Ant hits 21!

This week we celebrate another milestone as Antonia turns 21. So that’s it: officially grown up. The first of our children to emerge at the other end from our slightly odd approach to parenting (at least by modern standards). So it is interesting to look back.

Ant is currently at University, where she is studying Maths to Masters level, and looks set to get a first class degree. She is also enjoying a lively social and sporting life. She also practices her Faith with commitment and energy, including co-founding the University’s pro-Life prayer group. She has a non-Catholic boyfriend who is teased by his friends because his girlfriend doesn’t sleep with him. She found a summer job in her first year and was so valued by her employers that they have asked her back every subsequent summer, increasing her pay each time.

Whilst I am (as you will have realised) very proud of her, I am not mentioning these things to boast, but rather because they are unexpected outcomes – at least according to the popular wisdom of the current culture.

I remember when we moved house, when she was 15. The headmaster of her new school was worried on learning that we do not have a television in the house, for religious reasons. He was concerned that we were raising her in a way that would be over-protective, leave her lacking the common ground with her peers to form effective social relationships and so on. By the time she left she had been voted by her peers as the girl they would like to have as head girl, and the head, who has the final say, interviewed her and two others and appointed her.

I have been told that by encouraging her to be modest, I was raising her in ‘a noxious environment’, in which ‘expressing her sexuality’ was ‘bad.’ Yet strangely, she is a mature, confident, and outgoing young lady, able to interact with men and women on equal terms and to have a long-term boyfriend on her terms.

So I stand by our approach, which may be counter cultural, but is actually a time-honoured method, built on the wisdom of generations and particularly on Catholic belief and practice.

Here’s a few things we did as we brought her up that may be at variance with societal norms:

• We sat together as a family for our meals
• We went for walks together on a regular basis
• We didn’t have a TV
• We read to the smaller children every night – a book worth reading
• We allowed our kids to take a lot of risks (at the physical level) such as climbing trees, exploring the local countryside unsupervised, and taking up exciting hobbies and sports (rock climbing, sailing, etc)
• We didn’t allow our kids to hang around in shopping centres or go to sleep-overs or parties where we don’t know and trust the parents concerned
• We tried to ensure our kids have a lot of fun – more than their peers
• We didn’t buy them much stuff – consumer toys etc
• We encouraged them to pursue interests like music seriously
• We (their parents) love each other and are committed to staying together no matter what…
• We pray together every day

So I guess what I want to say is: dare to be different! It really can work!

The Rhetoric of Abortion (v)

My more regular readers (or reader) will have noticed a pattern on this blog. Frequently I start a post, or series of posts, in one direction, and get distracted and end up digressing all over the place.

As on the blog, so in my life...

However, every now and then, I do try to return to my original intentions, so here is part 5 of my occasional series on the Rhetoric of Abortion.

And here is a fine example I came across on Mumsnet: And an aborted foetus is not a casualty. Because it's not a person. Because if it was a person, than its rights would conflict with those of the person carrying it. And so it's not a person until it leaves the woman's body.

I have to admit to being impressed by the elegance of the circular logic employed here. But the bit I want to focus on is that word foetus.

On the Mumsnet pages about dos and don'ts in pregnancy, you read early on: remember that unborn babies are remarkably tenacious. And so it goes on throughout the page. From the moment of conception, right through pregnancy, the (wanted) child is referred to as an unborn baby. Yet on the page debating abortion, it is suddenly a foetus, or an embryo.

This is not unique to Mumsnet, of course. The National Health Service plays the same trick: on the pregnancy advice pages, we read:

there are some foods you shouldn't eat during pregnancy because they could:

• cause food poisoning, or
• harm your unborn baby

Yet strangely, when we look at the abortion advice pages, we find:

Vacuum aspiration, or suction termination, is a procedure that uses gentle suction to remove the foetus from the womb.

Note not only the change from unborn baby to foetus, but also from 'your' to 'the.'

What is going on here? In both popular discourse (Mumsnet) and professionally written medical advice (NHS) the way something is described is conditioned entirely according to our intentions towards it.

If we seek to nurture it and look after it, it is your unborn baby. If we seek to kill it, it is the foetus.

How can the status of another life be defined by our attitudes towards it?

People get annoyed when one draws parallels between abortion and the Holocaust or slavery: yet here the parallel is very clear: we deny the humanity of the one we seek to oppress.

When challenged, pro-abortion advocates are quick to point out that embryo and foetus are the correct medical terms for the different stages of development; as indeed they are.

But we don't normally insist on the correct medical terms unless we have a reason to do so. We rarely talk about our cranium; or describe a pain in our abdomen. Head and stomach are the normal modes of discourse. So clearly, something is going on.

And my contention is that it is exactly analagous to the mother being shown an ultrasound of her baby (when it is wanted, and therefore a baby) but not of her foetus (when the intention is to kills it.)

It is what George Orwell so clearly articulated as double-think: the capacity to believe two contradictory things at the same time - and not notice that one is doing so. And that is the necessary piece on mental gymnastics that the medical profession has to perform, day after day: which is why I think that abortion is so profoundly damaging to the profession, as well as to everyone else involved.

So when you hear people talking about an embryo or a foetus, consider stopping the conversation in its tracks and insisting that this point is at least considered. After all, what are they afraid of: seeing the humanity of the unborn child on the ultrasound?...

Mass on Saturday Evening or Sunday Morning?

Yesterday, Stuart of eChurchBlog tweeted (he's @eChurchBlog) I so much prefer to go to Mass on a Saturday evening than Sunday mornings...

I responded, somewhat tongue in cheek: But which does God prefer?... (Shades of the old traditionalist joke: you worship God as you want to, we'll worship Him as He wants us to...)

However, he is not one to leave it there, and my ducking his question about what I thought by saying that it's not my opinion which counts was not enough for him.

So I thought I'd better post on it: it will take a little longer than Twitter allows.

So what do I think? My instinct is that Sunday morning is the better time for Mass. That is the time-honoured practice of the Church and that alone carries a lot of weight for me.

I certainly understand that in cases of necessity, a Saturday evening Mass can mean that one can fulfil one's obligation when one might otherwise not be able to do so - and have indeed taken advantage of that innovation myself.

And I actively like Midnight Mass for Christmas or Easter.

I am also aware that today (and quite frequently) I am going to Mass on a Sunday afternoon, which again is not very traditional: however it is the only time on a Sunday when an EF Mass is celebrated within 60 miles of where I live.

But I think, if I am fair, that part of my disinclination (and I won't put it more strongly than that) to go to Saturday evening Masses, is that in my experience many who go then do so in order to leave Sunday free for other activities - and that does strike me as problematic. And clearly that is a prejudice based on a small sample, and does not by any means hold good for all who attend then. But, as I say, if I am to be honest, I think that is at least half of my reservation.

Collect for Second Sunday of Advent: Stir Up Sunday

This is the collect for the Second Sunday of Advent in the Extraordinary Form. It is also the prayer we say (this week) after singing O Come O Come Emmanuel around our Advent Wreath.

Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to make ready the ways of thine only-begotten Son; and with minds undefiled to pay to thee the homage of our service.

The opening words lead to this being called Stir Up Sunday, (at least in our family - I have heard others have a different Stir Up Sunday). Anyway, it is the day to stir the Christmas Pudding mix...

Keeping mum about Keeping Mum

It is now nearly three weeks since I wrote to Charlie and Dom's school about Keeping Mum.

I had a prompt and civil initial response: an answerphone message from the head of RE assuring me that he would look into it.

Charlie has now had two RE lessons since and it has not appeared again. But apart from his teacher asking Charlie if he agreed with me (he said he did) we have heard no more about it.

I was expecting a reply to my letter (and one may yet come: I do understand that teachers are very busy) but I am pleased with the outcome anyway; no prevarication, no demonising of me or Charlie, no attempt to justify the use of an inappropriate film - simply putting the matter right and carrying on.

Of course, this is not a school with a Catholic Ethos...

Abuse in Bideford

Poor old Councillor Bone. His colleagues on Bideford Town Council have been forcing him to his knees, holding his hands together, and threatening to beat him up if he didn't say the Lord's Prayer. Today he goes to the High Court to seek an end to this practice.

Oh, hang on a second, I've just re-read that. In fact, the Councillors have been saying a prayer at the start of the Council meeting, in accordance with a time-honoured tradition (also observed in our own Parliament). There is no requirement for Councillor Bone (or anyone else) to be there, let alone participate; the register of those present at the meeting is taken after the prayer. However, this is so offensive to his sensibilities that he has made a bit of a fuss. The Council has considered his point of view and voted, twice, to maintain the practice. One might call that a democratic process.

BUT (ta-daa!) enter the National Secular Society, and Councillor Bone's terrible predicament is now to be resolved by the High Court.

I listened to Keith Porteous Wood, the Executive Director (now there's posh!) of the NSS on the radio, and there was something about the quality of his indignation and detestation of all things Christian that made me wonder... and sure enough 'Wood is in a civil partnership with Terry Sanderson, the president of the National Secular Society,' according to Wikipedia. (Well, that's cosy isn't it: they can discuss their vicitimisation over the morning latte.)

Somehow, militant secularism and the militant gay agenda often go hand in hand - and I know which I believe to be in the driving seat.

Mindfulness...

I have been doing some follow-up reading after that stress management course I went on. (Perhaps I should reassure my concerned readers that I am not suffering from stress; I went on the course because my work involves working with people under great pressure and I was interested to learn how I and others might better support them).

One of the b0oks I am reading, recommended by someone recovering from a breakdown himself, was on mindfulness. It cites lots of research evidence that spending a short time in meditation each day has many and significant benefits with regard to health, resilience and happiness.

Needless to say, the meditations it offers are of a secular kind, but it does have the grace to acknowledge that this is ancient wisdom found in most serious religions.

The concept of mindfulness seems to be about living in the present moment, neither worrying about the past, nor the future. Regular practice of this actually changes the brain for the better, apparently, leading to the kind of serenity one sometimes meets in people who have.... spent a lot of time in meditation (who would have thought it?)

Of course, this is strong in the Catholic tradition; confession helps us to draw a line under past failings. And Our Lord has instructed us to pray for this day's daily bread - not for our pensions and a secure and wealthy retirement... 'Lord for tomorrow and its needs, I do not pray...'

But what struck me most was that the discipline of putting time aside for prayer each day (not rushing through prayer while driving to work, for example, as I sometimes do when time is tight) is very important; in particular, a mindful rosary. I find that the practice of inserting a short interjection after the Holy Name in each Ave is very helpful: one that keeps me mindful of the mystery I am praying. I can't remember where I first read about this, possibly St Louis de Montfort, but it is a wonderful practice.

And now I have the research to prove it.