Relatively speaking, we have a problem here

As everyone on the planet with an internet connection or cable service now knows, Brittany Maynard took her own life last weekend, on the feast of All Saints.

Everybody has read the story by now, and the web is teeming with predictable banter from all sides.

How very brave

How very sad

She did a noble thing

What a waste

Brittany is no longer here to defend herself, and so her real motives lie with her in her grave, unknown to everyone save for her Creator and His creature. We who hope in a resurrection must commend her to the arms of her Father, seeking His mercy for her life and the choices she made.

But those of us left behind have some explaining to do.

Namely, how can a culture so uniformly horrified and saddened by another very public suicide only a dozen weeks earlier have pivoted so efficiently and entirely 180 degrees?

Simply put, this is the tyranny of relativism, the reality of living in an age where intentions and feelings rule the day, and where my version of reality can be entirely different from - and largely irrelevant to - yours.

Except that's not how it really works. Defy gravity without a parachute and you're still going to fall. Even if you call it liberated plummeting, or something like that.

Swallow some prescribed lethal medication, you're still going to end your own life, even if you're calling it by another name.

When we create our own reality, we write our own rules to live by. And to die by. But rules without the authority of reality behind them are just empty words. I can shout "I am the president of the United States" while standing in my kitchen all day long, but my children are not going to morph into members of Congress.

Since the day Brittany's story broke, the media fell all over themselves christening her as brave and noble, lauding her vulnerability and her heroism. Why? Because she followed her heart.

And in her heart, she believed that a life lived in suffering and diminished by disease was not a life worth living. 

Thus, the media had their new darling of the moment, their temporary "it girl" repping the culture of death. It's always a temp position, because the turnover is so frightfully high. In fact, even now, less than a week after her death, it already feels passé to reference her.

Next drama, please.

That's the problem with a culture so caught up in ensuring everyone has their own interpretation of right and wrong...it doesn't leave any room for reality.

Ironically, the case du jour is another young, pretty girl with brain cancer. But this girl is fighting and living with her disease, spreading a message of joy and raising awareness for particularly underfunded pediatric cancers. Her name, of course, is Lauren Hill. And once again, the media is calling her brave and showering her with praise and interviews.

But wait...Brittany was also brave. But for ending her life. Now Lauren is brave, but for choosing to live hers to the full...so what gives?

That this stunning contradiction disturbs virtually no one covering the news is a telling sign of how far gone we are as a civilization, that we can wholeheartedly (and in all earnestness) give a standing ovation to a woman who kills herself because she has brain cancer and then turn around, not even a week later, and give a standing ovation to a woman who doesn't kill herself because she has brain cancer...it's mind boggling.

But, but...it was her personal choice, they say. And it was her freedom to end her life, to end her suffering. And Lauren has that same freedom, and is choosing to exercise it differently, to live her life to the end, enduring her suffering. This is true, of course. But the critically important distinction is that they can't both be right.

It can't be brave to kill yourself and to choose to live in the face of unimaginable suffering. That's not how the universe operates.

Those are what's known as opposing realities. And if we had the collective capacity to think logically and reasonably, the difficulty would be obvious. But because we are, all of us to some degree, enslaved to that spirit of the age, relativism, we are somehow capable of entertaining wildly opposing realities in our addled brains.

Enough.

It is not unloving to speak of good and evil, of wrong and right.

What is unloving is to pretend that all options are equally weighted, that all choices are equally valid. Do you know what the consequences of that are? School shootings. Child pornography. Domestic abuse. Sex trafficking. Cutting.

But we can't speak of that. We can't speak of the reality that some things are right and some things are wrong, for fear of offending or alienating someone. But then tragedy strikes, and we sputter and struggle to make sense of it, to demand consequences for the perpetrator and compensation for the victims, all the while realizing that we don't really have a leg to stand on, because we're the ones spouting nonsensical buzzwords like tolerance and non-judgement.

We ought to be intolerant of evil. We out to make swift, sure judgments on actions and behaviors which are fundamentally anti-human and therefore, utterly wrong.

To do any less is to reject the fundamental call of Christianity, to love thy neighbor as thyself.

Let's practice authentic, life-giving love. Love that is willing to suffer, to be mocked and scorned, and to be rejected by a society utterly captivated by death.

The ruins of Auschwitz.
(photo credit Katy Senour)

Vatican roulette and IVF: What's the deal with Catholic sex?

(I promise I'm going to post other stuff this month aside from all the heavy heavy...in fact, tune in Tuesday for pictures of pumpkins and half dressed children destroying beautiful fall tablescapes.)

What we have today is a bit of a departure from my normal style, more of a "teaching" post, if you will. Maybe because it's Sunday? Or maybe because I slept for 9.5 hours last night and my brain is functioning at 130%. Probably that. But rest assured, I'm not planning to talk at you for the entire month. This one just came out kinda ... professorial. So proceed with caution. Or don't. It won't hurt my feelings.
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Catholics seem to be, how can I put this ... a tad obsessed with life.

Life from the moment of conception until the moment of natural death. Life-long commitment within the marriage relationship. Openness to life within marriage. Support for life in all its ages and stages, especially among the poor and marginalized. Building a culture of life to combat the influence of the culture of death. Eternal life.

Yeah, we're totally enamored with life. And there's a reason or two.

It's worth noting that faithful Catholics take God literally (and seriously) when it comes to marriage being a life-long commitment. And hand-in-hand with the understanding that marriage is for life comes the concept of openness to life. 

Here's what openness to life does not mean. Having as many kids as is physically possible. Only having sex when the woman is fertile. Pumping out baby after baby to the detriment of the mother's health, the father's health, the overall wellbeing of the family, etc.

It also doesn't mean going to extraordinary lengths or using illicit means to achieve the heartbreakingly beautiful end result of a child. 

So we don't pop 'em out till we drop, we don't dial up Rome to find out if we're expected to produce 11 or 14 kids to fill those empty seminaries, and we also don't turn to IVF or surrogacy or sperm donation or any other illicit means in the pursuit of a biological child.

And it all comes down to respect for human life and for the autonomy of the human person.

Those might not seem like related topics (perpetual pregnancy vs. IVF, etc.) but there is a common thread that runs through them both, and it's the idea of the person as commodity. 

In the first example, both the mother and the child (but primarily the mother) are being used, are being viewed primarily for what they can do and whether they can produce and not for who they are.

We must never reduce the human person to the sum of her parts ... or productivity.

In the second case, the matter of IVF and other illicit means of fertility assistance, the person being reduced to the level of commodity is the child.

The parents are too, to a certain extent, with the collection of the proper parts and pieces (usually done via means which violate their dignity and the integrity of their sexual relationship) and in the use of their bodies (or the bodies of donors) as little more than incubators or parts-suppliers. But primarily it is the child(ren) who suffers the evil of being reduced to a thing, a commodity, a very intensely desired and sought after prize ... but a prize nonetheless. In other words, a possession.

A lot of people have a really hard time seeing any connection between contraception and reproductive technologies because we have such a mental block in place. Sex and babies have been so effectively severed from one another that there's almost no capacity to dialogue with somebody of the prevailing cultural mindset about the personhood of the parties involved, or the dignity of human sexuality.

Since sex has been reduced to a recreational activity at best and a financial transaction or a laboratory procedure at worst, it's a tough sell to the modern mind to reveal the mystery and the dignity inherent in sex and it's procreative power.

It's also a really tough sell to tell someone who wants a baby that there's no guarantee, and that they don't actually have the "right" to possess a child of their own genetic makeup.

Because children are only and always a gift. 

It is this sacred and inviolable belief that informs both our rejection of contraception and our inability to participate in illicit or immoral means of fertility assistance.

So to the couple seeking to avoid a pregnancy at this time in their marriage, the answer is: wait. Do not do the thing that could bring a child into your lives right now. You might not be prepared to care for or to fully welcome a child right now, and that is fine, but a child is only and always a gift. 

And to the couple desperate for a child of their own, a child to carry their genes and their hopes and dreams into the future...wait.

However, your heart is breaking (and this is so hard to write, and this is so hard to understand) manipulating and creating human life in a petri dish denies your child/children their basic human rights and dignity. Even if only one embryo is created (thereby avoiding the moral conundrum of frozen embryos (and the even greater sorrow of little teeny persons filling dumpsters with other medical waste) your child deserves to be conceived in the safety and privacy of his or her mother's body. It is his fundament right.

This is such a hard concept. In only a few decades we've gone from "could we possibly?" to "why the hell not?" in so many areas of science, and reproductive science is at the forefront of innovation. But just because we can, doesn't mean we should.

Just because we can harvest eggs and sperm and spin them and clean them and genetically select the most promising embryos from a batch created in a lab...doesn't mean we should.

Just because we can keep the "extra" embryos frozen on ice, suspended indefinitely until the parents either save up for another attempt or decide to dispose of them or "donate" their children to science (or to another family)...doesn't mean we should.

Just because we can take a donor egg from one woman and fill it with the genetic material from another woman and combine it with the sperm from a man...doesn't mean we should.

Just because we can extract the raw material from an older woman and her husband and implant the created embryo into the uterus of a younger, healthier surrogate to carry their pregnancy to term and surrender the child who grew inside of her body back to them...doesn't mean we should.

In each of these examples the dignity of the human person is being trampled upon. But, you may protest, what about the dignity of the parents and their right to have a child?

I would gently remind you that no such right exists, that we are not guaranteed genetic offspring of our own making, and that the rights of the individual are always superior to the desires of another person.

Our children do have the right to exist, but we do not have the right to summon them into existence by whatever means necessary. And we certainly don't have the right to dispose of other lives in order to arrive at the successful delivery of another.

This includes the mother's life. So by the same line of reasoning, to ask a woman to carry as many pregnancies as is physically possible, to expect her to go beyond openness to life and to demand total surrender of her will and her intellect in the realm of family planning and mothering...this also is unethical.

But so is contraception. So is forcing a woman to alter her body, either chemically or surgically or by means of a barrier, so that she is conveniently available for use without fear of repercussion. Even if she is a willing participant, an enthusiastic participant, even, in her own sterilization...it is still a grave violation of her human dignity.

Okay, this went way longer than I was expecting and I have to get dressed for the day, but I promise we'll talk more about IVF and contraception and being chained, barefoot and pregnant, to the cookstove.

Until then, keep the Synod (which started today!) in your prayers, and ask the Lord for wisdom and understanding as you ponder these teachings for yourself. They're not easy. But they are life-giving (ha.)

A Love that Multiplies

... and subtracts years from your life.

It's 8:16 on a Tuesday night, and it feels like midnight on Saturday. I just yelled to my 3-year-old from across the house threatening to "call Mr. Traynor so he can come over and spank you." as he lies wailing in his room for the 5th consecutive evening in a row of bedtime protestations. (Mr. Traynor, for the record, is my parent's 70-something next door neighbor and a good family friend and not at all scary, except I guess he is, when I use his name in vain.)

Yesterday Lizzie and her brood crashed at our house for what effectively turned out to be a 24 hour toddler endurance marathon, complete with sword fighting injuries, slapping fights, incidences of public urination, and nap boycotting. Holy hell, there's a reason kids usually come one at a time. Mothers of twins and beyond...you have my unending admiration and respect. Mothers who custom-order Duggar sized broods from laboratory facilities...you are effing crazy.

You see, in between wiping up vomit and spreading peanut butter on tortillas, I thought good and hard about grace and nature and the way God designed parenting and motherhood in particular to function.

And I realized something: He won't give us what we can't handle. Unless, of course, we demand it, ripping it from His hands like spoiled children who 'know better.' And I think that's a decent explanation of what is going on with forms of assisted reproductive technology like IVF, and perhaps part of why, aside from the obvious moral quandaries regarding selective reduction of pregnancies, eugenic screening, and sex-selective abortions, the Church steadfastly condemns its practice.

I can't speak for every mom of course, but for myself and my comrade in arms yesterday, bare minimum mode would have been a generous description of what was going down. All these babies, all this noise, unbelievable chaos...and of course, it was good. It was very good. Children always are, no matter the circumstances of their conception or birth. But it was so evidently not ideal. And I kept thinking to myself, why, why oh why would anyone try to have three 2-year-olds at the same time? There's a reason triplets are genetically rare. It takes a special kind of mother with amazing grace to do this kind of zone defense, and the ladies who hit that kind of fertility lottery are few and far between. Except increasingly, they're not. And I wonder if that's a good thing.

Our particular cousin buddies are 3.9 years, 3 years, 1.9 years, 18 months, and 5 months, respectively. There's a good reason why one single family could probably not have put up those kind of numbers, biologically speaking. (Adoptive parents, my hat goes off to you for a million and one reasons, and this line of reasoning excludes your beautiful families, fyi.)

Charlie and John Paul, separated by a mere 6 months and a whopping 12 pounds.

What I'm rambling on about is the fact that God didn't intend biological motherhood to produce children this close together in age, or (in 99.9% of naturally occurring cases) in number. The ratio is untenable. The chaos is unimaginable. And the fun...oh yes, there was fun. But mostly there was screaming. From all parties present, I think, until bedtime rolled around and the world's best daddy  spelled us girls for a much-needed night excursion to my favorite thrift stores.

If you managed to hang on this far, I salute you, because the prose it is a 'ramblin and the letters on my screen are kind of blurring together. All I'm really sure of is that my mini van was the picture of serenity on our drive home this evening, sans cousins, where my thoughts were interrupted only by intermittent strains of "Happy birday!" chirped from the backseat, accompanied by the soothing dialogue of Disney's "Cars" bumping on the system. 2 exterior babies, 19 months apart? Bliss, sheer bliss, I tell you. I have one arm for each of them, so far, and I'm crossing all my fingers and toes that when little Miss makes her debut this winter, Master Joseph will be a whole lot lower on the imminent physical needs scale than he is even now. And that's how it was designed.

Joey is awfully fond of baby Charlotte. "I just love her and she is so pretty."

They come out a squalling bundle of needs and then gradually, almost imperceptibly, the needs ... change. They don't necessarily let up, but they grow and evolve with the child, and the next thing you know, the baby who nursed round the clock and whose diaper was always in need of a change is suddenly a little boy whose most pressing demand is the knowledge of why cats meow and what makes the clouds turn colors at night.

Nothing like a little perspective to help put your own house in order.

Big baby gets what he wants. And speaking of big babies, check out that 28 week mountain. 

A Little Homework

Yes yes yes...times a million.

And that wraps up my last post about Papa F, at least for this week.

Be sure to check out CNA's nuanced exploration of the "controversial" comments here (written by my dear friend Alan Holdren, who is one Roman I really miss) and Kathryn Jean Lopez' excellent-beyond-words summary of the whole thing.

And then pray...for our Holy Father, for the Church, and for conversion in your own heart. God knows I need more of it in mine. God knows we all do.

Dear Secular Media

Thanks for carrying my water. People who have never considered Jesus or who have rejected the Church outright are now considering, for the first time, what it means to be a Christian.

You're adorable when you think you're stirring the pot.

Love, Papa Francesco.

Dear pro-choice women everywhere, Pope Francis loves you AND your unborn babies. Signed, God.

3 Truths and a Lie

Can you find the hidden dose of reality in these headlines?

1. 'Safe' sex: a failed experiment, or a failure to communicate effectively to our youth?  The media will never admit how fundamentally flawed and ineffective this archaic policy truly is...

2. Living proof of the triumphant victory of life over death?  Perhaps... or perhaps merely an isolated sub-cultural phenomenon?  Let's let the numbers do the talking...

3. I think I'd rather deliver pizzas ala Dave Ramsey than start selling off parts, no matter how dire the economic straits.

4. I have a good feeling that I'm getting these for Christmas.

Now This

Gay 'marriage' is sooo yesterday.  The hottest new trend in progressive social justice today is polygamy.  That's right, ladies!  Now you too can have it all: live-in 'sisters' to share everything with... clothes, household tasks, child-rearing responsibilities...even your husband! 

No more dull, drab dual-spouse marriages where one measly person is expected to fulfill all the needs of the other.  No more tiresome monogamy.  And no more worrying about whether your husband has been sleeping around on you... now you know for sure that yes, he has!

Coming soon: pedophilia and bestiality: The final frontiers. (That is, until we think of something worse.  Like people getting really, really attached to their Prius' ... really, really attached.)

Couldn't Have Said it Better Myself

My dear readers, and particularly those of an anti-Catholic ilk, please enlighten yourself by means of the following piece from an unlikely source. 

Selectively Tolarant

"Either you are with me, or you are my enemy." - Anakin Skywalker 

Ever notice how the concepts of "rights" and "freedom of speech" get tossed around like so many other buzzwords of our time, only to be rescinded the moment you say something with which the champion of said concepts takes offense to/disagrees with?

Such is the state of our cultural and political milieu.  In a society which publicly extols tolerance as virtue and relativism as the only absolute truth... it's absolutely mind boggling to watch what happens when one tries to carry either to its logical conclusion.

Because when those persons who claim to champion choice and acceptance as universal entitlements are faced with an idea, circumstance or individual they find unsavory, they do what comes naturally to the human mind: they make a judgment of their own, and do indeed beg to differ.

If you don't believe me, examine with an unbiased eye (if you can) the cultural showdown issue of the moment, Christianity vs. homosexuality.  It would appear that the Church, on the one side, is considered hopelessly outdated, hypocritical and hateful in her opposition to homosexual behavior, and in her refusal to officially condone or sanction such behavior, despite pressures to do just that.

On the other hand, the champions of the homosexual agenda, gay activists and the media, are portrayed as heroic and somehow revolutionary in their attempts to bully the Church into doing exactly that: changing.  The very thing they claim they cannot - or will not - do, they are demanding of their perceived adversary.  The irony is stark and might even be entertaining, were the stakes not so high.

Because it's not enough, it turns out, to live and let live.  When someone believes something to be true, holds it as dogma, extols it as reality ... they can't stand to be contradicted or disagreed with.  Besides shaking the foundation of certainty upon which their knowledge rests, it irks them that someone should beg to differ on something so dear and so true for them.  Despite every protest that "what's true for them isn't true for me... they won't rest until they reverse the adage and make it so, force it to be so.

Hence the push for curriculum overhaul and revision in our school systems.  Hence the agenda-driven entertainment programming on the big and small screens.  Hence the inability to rest until rights are not simply guaranteed for those who believe as they do, but the rights of those who disagree are eradicated.

How's that for tolerance? 

It begs the question really, quo veritas?  And whether or not true veritas can be discovered, if we're all operating from subjective positions of experience and personal belief.

Sigh.

What's a post-modern, globally-minded citizen to do?  If only there were some, I don't know, higher Truth to check our beliefs against, some immovable yardstick agaisnt which we might measure the assumptions and certainties of our age. 

If only...

The Dignity of the Unwanted Life

The autonomy of the human person is a remarkable concept. By nature of my humanity – and yours – my value as a being, as a person, is actually intrinsic to my existence. That’s wild! And it’s a tough sell in a culture which puts performance before personhood, and requires proof of productivity before full rights are granted. How many times have you heard the phrase, “meaningful contribution to society,” uttered in reference to the worthiness – or unworthiness – of some pitiful specimen of human flesh?

It’s a fairly common piece of rhetoric, typically engaged in order to justify the termination of a terminal nuisance such as an elderly victim of dementia, a coma patient who has entered a “persistent vegetative state,” or a deficient “product of conception” who genetic testing has indicated, will most likely be born “defective – if at all.

Why waste resources, then, on someone who lacks the fundamental ability to ever make a “meaningful contribution to society?” That’s the argument used by pro-abortion legislators. That’s the logic employed by Terri Schiavo’s husband, Michael, in deciding to deny her food or water. And that’s the rhetoric behind an OB industry which pushes routine panel screenings and amniocentesis testing for pregnant women, lest they discover too late the deficiencies of their own offspring.

I wonder what arrogance has led us to believe that we – that you, or I, or anyone else walking the streets or wandering Capital Hill – are actually qualified to make an executive decision on the merits of one life versus another. If we are all created equal – which even the most withered anti-theist will claim to believe – then what could possibly entitle one person to assign value to another?

Age? That’s a common rationale for the pro-abort crowd. Mom’s lived experience trumps baby’s inconvenient existence, hands down. Fair enough. Except the logic doesn’t carry. Because if baby does survive to the ripe old age of 47, then eventually she’ll be calling the shots on mom’s hospice care… despite mom’s obvious chronological advantage. At some point, the tables turn and suddenly the “younger, fitter, stronger” argument trumps “but I was here first.”

Maybe the value of a human life hinges on accomplishment, and we can somehow work ourselves into worthiness. If that’s the case, then, I can think of a few prominent national leaders I would personally nominate for a discontinuation of existence… but I don’t think that’s quite it, either.

Maybe it’s experience. Maybe a cumulative body of accomplishments is what it takes to merit one’s next breath. Then again… see above.

The truth is, each and every human being who has ever existed or who will ever exist has worth. Inestimable, infinite worth. More crucial to the planet than the most precious of natural resources, more critical to history than the greatest of social movements, and more enduring than the universe itself.

The moment we reduce this reality from an absolute to an abstraction is the moment we cease to be fully human, ceding our intellects and our wills to the trends of our time. In so doing, we are trading our humanity for a passing fad that has us each playing the part of little gods, choosing life or death for our neighbors, often under the pretext that we “know what’s best:”

“I know best,” says the family member persuading a teen mother to end her pregnancy.

“Science knows best,” intones the obstetrician grimly relaying test results to a terrified expectant couple.

“Our culture knows best,” insists a guidance counselor, pressing a Planned Parenthood brochure into the hands of a shaking 15 year old sophomore.

“The doctors know best,” agree all three siblings, signing over the release forms to deny dad hydration and nutrition for the rest of his hospice stay.

“The Reich knows best,” nodded Nazi soldiers to one another, herding passengers onto boxcars.

Different stories, same tired line. All in defense of a lie as old as the human race: you will become like gods.

But we’re not gods. We’re people. Broken, defeated men and women pushing our own concept of “right” onto those who cannot speak for themselves. Those whose silence leaves them vulnerable to our violence. Because the honest to God truth is this: every life is valuable, or no life is valuable.

Take your pick. Because you cannot have it both ways.

5 Quick Takes

1.) The word "Eden:" the original meaning = happiness. Shocking, eh? The things you learn in marriage prep...

2.) Rubbing a fresh strawberry across your teeth has a natural whitening effect AND fights plaque buildup. Yum!

3.) The March of Dimes gives to Planned Parenthood. How much does that suck? Oh, the irony of saving some babies by destroying others....

4.) White House/Black Market has some of the BEST clearance sales on earth. Go here. Bring your Visa. Don't say I didn't warn you....

5.) In ancient Hebrew tradition, the bestowal of a name by the child's father was, in effect, the conference of paternal permission to live. So when God instructed Adam to name the animals, he wasn't merely filling in nameplates at the zoo. Adam's conference of a name upon each creature effectively caused it to become what it was, whether a dog or a tiger or an alligator. Amazing.

When the "Right to Bear," Harms

I was browsing some status updates today on facebook (a dangerous past time, I know) and happened across this little gem from an (alleged) high school classmate: I wonder why we spay and neuter our pets, but don't sterilize humans based on IQ? A little help Obama please.

So this is what we've come to, then. Eugenics.

Not exactly cutting-edge philosophy here, people, but to gaze into the vapid stares of members of my generation, you'd swear they each sincerely believed themselves to be the next P Diddy or Ashton Kutcher.

Come on, guys. You're killing me here. Or at least, you're killing off our chance at a decent future. When will the tiresome platitudes and social justice mantras of the likes of Margaret Sanger finally be laid to rest?

The answer is, I supposed, never... until the dignity of life is reclaimed and proclaimed from the rooftops. As long as we're just "ghosts in the machine," as long as we're spiritual beings trapped briefly in paltry flesh and bone for a brief hiatus in this lifetime... well then, it doesn't really matter what - or who - we do with our bodies.

The crux of the matter probably isn't a deep-seated hatred for the handicapped, (though my friend's status would seem to indicate otherwise) but rather, a worldview incompatible with human dignity regardless of human efficiency.

Put more simply: if you're not producing, you'd better not even think of reproducing.

The obvious and easy answer - for Margaret Sanger, for Adolf Hitler, and for my friend on facebook - is to simply "eliminate" the unsavory members of the human species, thereby purifying the race.

How, you ask?

Don't be silly. By denying them their "right" to breed. The same way we eradicate viruses or uncontrollable insect populations.

And once we've cleared the way for fitter, smarter men and women to inherit the race of men... why not a few tweaks here and there? Can't we selectively abort to avoid Down's Syndrome? Wouldn't it be kinder to deny earthly life to a fetus with Spina Bifida? And what about certain - ahem - populations who are historically prone to maintain the lowest socioeconomic status quo? Couldn't we push a button and "reject" the rejects before they waste a minute of our time?

This is the answer, though, for some who champion affordable health care. This is the answer for some who tout an overpopulation myth, qualifying the value of an immortal person by their lifetime carbon use expectancy.

And this is the logical line of thinking for a generation who've come of age in the era of Playboy and Roe v. Wade, who've lived their whole lives confidant that the body is a tool for pleasure and productivity, and that persons are only loved so deeply as they are wanted. And that absolutely everything - even one's very right to draw breath - is open for negotiation.

Talking 'Bout My Generation

"Sometimes it's easier to bullshit than to tell the truth."

And thus, the summation of the decline of a civilization. Or at least a pithy, one-lined explanation for what has gone so terribly wrong for the 18-30 set presently prowling the bars and campuses of our great nation.

Snuggling up on my sister's couch this morning with a fresh cup of french press and the TiVo remote in hand, I indulged in a little post-jet lagged, early morning movie watching. The options? Pretty much any B-grade flick from the mid nineties on... obviously I was stoked.

I settled on a cheeky chick flick entitled "Perfect Opposites;" (ever wonder what happened to Piper Perabo post-Coyote Ugly? Wonder no more.)

And it was pretty much all that I expected...and then some. Maybe it was the early morning hour, or perhaps the insanely strong coffee that tasted of death-by-caffeine-topped-with-skim... but I was moved - deeply - by these characters and their sad, familiar lives.

Let me set the stage: Boy meets girl. Girl is previously committed to Neanderthalean frat boy. Girl feigns "hard-to-get-ness." Underdog law-student persists, brings picnic to library during finals week. [Finally, he has found a mission, a quest for which he is willing to sacrifice ... and he does so. His pride, his sense of self-respect, his status with his buddies... there were no limits to the trials, toils and humiliations he was prepared to suffer.]

Girl hesitates... looks deeply into his pleading, persistent gaze ... and accepts his proposal - Er, rather, his invitation to forgo a post-graduate gig with a Chicago marketing firm and move to L.A. with him.

Bliss ensues... for 2 months, anyway. The two of them become - as our main character/underdog law student narrates - inseparable. They are connected: "Sexually, intellectually, harmoniously and psychologically, we were firing on all six cylinders."

And he's hit the nail right on the head. In a moment of blinding clarity - or perhaps instinctive pagan insight - our young hero recognizes a profound truth of human love and sexuality: when two become one flesh, the fabric of the universe is altered.

Maybe he doesn't come out and say it in so many words. Indeed, the reality was more readily captured by the frequent teaser-shots of steamy, counter top scenes and oral innuendos... but the message came through loud and clear: sex changes everything.

But we persist on insisting otherwise.

This couple - so young and in love and desirous of the other (note: not necessarily the good of the other) were swept completely away by the force of attraction, by the awesome power of their physical union. He wanted her. He pursued her. He wooed her... and she accepted his offer of self...

But then something unexpected - or at least, unintended - happened: she wanted to make the arrangement permanent. Longing for the natural end of intimacy - union - she deeply desired to build a life with this man who had come to her with an offer of his very self... and she was prepared to accept his offer.

Except, that's not exactly what he'd had in mind. Sure, she was beautiful. Sexy. Incredibly adept in the bedroom. Funny, smart, sassy... and a whole host of other qualities which set her apart from other women... but there was just one teensey problem: she was only one woman. In true Saved by the Bell soliliquy fashion, our hero admits to the audience: "When she talked about marriage and a family, all I could think was: I will never sleep with another woman for the rest of my life."

See, our young stud had been brought up in a culture whih extols choice - or the freedom from choice, really - as the ultimate good. His pursuit of Cinderella was more of a vanquishing effort, really. She had become his mission, the end towards which he strove mightily... until he reached her.

And, finding in her mortal finitude something less than eternal, he was understandably disappointed. Disillusioned. Dissatisfied... and so naturally, he turned his gaze elsewhere, wondering - rightly so - whether there was an other who might satisfy his undeniable hunger, his longing for satiation. There was not, it turned out - at least not in flesh and bones.

But neither was she satisfied with his offer - his gift of self which had turned out to be more appe-teaser than appetizer. In truth, he had no intention of offering his very self, of becoming one flesh with her... at least not unless there was something in it for him.

I don't mean to make him out to be a monster. In a culture such as ours which longs for permanence and pursues eternity in fleeting, grasping, heaving moments of pleasure and pain... he had nowhere else to look, really. And he didn't know he was perjuring himself with every intimate counter top romp. He desired to give himself to this woman; he just expected to receive something back in return: fulfillment.

A fulfillment which she herself - longing for permanence and communion - was unable to offer to him. In the glorious poverty of our humanity which is expressed perhaps nowhere more perfectly than in the bedroom, men and women become aware of something that is profoundly true: we are not enough.

The fulfillment of all desire, it turns out, is not to be found between the sheets. Or at least, not between just any set of sheets.

In sex we seek union, communion, consummation with an other, "one-ness" with some one else who can make us ... whole. We are seeking nothing less than immortality. Which is why we are inevitably disappointed.

Because no other human being can truly fulfill any other - no matter how great the passion, how thrilling the rush.

And no amount of sexual detachment can quite divorce the desire for permanence, the inexplicable ache - particularly for a woman - for endurance. We were built for something more lasting, a longevity that cannot and should not make sense in light of our biological make up. Our bodies fail us. Our looks fade. Our fertility vanishes...and yet the desire remains. We want something that quite frankly, we cannot have. And we cannot seem to accept that.

So we keep searching. We try on different marriages, experiment with new techniques, dabble in illicit affairs...always searching for the perfect fit, that elusive, immortal ache for completion. But what does completion mean to a people who have been carefully groomed to pursue all options, to weigh every possible choice and explore every angle, but who have been told that ultimately there is nothing which will satisfy.

Maybe we don't explicitly receive this information. Maybe it's more subtle, whispered in soft, hushed tones: "Did He really say not to eat that?" Though our bodies long for permanence and our souls for satisfaction, do we really believe there is an end to be had, a prize to be attained... or are we damned to an eternal, Sisyphean search for the next great thing?

I watched their hearts - his and hers - break on screen, and my heart broke too. Their desire was so strong, so right... and yet so misplaced. I wanted to wrap my arms around this beautiful, broken woman who rightly longed to be loved and cherished... and to encourage this misguided masculinity which would not permit him to lay his life down and receive everything in return.

Don't worry, though. After a few painful years of separation, a trial marriage and divorce and a second successful run at the California bar exam... they were reunited. And as the credits rolled, and they embraced on the threshold of a second chance, the audience was left with a final nugget of Hollywood wisdom: "the first time around with Julia, I had a plan, a vision...this time, there was no plan. We'll just see what happens."

And so the blind lead the blind. Further and deeper into this mess we're unwilling to admit we've made, and reluctant to stop and ask for directions.

But at least we're having fun.