Just a Quickie

I just felt this excerpt from The Bad Catholic's Guide to Wine, Whiskey and Song by John Zmirak was worthy of a post:

It's a bitter irony that nowadays, the very people who treasure a deep concern for the ecology of the planet and maintain a healthy suspicion of the technological designs of large corporations have embraced the use of a drug produced by pharmaceutical giants which doses a woman's womb with hormones every day--you know, the kind of hormones (the equivalent male hormones are called "steroids" and are deeply illegal.) you don't want in your chicken?  That's exactly why you go to Whole Foods to buy "free-range" in the first place. . . . People who rightly don't want biomedical waste dumped in a wetland will pour it into their bloodstream.  They'll make sure the skin cream they buy wasn't tested on animals--then vote for stem-cell research that aims at cloning human babies to serve as spare parts.

The book itself is immensely clever and highly amusing.  It chronicles The Church's history with regard to alcohol, while offering social and cultural commentary, and providing cocktail and dinner recipes to accompany the prevailing themes addressed.  However, if you have never lived in Steubenville, Ohio or Gaming, Austria, it probably isn't for you.

On Love

*WARNING: It's pretty sappy*

     From the moment I first held my daughter, I thought to myself that this strange little creature is all too often misnamed a "Bundle of Joy."  Exhausted from forty weeks of pregnancy and nine hours of labor, lying on hospital linens soaked with my blood, a bag filled with my urine hanging off the side of my bed for the world to see, fresh stitches holding my vag together, and a dull pain in my back from where a long needle was stuck, I looked down at my child--my flesh and blood--with her misshapen head from having to be vacuumed out of the birth canal; her gray and shriveled hands and feet, still curled at her wrists and ankles from nine months in a cramped space; and her generic baby facial features, and felt no joy.  Relief that she was finally out, yes.  Excited that I was a little closer to having my body to myself again, yes.  But when I looked down at my daughter, I did not see a "Bundle of Joy" and I did not feel an ounce of personal joy.  No, it was love that I saw and felt.  Pure, unadulterated love.

     This was not a Bundle of Joy I held in my arms.  There is nothing joyous about the high-pitched scream of a newborn baby at two o'clock in the morning.  Absolutely nothing joyous about projectile defecation.  There is nothing joyful about having your nipples rubbed raw by a needy, dependent creature that cannot even hold up its own head.  Still, almost twenty months later, I find no joy in my bossy and spoiled toddler's temper tantrums.  There is no joy in having the responsibility of another's life in your hands; knowing that how they turn out as a person relies solely on you; having to make personal sacrifices and forgo your wants and desires for those of another.
     It is love that carries a mother through the many and varying trials of parenthood.  Love that brought a woman to share her body with her child for nine months, and even more if she breastfeeds.  Love that keeps her awake through a three in the morning diaper change and feeding.  Love that props up her sore and weary arms as she comforts her crying child.  It is all love and it is all for love.
     But why is it that such a tiny person requires so much love?  Well, because that tiny person IS love.  My baby is the physical manifestation of my husband and my love for one another.  When we "made love" we made Elsie Maria.  My husband and I love each other so deeply that our love spilled over, and had to manifest itself in the form of a third person.  Our Love, screaming for attention.  Our Love, making smelly messes in overpriced diapers.  Our Love, smashing peas into her hair.  Our Love, scribbling on the walls with crayon.  Our Love, driving me crazy with her incessant whining.  Our Love, learning to use the potty.  Our Love, splashing in the bath.  Our Love, climbing into bed with us at one in the morning.  Our Love, giving us hugs and kisses.  Our Bundle of Love, asleep in my arms after a long day of temper tantrums because she did not get whatever it was that she wanted.

      Whether conceived by two caring people in love, or through an act of selfishness or lust; whether it was because of the failure of contraceptives, or the disgusting crime of rape; whether naturally or in a petri dish: we, as persons, are love.  If you are alive and reading this, know that it is because someone somewhere along the way loved and wanted that love manifested--even if it were unconsciously.  This should not be taken lightly, especially in today's culture where unborn children are reduced to the property of the mother, disposable at her whim, and only given value and worth subjectively and selectively.
     It takes love to make it into the world today.  If you were unplanned, you were still loved enough to be penned into your mother's schedule.  If you were given up for adoption, your biological mother's love still prompted her to carry you for nine grueling months and then give you away that you might have a better life, a better chance, and more love.  If you are the product of rape, your mother still recognized you as an unrepeatable human being, innocent of the wrong that was done to her, and given a chance at life and love.  If you started your life in a petri dish, robbed of being conceived by the act of love between two persons, it was still only through love that brought you into this world.  No matter if it is the parents' love, the mother's love, or only God's love: we, as persons, are love.  But the human dignity inherent in us demand that we be the love of all three: mother, father, God; that we may love and be loved.