldn't find any opportunities to serve; I had served a lot during my M.Div., and I really missed it. However, I finally hit on the strange notion of writing a blog for Singles, and it changed my whole life, and directly or indirectly brought me everything I have achieved or been given in the past seven years, minus my tiny nephew and niece (of course). So much reward for something that--let's face it--nobody asked me to do or paid me for. (Thanks, by the way, to anyone who ever sent me a donation over PayPal, which I no longer use, as it proved unworkable.) It's really amazing.

Christian service is voluntary and not on a cash-per-hour basis. Ideally, the service you do is something that you are good at and enjoy. Philosopher Simone Weil went to tremendous lengths to serve her countrymen long before she became a Christian, most effectively by giving them free night classes that helped them pass exams to get better jobs. Blessed Natalia Tułasiewicz went voluntarily into what was for other Poles forced labour in Nazi Germany so as to minister to them spiritually, emotionally and intellectually. Servant of God Dorothy Day wrote and protested on behalf of the poor, clothed them, listened to them, and made them coffee and soup. And what did all these ladies have in common? They enjoyed their form of service, even though Weil was killed (in part) by overwork and Blessed Natalia by the Nazis.

They were also all unmarried non-nuns. And they all flew in the face of the idea that you shouldn't do something skilled and worth something to others unless you are being paid for it. It is a beautiful irony that Blessed Natalia went voluntarily into forced labour in Germany--so that she could carry out an illegal (and unpaid) ministry among the forced labourers. Yet Simone Weil and Dorothy Day served by demanding better pay and better work conditions for workers.

Paid work and Christian service: two separate things. How nurses have the time to do both is a puzzle, but I am sure many must. And I hope whatever they are doing as unpaid service is something they deeply enjoy: motherhood, for example.

Update: To be fair to American Catholics women who have volunteered to have, or been pressured into having, their feet washed this evening, here is what the American bishops have to say about it. If I were a priest, however, I would get twelve men involved in lay ministries of whatever kind--choir, altar service, lectors, hockey team coaching--stuff them in cassocks and albs, and wash THEIR feet, as an example to little boys of how church is not just for one man and a whole lotta women.

When he was here, my eldest nephew was mesmerized by Mass, and I don't think it was the Latin. Nooooooo. I think it was because everyone on the altar was male and dressed properly. Just saying.

Beyond Rubies

I am thinking again about my friend Calvinist Cath--dear me, how embarrassed she would be if she realized she was becoming an official Good Role Model--because of how she found a husband without doing anything. This is someone who completely rejects what the world says about women, looking instead to the Gospels and Saint Paul. She doesn't wear lipstick, let alone fake tan, and her clothes, though feminine, are modest, unpretentious and plain. No miniskirts on our Cath, ever. And if I remember correctly the only reason she never cut her hair short is 'cause St. Paul said women shouldn't. I assume she is as slim as she is because she doesn't overeat and she does a lot of walking, especially on Sundays, as she would never take the bus on a Sunday, as it would entail participating on someone else's wrongful Sunday labour. At any rate, I think we can safely say that Cath never practised any mean arts of attraction--as they would have been called in the 19th century--quite unlike your humble correspondent, who got her first lipstick at twelve.

But my friend is no shrinking violet. Naturally studious, she achieved a doctorate in a difficult field. Laudably hard-working, she won a good post. She is a pillar of her church community and corresponds with other members of her ecclesial community worldwide, expounding on theology and recommending theological tomes. She also serves in more traditionally feminine ways, until recently by helping her minister's wife serve Sunday supper to guests, which is how she met the handsome young man who has recently become her husband.

In short, she lived her life according to the tenets of her Calvinist creed, in total contrast to the great majority of Edinburghers her age, even when it looked like there may never be a husband on the horizon. Action and belief were totally consistent: Simone Weil would have admired her greatly.

Now, to shift to a Catholic point of view, if a Protestant lives with such integrity, who are we as Catholics to justify wearing immodest clothing or keeping bad company or "making mistakes" or stuffing our bodies with silicone, all in the hope of winning a husband? I see no reason to wear our skirts to our ankles, but perhaps the hem ought to skim our knees? And who are we to complain that the boys pay attention only to the girls who wear the trampiest costumes to the college Hallowe'en party? You wouldn't find Cath dead at a college Hallowe'en party.

Spiritually speaking, I am very lucky I was not a beauty in my youth, for I never had the opportunity to develop an addiction to male attention. However, from an early age, I certainly wanted to get it, which I thought I could do by wearing short skirts and a lot of make-up and cutting my unusual hair short and actually calling boys up on the phone and laying in wait for my crush objects after school at the bus station--poor little creature. Little did I know I would not meet the Love of my Life until I was thirty-seven. What a lot of expense, effort and sorrow I would have spared myself if I had paid more attention to Scripture and behaved more modestly.

Thanks to Cath's good example, I have given up blogging (if not emergency grocery shopping or taking the bus) on Sundays, but I don't think I will give up make-up. I enjoy the theatricality of make-up, even though B.A. thinks he likes me better without it. And I will continue to suggest that women choose pretty over plain clothes, and not feel that the calves need always be covered up. Short of bikinis and push-up bras (I am not a fan), I think a good rule of thumb is that if a piece of clothing would have been okay in 1962, it is okay now. But flying in the face of all my "You should look like this" and "You should do that" is the image of Cath, who did nothing but live her life as a Christian with integrity and service and attention to what St. Paul said about women's appearance and thereby, thanks to God's inexorable plan for her, found a husband.

Picture: That's Lady Jane Grey, who in this rendition looks surprisingly like Cath. Gracious! What a coincidence.

P.S. As far as I know, I am Cath's most frivolous Catholic pal. Two of the others became cloistered Benedictine nuns, which is a great comfort to my lipsticked self.

St. Edith Stein's Advice for Single Girls

Here's an excellent article about the advice of St. Edith Stein (Teresa Benedicta of the Cross) for Single women. St. Edith (or Teresa) was an adult Single long before she entered Carmel, for reasons beyond her control.

Thank you very much to one of our Readers named Jennifer!

Scandal and Perseverance

I had a wonderful Toronto weekend! On Saturday night I met my poet pal Clara for beer, read parts of her rather occult (!) new book, and went dancing at a Goth club, which I had not done in a year. I got home after 2 AM but was up again by 9 AM so as to be driven by an old friend--my prom date, in fact!--to Solemn High Mass at the Toronto Oratorians' Holy Family Church.

I had not been at the Extraordinary Form (or TLM, for short) since I arrived in Canada, and it was like running water to the panting deer. There were three priests at the altar and a men's schola (including Dominicans) plus organ behind me in the organ loft, and it was positively mesmerizing. I began to think I should have gone to confession beforehand, la la la. Was there still a priest behind me in the box? Oh there was. Hmm.... La, la, la. A priest in the sanctuary began to sing the Epistle. Oh, so beautiful!

Aaaagh! Conscience pricked by beauty, I click-clicked down the side aisle to the box and cast myself on my knees in the compartment of the box with the green light. The last time I was in that box I was given a hard time for not going to confession often enough. However, I would admit this again at once to whichever priest addressed me from the middle. I am not good at confession; I lack a proper sense of sin. I am an arrogant worm. Wah! I suck.

And five minutes later I was out of the box, and the schola was still singing the gradual, and my soul was clean and happy, and Mass was AWESOME.

And during Mass I meditated on the subject of scandal, and now-married women who had lived with their boyfriends, and naturally don't want to be thought ill of for their sins (who does?), versus Single women who so terribly want to find love but dread that they will have to sin to do it.

The fact is that we are all sinners. This is not a world of people who sin very rarely because there are so few sins, and those who commit those few sins (like rape) are irredeemable monsters. This is a world of sinners who sin all the time because we are fallen, and there are so many sins, and the world encourages those sins, either by making sin look glamorous ("This cake is sinfully good!") or by insisting that sin is not sin at all. For example, making out with a guy whom you do not intend to marry is a sin, however serious or venal a sin that might be. Don't marry the man if you don't want to. But do go to confession.

This reminds me that I got an email recently from a guy who was invited by a girl--a NCG, he believed--to make out with her, and then shortly thereafter, she dumped him. She wanted more experience before she settled down, blah blah blah. He had been a perfect gentleman, being chaste and not initiating couch snogging sessions, which had worried this girl, even though she was not actually in love with our Eavesdropper. (Eavesdroppers, though Eavesdroppers, are still OUR Eavesdroppers.) Well, excuse me, but her suggestion that they make out, when her intentions proved not to be honourable, was sinful. She used our Eavesdropper for thrills, or made out with him as a kind of test drive, and that was bad behaviour. Not only did she owe him an apology, she owed one to our Lord and Saviour.

Incidentally, I know some readers think I am out to lunch on the doctrine of "making out is a sin" which is why I bring it up yet again. When I was twenty, I agonized over "How far can we go?" and no priest actually said. Life experience leads me to think "how far can we go" for Singles means a brief and chaste kiss-on-the-lips. And, yes, making out with an attractive man you have a crush on is one of the most intoxicating things on earth, sweeter than wine. But too bad. Fiancés (the REAL kind, with a wedding date) and husbands only. Meanwhile I know a girl who didn't kiss her fiancé on the lips until they were actually married. (His idea.)

And what dread punishment will fall upon you in this life if you make out regardless? Very likely--NOTHING. Zip. Zero. Nada. The problem with chastity education which harps on all the horrible things that can happen to you if you just go ahead and commit sexual sins is that the horrible things do not always happen. You go to college in fear and trembling for "the girls who do" and--surprise--they all seem happy and confident. Some of them are faking their happiness and confidence, of course, but others are not. Some of them are shallow, sure. But some of them are deep. Some of them ponder for a day or weeks or even months if they should sleep with their suitor Such-and-Such, and contemplate if he is "responsible" and take all "responsible" precautions, and initiate a sexual relationship with him, and eventually move in with him, and marry him five years later, maybe in church, and have his baby two years later. Everyone is happy, and nobody--certainly not me--doubts that this family is a pillar of the community and the hope of the future.

"Well!" our sheltered Catholic girl might think. "I have been lied to by my chastity educators! Sod this for a lark, I am getting drunk and letting nature take its course."

WHAM! She gets pregnant. Or an STD. Or a broken heart. Or PTSD after a string of badly-thought out sexual relationships leave her a wreck. Because too many sheltered Catholic girls are all-or-nothing kind of people, unlike their often more sensible if invincibly ignorant non-Catholic friends, who at least think very hard and discuss it with their mother or best friends before they jump in the sack, at least for their first sexual relationship. Because God allows bad things to happen to some and not to others. And this is why it is absolutely terrible for married-or-partnered women to reveal their sexual sins without a trace of remorse. They are a scandal to their weaker sisters, and by weaker I do not mean morally weaker, but the socially weaker vulnerable Single women.

Sin is not always punished in this life; there is this place called hell, or if that is too awful to contemplate right now, this place called Purgatory. Sure, there is sacramental confession, thanks be to God, but it only works if you are SORRY for your sins, and actually recognize that your sins are sins. So the repentant Magdalene weeping in the confessional may actually have the advantage over the blissfully ignorant and happy equivalent-to-married mother of three. And, as we read in Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory, feeling repentant for the sins that conceive your beloved out-of-wedlock children is a problem.

I'm not writing this to beat up on sexual sinners, especially as I am one myself, as I imagine so are most of you, if only in a venial way. Among my friends is a happy-go-lucky gay guy, and my imagination just does not go through THAT door. I don't "judge" him--though if he ever were to asked me what I thought of Sin X or Sin Y, I would certainly tell him--I just pray for him, the dear man.

No, I'm writing this to suggest that sexual sinners who, thanks to God's mercy, don't suffer any adverse affects in this life from our sins not spread this news to vulnerable, innocent, virgin women who are terribly, TERRIBLY tempted to give into their sexual desires, in part because sexual desire is one of the strongest forces on earth, and in part because they are told they will "never get a boyfriend" or "never get married" unless they do. Reflecting comfortably on sexual sin, past or present, from a position of social strength--e.g. a great, loving, marital relationship--is a scandal, a stumbling block, to Single women. It can really hurt them.

Going to Gdańsk

I leave for Gdańsk tomorrow, so of course I am pondering my death. I always ponder my death before I travel. Pondering your own death is a good, traditional Catholic thing to do. And it reminds you to update your will, as I did last week by ripping up a codicil.  I am a terrific will-changer. Nobody will ever want to murder me for a legacy.

In the event of death, I will not leave you orphaned, for there are a number of women tilling in the Single Solidarity field.  Some of them are readers, and prominent among you are the Orthogals. who blogister (my portmanteau of blog and minister, get it?) for Single women of the Eastern Christian persuasion, aka the GREEKS. There there's Christian Grace from The Evangelista. On a completely different, and not explicitly Catholic note, there's newcomer Postum Scriptum, who writes about all kinds of traddy and vintage stuff, like the lost art of letter-writing.

Then of course there are the Professional Writers for Singles who are farther afield and either taking money from the Catholic Dating Websites or are just better than me at marketing what I give for free. And I don't have a problem with that. Just because my conscience says "donations, speaker's fees and book sales only" doesn't mean that's what their consciences say. Occasionally my conscience does twinge a bit when I point to the balance of my student loan, but it just really refuses to get involved with Catholic Dating Websites. And, yes, I know they do some good.

Which reminds me. Somehow my name has been attached to the idea of dating websites because I did a fellow freelancer a favour by answering questions about  internet dating and meeting B.A. online.  But I did not meet B.A. through a dating website; I met him through my blog. Don't believe everything you read in the newspapers: it's not that journalists lie, it's that whoever makes up the headlines and the captions doesn't know how to, or just doesn't have time to, read the actual article.

***
I had insomnia last night after watching the Sherlock episode, "A Scandal in Belgravia."  I don't often watch violent or suggestive stuff, and "A Scandal in Belgravia" was both.  Also, I have a deep loathing of sexually sophisticated people who try to take advantage of sexual innocents, so I did not enjoy watching Irene Adler's attempts on Sherlock's virtue. Sherlock is an arrogant twit, but he does not use his intellectual prowess to bamboozle people into bed. The farthest he goes is to flirt mildly with poor Molly in the morgue so that she will let him see the latest corpse or what have you.

The writers depict Sherlock and his brother Mycroft as cold fish without feeling, and seem to say coldness is why Sherlock, at least, is largely proof against sexual temptation. But as a matter of fact, Sherlock is intensely loyal and protective of the few people who are intensely loyal and protective of him. It's a great plot device: when the writers need us to feel pity and fear, they put Watson in danger of certain death and Sherlock's blue eyes positively blaze with rage. In contrast, Watson's angry, jealous girlfriends, with whom he presumably, to quote him, "gets off", are just figures of fun.

Despite themselves, the writers have hammered home the idea that in itself sex means nothing next to chaste, self-sacrificing love. Still, I don't think they would go so far as to extol Sherlock's chastity as normal and another example of his formidable powers of reasoning. But I would.

There is a quality of mercy in Sherlock. As blunt and thoughtless as he can be, and as capable of throwing baddies out the window, he takes pity on people when he realizes that they seem to love him. And this is most unlike the kind of  sociopath who punishes most those who seem to love him.

Because, to move from television to real life, there are indeed men who punish, rather than protect, those who love them because their victims love them. Perhaps there are women like that, too. But I have met at least two men like that. Their own mothers were afraid of them. And although only one of them actually said, "I enjoy making the people who love me suffer", the same was true of both.

These were not seedy gangsters. They did not have criminal records. These were mildly good-looking, charismatic, clever men with intellectual interests who attracted less intelligent but nicer men as loyal friends. Possibly one was much nicer when he was younger; the other was a sadist by 17, and by sadist I don't mean all that silly sexual game-playing so-called "sophisticated" people think so daring. I mean that even at seventeen he enjoyed making the people who loved him suffer agonies of mind and heart. I cannot for the life of me understand why, or if he could have been improved by psychiatric help.  I wonder what a priest would have said to him; I wonder how often parish priests in comfortable countries have to look squarely at evil and see a soul in palpable danger of hell.

I am quite sure that as painful as it is, it is much better to love someone like that and to suffer innocently than to be someone like that and make innocents suffer. So if these were to be my last ever written words, I would want to say, not "Look out for someone like that" but "Don't be someone like that." Satan, handsome, clever, attractive, arrogant Satan, makes a lousy role model.

Story of a Good Man

It has blizzards, peril, chivalry and rescue. What a nice story I have been sent! So here it is (with permission) for you all to read:

Seraphic,

First, my thoughts are with you and the rest of the Catholic world today after hearing the news from Rome. 

Second, I wanted to share a story of a good man. I live in an area that was really hit hard by the blizzard this weekend. We got 2.5 feet of really heavy snow in just over 12 hours. I was home alone, my roommates having left ahead of the storm, when our power went out around 11 pm. When I sent a griping text to this friend about my situation, he insisted that I could not spend the night alone in my house with no heat. He walked out in the blizzard, got his car, and came to rescue me. That may make it sound easy, but was the most horrific weather I have ever been out driving in and required much shoveling out of snowbanks on his part. I then spent the weekend safe and warm on the air mattress in his living room until my power came back on. 

It was maybe not the smartest thing that either of us has ever done, but it is certainly the most chivalrous thing anyone has ever done for me, and I wanted to share. I would love to scream it from the rooftops, but I suspect that this friend would be embarrassed if I made too much of it to our mutual friends.

Rescued from Snow

I love a good Good Man story! I think we should tell them at parties because, my goodness, if men eavesdrop on us at Seraphic Singles, you can bet that they eavesdrop at parties. Good Man stories would make them feel pleased by association and like they have a handle on what we think is Good Man behaviour.

Incidentally, it is necessary to say a praiseworthy man is "such a good man," not "so nice" because men don't like the word nice, and if you say another man is "so nice", they (or some of them, especially from certain countries) think "wimp."

There is space in the combox for more Good Man stories.

The "How We Met" Post

There has been a request for a post in which Married readers tell Searching Singles how we met our husbands. I apologize if there is already a post like this because although it is a fun idea, this is a Singles blog after all.

At parties I don't like being asked where I met my husband because both "through friends" and "over the internet" sound too vague, although both are true. I prefer to say, "I'm a writer, and Benedict Ambrose wrote to me after reading my stuff" although that sounds a bit precious.

The truth of the matter is that I was in Canada talking to Aelianus of Laodicea in England over Skype while scrolling through his Facebook friends, saying, "Come on, Aelianus, who do you got for me?" when Aelianus said, "How would you like to live in a Historical House?"

And this was the first time ever I heard about B.A. Come to think of it, that would make a nice story for strangers at parties. I don't care if they think I sold myself for Georgian architecture. Georgian architecture is very soothing to the soul.

So today the few married lady and widowed readers are encouraged to chime in and explain how and where you met your husbands. (Maybe the engaged readers could also chime in to explain how and where you met your fiances.) If it was at college, and it so often is for those who marry young, say where at college, e.g. in the chorus of "The Mikado" in the Dramatic Society or at after-Mass tea with Cath Soc.

Happy Birthday, Benedict Ambrose!

To tell you the truth, my husband B.A. is unlikely to read this until the next time he decides he had better check up on what I've been writing about lately. Ah, the stages of romance. First the guy starts reading your blog daily. Then he reads the entire blog archives. Then he invites you to stay in his 17th century pad across the sea. Then he marries you and stops reading your blog, except at intervals to make sure you are not planning an escape.

Of course, B.A. is not supposed to be reading my blog, for he is a man. On the other hand, the very fact that I can spend an hour or two every morning blogging is thanks to the fact he goes out and works at a proper job all day.

Since this is a blog for Single girls, I am not sure how much you want to read about B.A. and married life. Sometimes readers write to tell me they find my thoughts on married life inspiring, and nobody has written "How dare you get married? You have betrayed us" in years. But you can be annoyed enough by Facebook updates that say "Now that I'm married my life is complete and I am in total heaven. Sucks to be you, Single friends!" Do I want to add to that annoyance? No.

I think the saving grace of being a married woman continuing to write about Singleness for Single women is that I married at 38, although that is starting to look younger every day. And it might be inspiring that there was still a Single, devoutly Catholic man in his mid-to-late 30s around until I snaffled him. I think there might still be others, but they are probably in Glasgow. (Our current parish crop of bachelors are in their early twenties, their fifties, their sixties and their eighties. Note the ginormous gap.)

The thing about meeting B.A.--I hope this is instructive rather than triumphalist--is that I noticed almost at once how kind and cheerful he was. He wasn't just kind and cheerful to me; he was kind and cheerful to everyone. I don't know how you girls feel about perpetual cheer. I love it. Now that we've been married a bit, he feels free to take his coat off and grump when he feels a need to grump. But this isn't very often. He doesn't often complain and he isn't rude to waiters; in fact, I don't think he is ever rude without a very severe provocation.

Occasionally rude friends suggest that I married B.A. because he lives in a 17th century house. This is not true although I have to admit that it is a very nice house. Of course we do not own it and I cannot paint the walls or put up wallpaper or adopt a cat or dog because they might scratch something or chew the doors. I can't even hang up the laundry outdoors because it would ruin the view and tourists would take photos of it. No, I married B.A. because he was so kind and amiable, cheerful and funny that I fell in love with him. And he fell in love with me, too, probably because of my resemblance to Dame Emma Kirkby, but also because I would not give him a row about being a devout Catholic.

And this is the secret of why such an attractive man was still unmarried at 36. He simply kept dating women who gave him a row about his wanting to become a devout Catholic. (He was received into the Church during my first visit.) Isn't that ODD? But I must say this situation was very lucky for me.

(And I wonder how many other Catholic men are still wandering about in interesting, cultured, artsy, non-Catholic circles, pursued by the Misses Wrong, vaguely despairing that they will EVER meet a girl--she doesn't even have to be Catholic--who will put up with their rosaries, their intolerance of contraception, and their Gregorian-chant singing pals.)

Oh, and I think they wanted to change him in other ways, which strikes me as just mad. What's to change? Really, sometimes other women make me cross.

Obviously the man is not perfect. (Dark silence as Seraphic ponders the recycling still waiting to be taken out.) But he is perfect for me.

I will add for the sake of cynical eavesdroppers that he does not have a car and that my earnings (such as they are) pay for holidays and such treats as the Jacobean-inspired sideboard I bought him for his birthday. Women are less impressed by cars and moohlah than you are.

In short, I married him simply because he is a wonderful man--ask anyone--who happily also wanted to marry me, and was well worth the long wait to meet the Perfect Man for Me.

TV is a Big, Fat Liar

Married life seems to involve a lot of TV-watching. After a long day of preserving his nation's heritage and fostering its intellectual and artistic advance, B.A. comes home and flops down before the telly. Incidentally, he says I may go to night school if I want to. I said, "That's not the point. I see you only in the evenings."

On the other hand, mostly in the evenings I see him watching the telly, ha ha ha. Night school!

Anyway, I watch more TV than I did when I was Single. When I was Single I either didn't have a TV or I lived with my parents, and I hated their shows. They seemed to watch a lot of shows with yelling and screaming and bad things happening to bad people and good people finding their mangled corpses at the crime scene. I could just stomach Bones but not Buffy. Definitely not Buffy. House was okay.

Many American shows make it over to the UK. Among them are The Big Bang Theory, which I like, and Two Broke Girls, which I loathe.

I like The Big Bang Theory because it is about scientists, and it makes math and science seem cool and adventurous while poking gentle fun at boyish obsessions with comic books and sci-fi shows. Dr. Sheldon Cooper is a great comic character, and as far as I can determine, he is celibate. Okay, his celibacy is presented as a facet of his weirdness, but at least someone on TV is not obsessed with sex.

Two Broke Girls is obsessed with sex, and in a particularly nasty way. A week ago, it featured the protagonists being crudely propositioned by two Orthodox Jewish boys at a bar mitzvah party. (The boys even throw money at them. It is suddenly okay again to portray Jews like this?) Last night it featured at least three one night stands and, if I get this right, Alex having sex with a prison guard as a bribe so Caroline will be allowed to visit her imprisoned father. Ha, ha.

Alex doesn't believe in love, as she tells the "one night stand" who recognizes her at the prison. She doesn't recognize him; he has her face tattooed to his chest. Alex is supposed to be super-cool, the practical, straight-talking one. But, actually, women who don't believe in love and have a lot of one-night stands aren't cool or practical. Their behaviour is dangerous, physically and mentally unhealthy and not worthy of emulation.

Nobody can tell me that "it's just TV" so I shouldn't worry about this. But Sex & the City was also just TV, and I have seen young women in Edinburgh, four abreast, striding tipsily along as if to invisible choirs singing "Here Come the Girls...", as drunk on Girl Power as they were on vodka.

I've seen Scotswoman of two generations thronging in Paisley airport on their way to hen parties in Ibizia wearing tiny outfits, T-shirts proclaiming their sexual availability, and...um....phallic accessories. They did not get their fashion sense from either John Calvin or Alexander McCall Smith.

And when the dumped, furious English girl on a documentary about English girls in Ibizia said, "Women should have sex just like men," she was quoting Sex & the City, Season 1, Episode 1. Where she got her subsequent expression, "pump and dump", I haven't the slightest idea, although if I were her mother I would be ashamed.

Actually, I don't have to be her mother. I am ashamed that women now say things like that on television. Call me retro, but I think it is one of Woman's earthly tasks to keep men at least somewhat civilized, and how is that possible when legions of women are acting like complete barbarians themselves? Chaste women used to sneer and isolate unchaste women for a reason, and that reason was that unchaste women were (and are) a serious threat to social order. Not just THE social order, which admittedly might be a terribly unjust one, but SOCIAL ORDER itself.*

Okay, so maybe chaste women took things too far. After all, Our Lord did go and talk to that polyandrous woman who was all by herself at the well. Of course, he was not showing by this that polyandry was okay, but that He loves everyone and calls whomever He calls to follow Him.

Polyandry (or serial monogamy, as it is misleadingly called) is not okay. One night stands are not okay. They're not funny. They're sad. They're dangerous. The more men a woman has sex with, the more likely she is to contract HPV, a very common, sexually transmitted virus which male carriers cannot be tested for, which can destroy your fertility and which is the cause of cervical cancer.

Condoms do not seem to protect against HPV, which is no doubt why health authorities are so interested in innoculating 15 year olds against it. And why all women who have been sexually active should have Pap smears every two years or so.

I find it terribly ironic that the cancer Samantha in Sex & the City came down with was breast cancer. She was haunted by the thought that it may have been caused by her rampant promiscuity, so she is vastly relieved to find a nun in her oncologist's waiting room. Sex does not result in cancer, is what we are told. But, actually, it can.

Alex supposedly so cool; Sheldon is supposedly a freak. But I know who I'd rather be. The more Alex indulges her libido, the less happy she is likely to be. To be happy, all Sheldon has to do is stare at a mathematical equation. Now that's cool.


*And, yes, so are unchaste men, and it is a hallmark of the suspension of civility, i.e. war, when large numbers of men just start looting and raping or queuing outside brothels.

Good Men We Know

This morning I am pondering the fact that this is not a "Let's All Talk About Men" blog but a blog for Single women, about thriving in Singleness, whether or not that Singleness is temporary or permanent, virginity, widowhood or, er, something in between.

However, since over the past several days we have been pondering difficult or downright wicked behaviour of various men, I think it is time to celebrate the good men we know.

By the way, Charming Disarray, where is your guest post on a good man you know?

As I wrote earlier this week, my worldview changed and my life began to improve when I took a leap of faith that most men are good and the rotters are a minority. I certainly made a lot more male friends, especially when I went to theology school and met many male religious.

However, it wasn't just the male religious who were great. There was an engaged layman who was fantastic. He lit up rooms with his presence. He was unflaggingly cheerful and open-hearted and unabashedly in love with life and his fiancee, who was a cheerful, open-hearted girl. They were both incredibly friendly and laid-back.

"Wow," said my colleague to me one day, without a hint of guile or unfaithfulness or sexual interest or anything like that, "I just noticed that you have really pretty eyes."

As a matter of fact, I do have pretty eyes, which until then I hadn't noticed myself, and I was pleased to hear my colleague say so, particularly in that way, like a little kid. In fact, that particular compliment has stuck with me ever after and constantly cheers me, especially at the MAC counter.

My colleague and his fiancee were both Americans, one with a Southern accent and one with a Chicago accent, and they told everyone around how much they loved Canada, which naturally pleased us all very much.

Meanwhile, my colleague was very smart, although he would never have said or hinted so; in the toughest lectures and seminars, he had a sort of humble, cheerful, wait-I'm-not-sure-I-get-this air. If he didn't get something, he wasn't afraid to say so, but then he'd work his brain until he got it. He's now a university professor.

I don't know if there were any sighs among the women students over this clearly unavailable guy although I don't think there were among the under-30s, or I would have known. We just LIKED him, and we liked his fiancee, too, so much. I went to their wedding; they wrote their own vows and he cried when he read his. It was really sweet.

Anyway I am sure I have written about this colleague before because I'm sure I've written about a conversation I had with my spiritual director at that theology school.

I was in the middle of a "There are no good Single man" rant. It seemed to me that all the good guys I knew were male religious, and there were just no good Single men.

"But [Colleague] was once a Single man," said my Spiritual Director.

That ended my rant because there was no denying that [Colleague] was a great guy and had been a Single man.

"Oh, yeah," I said.

This thought gave me a lot of hope, and lo and behold some years later I met someone just as kind, cheerful and laid-back as my colleague, although in a different way.

Incidentally, my colleague's Christology was so low as to be tremendously heretical. I suspect I would have seizures if I read his work, unless his thinking has very much changed. But, socially speaking, I have met fantabulous Catholic men who are tremendously, ahhhh..., innovative in their theology, and I have met fantabulous Catholic men who are reassuringly orthodox. Oh, and at least one great Evangelical guy that I had a massive crush on. It wouldn't have worked. But that's okay; he was still a great guy.

Right! Your turn. In the combox, write about a stellar man you know. Make up a name for him, though, or the testimony will get very confusing.

Love Them

I fell ill on Thursday night. To make a long story short, I fell asleep at the table in the middle of a dinner party, and Benedict Ambrose woke me up an hour later, rather worried. I seem to remember being led to the sitting-room and some business with my shoes, and I definitely remember the cab because the driver had been mugged some months previously and talked about it non-stop, in a Turkish-Scottish accent, addressing B.A. throughout as "pal."

That night B.A. had a dream that I had been buried under an avalanche. In the dream, there had been a landslide and tons of earth and stones had crashed through the roof of the Historical House, engulfing the couch in the living room. Finding me gone, B.A. had rushed through the sitting-room to dig through the dirt. He dug and dug, but couldn't find me. However, he was greatly relieved because this meant I had not been buried by the avalanche.

I was greatly touched to hear that B.A. had had an anxiety dream about me and also that in his dream he worked so hard to rescue me.

The comments on Ryan's post over at Ignitum resemble an avalanche themselves, and they make for depressing reading. I read blogs by men, of course, but I don't read "men's blogs", so I found the conversation simply bewildering. It made me unhappy, and I don't quite understand why some of my readers were in there swinging, lifting metaphorical chairs over your heads to crash them down on the arguments of young men who kept droning on about female submission and clothing.

Why waste time on such men when you could be reading hep-cat Andrew Cusack's blog, I ask you. Alternately, you can have a giggle at the goodhearted Young Fogeys at The Chap. For political hijinks and naughtiness, there's the lovable old millionaire-rogue Taki. I enjoyed the witty witterings of Benedict Ambrose so much that I married the man.

One antidote to being enraged by the sermons of soi-disant pious boys is to find witty boys too smart to gas on about women to women. And it is your duty to find such antidotes because this whole battle between the sexes thing is a result of the Fall and we should keep out of it as much as possible.

Saint Edith Stein--and by the way, if you have already read my book, or even if you haven't, and you can afford only one book, you must buy her Essays on Woman--loved men. Such male friends who managed to survive both the First and the Second World War--not exactly a given for German men, to say nothing of German Jewish men--testified to this. And her love for men, as well as women, is quite evident in Saint Edith's own writings and in her devotion to her great professor Edmund Husserl.

This did not mean that Saint Edith put up with any nonsense, however. When it eventually became clear that Husserl was not interested in her own work and that being at his beck and call was interfering with her work, Saint Edith stopped working for him. She loved her great professor, but she wasn't going to sacrifice her own considerable gifts to serve the Cause of Edmund Husserl. That wasn't what she was called by God to do.

I think it also significant to point out that Saint Edith, who loved the company of her fellow students--mostly men--so much and was so bereft when her great friend Adolf Reinach was killed in the First World War, came to desire above all else the life of a Carmelite nun. This was in part due to the personality of Saint Teresa of Avila, but mostly because of Saint Edith's deep spousal love for Christ Jesus.

A woman who chooses to live as a religious is not turning her back on men but is embracing a man, the Son of Man, who is both God and man, with all her heart and soul. Saint Edith meditated on the great dignity bestowed on men in the Incarnation, when the Son chose to take manhood upon Himself. Of course He took on humanity, but there is no getting around the fact that He chose to live this humanity as a man. (And Saint Edith meditated on the great dignity on bestowed upon women at the same time, when Mary said "Yes" to God's invitation to become His mother.)

And when Saint Edith considered the situation of men and women in the modern world, the modern fallen world, she acknowledged both the strengths and weaknesses in masculinity and femininity. She also acknowledged that individual men and individual women have both masculine and feminine characteristics in a greater or lesser degree (although men-in-general tend towards the masculine and women-in-general tend towards the feminine). She praised the strengths, and she warned against the weaknesses, and among the weaknesses were a general masculine desire to tyrannize and a general feminine passivity in putting up with it. (And of course some women do tyrannize in a masculine way, and some men just put up with it in a feminine way.)

To be on "men's side"--and Saint Edith would be horrified by the idea that women would not be on "men's side" or that men would not be on "women's side" or that women would club together against men and vice versa--does not mean to be on side with masculine sins. And to be on "women's side" does not mean to be on side with feminine sins, which include sloth and self-indulgence. Any man who tells a woman not to worry her pretty little head about something is encouraging sloth and self-indulgence, especially in women like me because if I don't have to worry my pretty little head about something, I am frankly relieved.

Long-time readers will have read all this before and have figured out that I think Saint Edith Stein is a wonderful model for women today. One aspect of Saint Edith that I really admire is that she could argue for women's full flourishing--and men's full flourishing--without an ounce, jot or tittle of bitterness.

Of course, she never made much of an attempt at humour. The saint was a writer, but she was not a blogger. She was serious, careful thinker.

Okay, so I have presented you with links to witty men very much worth your reading time. Why don't you girls list and share links to witty male bloggers you admire? Who's clever? Who's fun? Who convinces you through his writing that men really are the caffeine in the cappuccino of life?

Update: Ryan apologized. Should I buzz along over there and accept on your behalf?

Update 2: A very sensible post at Babes in Babylon. One of the problems with our over-sexualized, over-chatty world is that many people think they can ask each other outrageously personal questions. And, sadly, many people think they must answer them.

Charm

Poppets, my hair stood on end. And I have a lot of hair, so you can just imagine what that looked like. Read this well-written article by "Lucy Simmonds" on altcatholic.net. Then read what Jeff in Sacramento wrote just beneath it. Do not tear your eyes away from the response by Jeff in Sacramento because I was profoundly moved by the testimony of Jeff in Sacramento and am going to write about it.

Go read. Then come back and read my thoughts below.

There are many reasons why men do not marry, and the comment stream is full of men saying what they are. The biggie is the absolute heartbreak of divorce, which is usually initiated by women, and the resultant loss of property, income and even children. That's what they say, so I'm not going to argue with them on that. I don't really enjoy arguing with men. There is no fun in arguing with a man you're not going to sleep with afterwards. Oh dear. Did I type that out loud?

But my principal thought, while reading Lucy's "I blame men" essay, is that the men she describes simply haven't fallen deeply in love with anyone yet. Nobody expects Western women to marry men we don't love. Well, I don't expect Western men to marry women they don't love. One might think out of sheer sexual frustration Catholic men might just pick the nicest girls they know and make the best of it, but it seems that they're not usually that sexually frustrated after all. Men, too, love love. Well, Keats was a man, so we shouldn't be surprised.

In Lucy's essay, Catholic American Manhood stands in the dock. All eyes are upon him. Lucy, the District Attorney (for the trial takes place in the USA), has accused him. We are the jury. Kerry Cronin (whom I know personally, a very sweet woman) has given her evidence. And now Jeff in Sacramento, counsel for the defense, steps before the bench and says "Is it not true that American women lack charm?"

Sensation in court.

One of the things about being happily married is that I can listen to Jeff in Sacramento without having ten thousand fits. Jeff in Sacramento could go on all day long about what he doesn't like about American Catholic women today and I wouldn't turn a hair. Even if he wound up by saying "And that goes for Canadian women, too, since I can't see much of a difference", I would merely nod and say, "Thank you, Jeff, for putting that so plainly." It's not my ego on the line. It's Lucy's. It's yours. So I will proceed cautiously.

I am on Lucy's side. And I am on Jeff's side. I am on the side of all authentic Catholic Singles and other Singles of Good Will. Fundamentally, Lucy and Jeff are on the same side, too. The war between the sexes is evidence of the Fall, not part of the Gospel message. In Christ there is no man or woman: this isn't some cockamanie argument for wimminpriests--it asserts the UNITY of Man and Woman in Christ.

"I blame men," says Lucy, and I cannot imagine a phrase more likely to lose her the sympathy of male readers. I used to blame men for stuff, too, and in fact my publisher at Novalis was a bit taken aback at some of the things I had to say about some men. But I figured out long ago that if you are Single and love men and want to marry one eventually, it is a very bad idea to sound like a Lesbian separatist. In fact, men are so battered and beaten up nowadays, the smartest thing a man-loving woman can do is tell men how marvellous they are. It is like rain falling on a wilted plant.

(Of course not all men are marvellous, but I am lucky in that all the men in my family are marvellous and that my husband is marvellous and we socialize only with marvellous men. If you're male and you're invited to my house for supper twice, you're marvellous. It's official. I should publish my guest list so that women can study it keenly.)

Another thing women should do is stop thinking men are anything like their schoolteachers. Our schoolteachers told us that if we studied hard and seized opportunities, we could be anything we wanted and could be the First Woman Blah-Blah-Blah and they would be proud of us. In fact they were already proud of us. Heavens, I can hear the words echoing from the past: "I'm so proud of you, girls!" But in general men do not give a tinker's damn about what women's grade are or what we do for a living. They usually don't care. Pretty face beats Harvard degree. Radiant smile trumps making partner. This is not to say that men think Harvard degree and making partner useless in a woman. These are just the cherries on the cake. B.A. did not marry me because I write well. But if I sell an article, he just happens to mention it to everybody.

And Lucy's schoolteachers would have loved her essay. It's well-written. It's thoughtful. It's honest, funny, and true. It sparked 47 comments. But it did not get her what she most deeply wants, and I heartily congratulate her on using a pseudonym.
However, all is not lost, because there is Jeff in Sacramento to tell her How to Get Traditional Catholic Men. Apparently the way to Get Traditional Catholic Men is to be charming.

I know a lot of Traditional Catholic Men*, and therefore I take Jeff's testimony quite seriously. But I also suspect that the Filipina and Polish women who marry ordinary white, non-Polish American guys do so in part because they are sick of the hyper-machismo of both the Philippines and Poland.

Women in hyper-macho cultures have it underscored to them every day and in every way that they are women, and they learn that they cannot take on men the way men take on men. And therefore they develop the feminine wiles men say they hate when they realize they are feminine wiles. If they don't know they are feminine wiles, men call them charm. And I bet you the Filipina and Polish women Jeff in Sacramento talks about turn them on instinctively the minute their American husbands get out of line.

Charm looks very nice, and indeed it is great fun to be charming. But underneath lies a not-so-pretty realism, the understanding that men are different and you cannot be 100% honest with them because they are men. Do you remember that scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding when Toula's mother and aunt snow her father into thinking he had come up with a solution to a problem?




In some ways that was absolutely horrifying. But that's charm. And that's life. If you think it is absolutely terrible ever to be disingenuous with men, then you wipe off that lipstick, missy, because your lips ain't that colour neither.

Thanks to Ashley for bringing the article to my attention!

*Update: In this context I mean The-man-is-the-head-of-the-household-my-wife-shouldn't-have-to-work guys, not guys who prefer the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. These include neo-con guys. In fact, they are usually neo-con guys. Sorry for any confusion.

P.S. Here's a photo of Auntie being charming. The smile is real. The cigarette is fake. The lipstick is Russian Red by MAC.

This Is Not About Finding Husbands

I fear I've been neglecting Serious Singles of late.

As you know, I mentally think of Singles as Searching Singles, Singles who don't want to be Single but Married, and Serious Singles, Singles who enjoy being Single, prefer celibacy and look forward to a long life of single blessedness.

The second group is usually more tranquil than the first, which is one reason why I don't think of them as often. However, it is wrong to neglect them completely. For one thing, they are often good role models for happy living of the Single life. And for another, they are irritated by the idea that there is something wrong with them for just enjoying being Single. They deserve support, encouragement and references to Saint Paul.

During one homily I've heard, a diocesan vocations director, a priest, complained about the various married people who had looked at him with big pitying eyes and said, "It's such a shame you can't get married." He didn't like feeling pitied, and he thought their attitude cheapened his celibacy and devalued his priesthood. He actually liked celibacy and never wanted to get married, but he found it very hard to convince these happy married people of this.

(Happy people are often unimaginative about happiness. Happy married people think everyone who isn't married must be miserable, and happy priests thinks every young man should think about the priesthood, and happy Catholics pity Protestants, and happy writers encourage young men at parties to write their first novel before they are 25 so as to get maximum publicity.)

I received an email from a reader working in some remote spot who just wanted permission to stay home and not have to go out and find a husband. There was
no-one eligible in town, and when people in town, eyes glistening with sympathy, asked her if she had found anyone, she would point out that there was no-one in town for her to find. And the townspeople would think about this and conclude that she was right. I cheerfully gave her permission just to stay home.

Even Searching Single girls can stay home and veg if that's what you want to do. My now husband found me because I spent quite a lot of time blogging and writing funny stories. I literally did not have to leave my room. And when I did leave my room, it was to visit readers in the UK, not to buy clothes and meet cute new boys, which led one of my best friends to conclude I didn't really want to get married, "and that's okay."

Listen, girls, if God wants you to get married, you'll get married. Don't go to that stupid party if you really don't want to go.

By the way, I'm talking to girls here. Searching Single Guys should be out there meeting girls. It's okay for Searching Single girls to slump in front of the TV and feel bad because they aren't wildly popular, but it's not okay for Searching Single guys. Most women make daily efforts to look more attractive; most of us, for example, put on lipstick. So it is not really all that much to ask when we ask Searching Single men to improve whatever it is that needs improving and get back out there. Girls like manly guys. Getting back out there is manly. And if you really, really hate "out there," think about marrying your slavishly devoted secretary.

But back to Serious Singles. Being married to a relatively young and healthy guy, it will probably be a long time before I am Single again. I hope so because I am rather fond of B.A., and it would suck if he just went and died on me. But trying to see life from a Serious Single perspective, I can see how good life can be when you make all the decisions and there is nobody there to tell you you can't have a pony or a pot-bellied pig or a pug. (By the way, I finally have a pet. It is a sour dough starter named Herman. Every day I get to mix Herman, and he eats only once every four days.)

For me, trying to imagine myself as a Serious Single, the most important factors in my life would be family and friends. Not all Serious Singles would agree, of course, as some are rather hermit-like, and for some much more important are work and prayer. But I would be conscious that the two great temptations for Serious Singles (and Singles in general really) are (A) becoming isolated and (B) doing everything for everybody out of fear that if I don't somebody won't like me.

Family and friends would thus be very important, both for company and for more-or-less unconditional love. I would be lucky in that I already have lots of Serious Single friends, and really the hard part would be convincing nervous confirmed bachelor friends that I wasn't merely hunting down Husband Number 3.

This blog, like my book, has never been about finding husbands. It has always been about appreciating and living the Single life as happily as possible, and the Single life includes friendships and dodgy old dating, which is why I write about them so much. But I honestly don't think it is a woman's job to go out and find a husband. I think it is a man's job to go out and find a wife. And therefore I am never going to write a book called "How to Find a Catholic Husband" even though my own Catholic husband would love the money it would bring in. Ka-ching!

Perfect Gentlemen

Well, the stories in yesterday's combox about men's stupid lines were by turns hilarious and disgusting, and now that we have got all that out of our systems, it is time to think about good men.

Good men stories might not be as easy to recall as bad men stories because they don't involve adrenaline and umpteen conversations with girlfriends later. And it is one of the hallmarks of a gentleman that he is never intrusive and therefore does not make deep impressions on our memories. This seems a shame, really.

But the recent-enough memory of Father Pawel lugging my monster suitcase through Krakow reminds me of another time a man--a complete stranger--took possession of my suitcase and entertained me until his train stop in the south of France.

I was in Milan, about to get into a First Class car, and all of a sudden there was a short, slight, bespectacled, business-suited, married Frenchman saying, "Vous me permettez, Mademoiselle?" (or whatever). He took charge of my suitcase and, without any offense whatsoever, me. He sat across from my forward-facing seat and chatted gaily away about France and Quebec and Israel (which he loved), and I was rapt. And he never stopped being delightful even when he trashed American cultural imperialism (as Europeans often do to Canadians), and I pointed out that he was drinking Coca-Cola.

I realize he sounds a bit too much like Fabrice de Sauveterre in Nancy Mitford's novels to be real, but I assure you he was as real as the railway. His parents or grandparents had returned to France from Algeria and he was Jewish. No stereotype. And yet I knew that I had encountered the famous French chivalry of yore, and that the magic land where women are cherished and made much of and then suddenly forgotten was not entirely a myth.

Sigh.

But that was thirteen years ago, and my thoughts return to Father Pawel lugging my suitcase onto a tram and then off the tram and then onto another tram and then off that tram. Then the poor man carried my suitcase down a long flight of stairs into the Krakow Glowny train station and hauled it onto the train and, in one final act of chivalry, heaved it into the overhead rack.

We looked at it dubiously and wondered if a sudden stop of the train might not suddenly hurl it down upon my head. Father Pawel pulled it away from the space immediately over my assigned seat. But another thought troubled him.

"What will you do when you get to Warsaw?" he worried.

I had been talking about the complementarity of the sexes for two days and thought about it for three weeks.

"I will find a man," I said cheerfully.

This satisfied Father Pawel, and off he went.

No man had bought a ticket to a seat in my train compartment. So when I got to Warsaw, I stood on a seat and pulled the horrible suitcase down myself. But that's not the point.

The point is that "being a gentleman" is not about knowing what side of a woman you walk down the street beside or taking your hat off when you meet her in the street (although I think this charming) or opening every door she has to go through. It is about making the lives of the people around you a little easier. It is about making people feel safe and appreciated. It is about recognizing that nature has made life and objects just a little bit heavier for women and trying to make up for it.

The opening-the-door thing and the giving-up-the-seat-on-the-bus thing are nice although really just a token gesture when the woman involved is very young and not carrying anything. It's the real help and the very thoughtful gestures--like writing a bread-and-butter note and posting it--that are the hallmarks of gentility.

That said, the Polish ladies-hand-kissing thing I can definitely get used to. Are they, like, the last men on earth who do that? And when they do it, it is not weird. Like the Frenchman with my suitcase, they carry it off.

Okay, now your stories about gentlemen, ladies, plz. Comments moderation is off.

The Great Give-Away

My first lecture at the "Brave Women" retreat in Kraków next month is on St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, otherwise known as Edith Stein. Edith Stein was born in Wrocław (then Breslau) and died in Auschwitz, which is not far from Kraków.

Edith Stein was one of those mindbogglingly brilliant women born before the Second World War who was impeded in her career first by being female and second by being Jewish. ("Jewish" was considered an ethnic group or racial type, so converting to Christianity did not make a Jew not-Jewish in the eyes of wider society.) Stein was keenly interested in the "Woman Question" and her writings were very influential to the thought of a certain Karol Wojtyła and so, in time, to a papal encyclical called Mulieris Dignitatem.

I have often thought about readers who write to me saying that they long to "give themselves to a man" and thus find Single life an incredible burden and premarital sex a terrible temptation. (By the way, I pray for all my readers every Sunday at the Elevation of the Chalice.) So I was electrified when I read this passage in Stein's "The Ethos of Women's Professions":

It is the deepest desire of a woman’s heart to surrender itself lovingly to another, to be wholly his and to possess him wholly. This is at the root of her tendency towards the personal and the whole, which seems to us the specifically feminine characteristic. Where this total surrender is made to human being, it is a perverted self-surrender that enslaves her, and implies at the same time an unjustified demand which no human being can fulfil. Only God can receive the complete surrender of a person and in such a way that she will not lose, but gain her soul. And only God can give Himself to a human being in such a way that He will fulfil its whole being while losing nothing of His own. Hence the total surrender which is the principle of the religious life, is at the same time the only possible adequate fulfilment of women’s desire.
…
…What practical consquence follows from this? It certainly does not follow that all women who would fulfil their vocation should not become nuns. But it does follow that the fallen and perverted feminine nature [NB Stein has earlier explained the effects of the fall on both the feminine and masculine natures] can be restored to its purity and led to the heights of the vocational ethos such as the pure feminine nature represents, only if it is totally surrendered to God. Whether she lives as a mother in her home, in the limelight of public life or behind the silent walls of a convent, she must everywhere be a ‘handmaid of the Lord’, as the Mother of God had been in all the circumstances of her life, whether she was living as a virgin in the sacred precincts of the Temple, silently kept house at Bethlehem and Nazareth or guided the apostles and the first Christian community after the death of her Son. If every woman were an image of the Mother of God, a spouse of Christ and an apostle of the divine Heart, she woul fulfil her feminine vocation no matter in what circumstances she lived and what her external activities might be.

Discuss.

The One Who Danced Away

Dear Auntie Seraphic,

I just wanted to write and tell you how much I love your blog! I really, really wish I had found it a long time ago, when I could have used your advice the most. My close friend from college...recommended your blog to me quite some time ago, and I wish I had found it then! This may sound silly, but I didn't really understand blogs at the time, or what seraphicsingles was all about.

I read your post today about what it means to be a lady. You said you were surprised that people don't write in complaining about controlling men who try to make them fit their idea of what it means to be a lady. Well, I dated a man like that in college. He wanted me to always wear skirts, to behave in a certain way, and to not dance what he considered were "modern" and unladylike dances (such as swing).

At first, I hardly even noticed that I was losing my freedom. I honestly think I was with him because he reminded me of my father, who is also controlling and does not think highly of women. I think being with a controlling man who was judgmental and restricted my freedom felt familiar, and thus (in a way) comfortable.

After about a year, though, I began to rebel. He told me not to go to swing dancing practice, and I went anyway. I finally realized that he was controlling and that I could not live with a man like that for the rest of my life. As soon as I realized that, I broke up with him, and I felt so FREE. Of course, I was sorry to cause him pain, but I felt so happy about my life and my future when I was alone again.

I have seen unhappy marriages, and I know how terrible it can be to be tied to a man who does not love you for who you are. I thank God that He helped me realize in time that I could not spend my life with a man like that. It is so true that it is better to be alone than to be with the wrong man!

I got engaged about a month ago to a good man who I love and who loves and respects me. He would never try to control me or make me conform to a certain standard of womanhood. I know it is only through the grace of God that I did not marry a controlling man.

Thank you for writing that post today. I am sorry you had to go through that, but it is nice to know that you understand what it's like to be with a controlling man.

God bless you always,
Danced to Freedom


Ah, poppets. I love emails like this!

Singles and Adventure

So Hilary does not like to be defined by her Singleness.

"Why not?" I said. "You could even make a career out of it, like I was going to do before I, ah, er, got married."

But although Hilary is happy to define herself by sex, nationality and religion, she refuses to do it by marital status.

Which is too bad because when I was still trying to find a famous Single woman for my blog every day, it really bugged me when I couldn't find out if living famous women were Single or not. Sometimes it seems to be treated as a tremendous secret. Is Sally Ride married? How dare I ask?

I wish Single (and by that I mean REALLY Single, i.e. not sharing bed and not in a religious order) celebrities would say so, so that Singles would have more models. It bothers me that women (in particular) seem to put their lives on hold or don't take advantage of the career opportunities they have now because they think doing something adventurous (not sinful, I'm not saying sinful, I'm saying adventurous) will somehow jinx their chances of getting married.

The amusing thing is that one of my best friends put her foot down when I announced I was going to Scotland to meet British readers. She thought the money would be better spent on attractive clothes, and she said my Scottish trip proved I really didn't want to get married after all.

Ah ha ha ha!

Anyway, I am thinking about Hilary (who does not define herself by her Single state) who said Yes when her boss suggested she cover the Vatican for his popular news site. Off she went to a foreign country, where she doesn't speak the language, and she now lives in a beautiful flat near the beautiful sea, and she has lots of friends and fun.

Yes, she also has cancer, and it is one of a Single woman's worst nightmares that she get sick with no man or family around to help her. However, Hilary's friends, colleagues and readers have all pitched in--which just goes to show that even then a Single woman can be okay.

At Funeral Today

I was at Lauds and a Solemn Requiem Mass today, so I haven't much Single stuff to write about.

The elderly man for whom we prayed was sort of Single: after a very long separation, his wife had given him permission to take vows of celibacy, and he was a male religious. It's very complicated, but I assure you it was a happy and holy situation, and not only many members of his order but his whole family was at the Mass.

The man for whom we prayed lived alone, and I heard from one of his friends that, because his health was very poor, he would call his wife every morning to tell her he was still alive. And it struck me how unusual was this situation because it was so respectful and loving in a way we simply don't expect of separated spouses these days. It was decent.

There are (or were) still people in the world who, once they come to the conclusion that they can no longer live together, still care for each other regardless and still honour their marriage tie. It amazes and edifies me. It amazes me that there was a woman generous enough to allow her husband to become a male religious without demanding a divorce. It edifies me that she would be the person he called in the morning to say "I'm still alive."

I am overwhelmed, really,

I don't want to write any more about that, for these are not people I know very well, but for whom I have the greatest respect, and theirs is a private generation. Instead I'll write an account of an elderly lady I knew better, one who sat by her husband as he lay in a coma dying slowly of prostate cancer. He wasn't wearing his false teeth, obviously, so his poor gums were exposed to the air, drying out every time he breathed in. So this lady sat by him, putting gel on his gums so that he wouldn't suffer that discomfort.

These to me are two sterling examples of married love. Oh yes, young married couples are all very lovely and dewy and hopeful and happy. But it's old married love that inspires me. It's old spouses caring for each other, and being generous to each other, that brings tears to my eyes.

Have I mentioned recently that although one day my female Searching Single readers will be too old have babies, they'll never be too old to marry? And have I mentioned recently that romantic love, which so many of you long for, always leads to either heartbreak or widowhood?

One of these reminders is full of hope; the other is grave. Both are true.

Taking Liberties

Attn to sensitive: subject of sexual assault mentioned in this post.

The way to cultivate happiness about the outside world is to assume that most men are good men. As a matter of fact, men are more likely to be nice to women than they are to other men, which is the exact opposite of the men-are-out-to-get-us assumptions of late-20th century feminism.

Ginger wondering why men are nicer to her than women are at the ice-cream parlour where she works and over the phone at the lawyer's office where she also works reminded me of this. Men are nicer to Ginger, I posit, because she is a young woman, and most men are (1) programmed to be pleasant to young women and (2) don't feel in competition with them. Women (1) aren't and (2) very often do.

So that is my basic starting point. Most men are good men.

Saying most men are good implies that at least one man is bad and, poppets, there's more than one bad man out there 'cause I've dated two very bad men, and I've had some emails about even worse ones. And men can't take me to task for observing this, for it is men who feel the hand of fear grip their hearts when they realize their baby daughters aren't babies any more.

Once upon a time, gently brought up young girls weren't allowed to go anywhere by themselves. Unless they were out with their parents or brothers, they went out with their governess or their maid. This was not for their oppression but for their protection. Nowadays, many people assume that the law and fear of prison is enough to protect young girls, and that they can go anywhere and do anything without risk of seduction or rape. This is, of course, ridiculous, although the laws now make the lives of chambermaids considerably easier.

Rape is, of course, punishable (if the victim can bear to report it and have her attacker brought to trial). Seduction usually isn't (in this life). But the line between rape and seduction is sometimes blurry. If you ask me, sexual consent is a spectrum with a very fuzzy middle area. And as horrible as rape is, I hear being sweet-talked, used and then thrown out like a tissue isn't so great either.

Oh dear. What a downer. Let's move on. Let's talk about Facebook.

People often ask to be my Facebook friend. But I very, VERY rarely become the Facebook friend of someone I have never met. I'm so out there when I write, writing both for Catholic Toronto for money and the Catholics and/or Singles of the World for free, that I protect my privacy on Facebook. I also protect my physical space. I won't go so far as to say that I never talk to strangers, but I certainly never put my private life in the hands of strangers. This is particularly true of male strangers. Unless we've been introduced, I usually don't want to talk to a male stranger. (The local customs of blethery Scotland mean, of course, that I end up talking to older male strangers at bus stops, but I'm married now, and that makes a HUGE difference.)

So the first way I protect myself, as a woman, is to reject Facebook invitations from strangers, particularly strange men. Oh, and I'd rather slam the lid of my laptop computer on my hand than try to Facebook befriend a man I barely know.

The second way I protect myself is to reject dodgy blog comments. My dear ladies, for you are mostly ladies, you would not believe some of the comments I reject, for I try to reject them before you can see them. The worst ones come from men, including Catholic men who think they are righteous before God. Some men think they can come swaggering in here telling me what's what, but they are wrong. There are only four men I have to listen to: my husband, my father, my priest and my editor. All other men can take their scoldings and their "how dare you's" and jump in a lake. I don't permit such liberties.

I treat dodgy comments the way we are to treat obscene phone calls. I say nothing and merely end the call. I hit the reject button. Robbed of seeing their words in print, the men go away. Ta-dah!

The third way I protect myself is with my invisible cloak of reserve. I'm not sure when or where I got it, but it means I am very rarely approached by men. I think I radiate a sort of "If you mess with me, I will rip off your face" signal. It helps to have a keen, smug self-regard, good posture, sense of style and the ability to be nasty to nasty people. Too many girls are trapped by the belief that if they are nice and gentle to everyone, no matter how wicked, they will be okay. No. Not true.

The fourth way I protect myself is not letting male strangers or acquaintances in my living space. This is slightly anachronistic because now I am married, and it is also slightly impossible because I live in a Historical House of National Importance and occasionally curators, workmen, bat conservationists et alia come up the stairs unannounced. Once I was in a bath towel; I was most annoyed, but the definition of a lady is a woman who can make a visitor feel at ease even when she has been surprised in the bath, so I had a crack at it before giving my husband hell for not warning me in advance.

Male friends almost never call when my husband is away, but that's a propriety thing. I am not worried about my male friends, who are all my husband's friends also.

I once went just about out of my mind when a female visitor to my Boston flat, a visitor with persistent bad judgement about men, invited a local man into it. She had met him on some distant holiday some month before, and I had never met him. I came home to find this man coming out of my bedroom.

"Excuse me," I demanded with (I hope) tones of ice. "What are you doing in my bedroom?"

"X said I could go in there," quoth he.

X was in the kitchen. She went on to invite her friend for dinner with us.

I took X outside for a Word, the principal theme being "Never invite men into my space." And I did not give a tinker's damn what her dodgy-looking friend thought about it.

The fifth way I protect myself is to be very careful about female friends who hang out with dodgy men. I don't shelve my self-protection for their sakes. There are women who come down with dodgy men the way other women come down with colds. It's very sad, but I have never been able to figure out how to solve that problem. I do like or love the female friends, but I can't stand some of their men friends. The way to deal, of course, is to treat the men friends warily and then to protest at their first sign of badness or weirdness, whether it is making obscene jokes or appearing before me in their underpants or a dress.* Having bus or taxi fare on hand is essential at such moments. Frankly, the best protest I can think of is a timely cry of "TAXI!"

By the way, I should also mention that some nice men have some very not nice male friends, men who act like great guys around other men, but when alone with a woman, the mask comes off. Keep an eye out for those guys, and if one behaves inappropriately towards you, get the heck out of Dodge, and call up your mutual friend to tell him he shouldn't be introducing a guy like that to his female friends. If he's a good guy, he'll be mortified and apologetic, for being a good guy, he doesn't want to be thought of as a bad guy by association.

Finally, and I think most importantly, I am not afraid of hurting strange men's feelings. As a tiny woman, I always but ALWAYS trump them in the victim sweepstakes, so they can't hold anything--race, class, age, mental health--over me. I care about what my family, friends and readers think of my soul, but that's it. All the general public deserves is a view of a tastefully dressed, recently washed woman who doesn't screech, hoot or reel drunkenly before it or make long, boring calls on her mobile phone. If someone thinks I am racist, classist or homophobic because I get off an elevator early, that's his/her problem, not mine.

The Jesuit philosopher Bernard Lonergan taught that knowledge is a three-step process encompassing Experience, Understanding and JUDGEMENT. Being judgemental, therefore, is a GOOD THING, as long as you are using your reason. NOT being judgemental is insane and even suicidal. You use your judgement before you cross the road, so why not use your judgement when deciding whether or not a man is worth a single second of your time?

When I flip through my mental rolodex of the men with whom I enjoy spending time, I note that all of the non-priest ones--including B.A.--were friends of friends before I met them. I have made many female friends who were strangers to all--in fact, I pride myself on being welcoming to female strangers--but this is not true of the men to whom I now care to speak.

(By the way, not all priests are good men. Almost all of my seminarian/priest classmates were great guys, but not all priests are. Watch out, especially when abroad or among ones foreign to your country, since they may have weird ideas about women who look like you. If, in a non-pastoral situation and apropos of nothing, a priest tells you celibacy is really difficult, say good-bye. "Celibacy is really difficult" is the bad priest's mating call.)

*True story. Same guy. When I suggested to my hostess that he put something on over his underpants, he came back quite unselfconsciously wearing a lady's dress.

Were You Homeschooled?

I've been hearing a lot about homeschooling lately. With the collapse of traditional Catholic identity, not to mention catechesis, I know a lot of folks lost faith in ordinary Catholic schools. I taught in a parent-run school myself, once upon a time.

Home-schooling, parent-run schools and new, private Catholic schools of impeachable orthodoxy sound like a great alternative to schools steeped in the culture of death.* However, I wonder how such schools prepare girls and boys for life outside their schools. I went to an ordinary Catholic girls school, and university life hit me for a loop. What happens to the girl who is taught at home? Has she got the tools to cope with a sometimes very nasty, sometimes pornographic society?

As for orthodox Catholic universities, I've heard of kids at Steubenville musing, "How do people who don't go to Steubenville stay Catholic?" That's a good question, but my question is "How do kids who graduate from Steubenville cope outside Steubenville?"

So today, dear readers, I would love to hear from those who were homeschooled. How did you feel when your home studies were done and you went to work or to college? How are you doing? What are you glad of and what do you regret?

Anonymous comments will be accepted today.

*Non-Catholic readers, this does not mean you. "Culture of death" is theological shorthand for suicidal tendencies in contemporary society, used by John Paul II.

Update: There's a school poll in the margin.