Just Get Married? :-o

Part four of four posts, based on a conversation with Mark Miloscia, Catholic Lobbyist for WA state legislature. Part one, part two and part three.

I asked him what he thought we should do about it. He looked at me as if I had asked a question to which the answer was obvious and said, "Get married." I appreciate the simplicity and directness of that answer, but I pressed him further. Given the fact that we live in a society that, for whatever reason, young men are not motivated to seek out marriage, I asked if he reccomended that we just get married out of a sense of duty. He answered unequivocally, "Yes."

I can agree with Mark in two points: I agree that marriage is a great good. For some people it may even be the greatest good this life has to offer, but for all it is a noble and worthy vocation. I can also agree that we are experiencing a shortage of Catholic marriages and that more Catholic young people should probably be pursuing marriage.

The streets having led on as they do, I am now come to the "overwhelming question."

What do we do about it. Mark's answer was one of childlike simplicity. "Just get married!" He even raised his eyebrows, like a ten-year old asking "Why aren't you married? I thought all grownup people got married."

From Shakespeare's dictum that the "path of true love never did run smooth," (at least I think that was the Bard, but I could be wrong) to the present day, it seems that that simple proposition "Just get married," has become fraught with complications. I notice that the ones who regard it with that childlike simplicity are either children for whom it is nothing more than a fuzzy imagination, or older people who have long since chosen their vocation, committed to it, lived with it, endured it, fallen out of love with it, all but given up on it, perhaps, but in the end stayed true to that commitment. From that perspective of a certain amount of security in their choices, even if it is only the security of having so much invested, no doubt it does seem like a simple choice.

One of my pet projects has always been trying to imagine everything from everyone else's point of view. I can see how, with a lifetime invested in living the marriage, all the decisions leading up to it might seem like not worthy of so much fuss. It's almost as if they say, "Mercy, child! You think this is stressful? You ain't seen nothing yet!"

An analogy would be the way I view basic trainees. I went through basic more than ten years ago. Since then I have been through multiple deployments, Sapper School, years of regular army training, Special Forces training, schools and places where a good day was worse than anything Basic Training had to offer. It is easy for me to look at the basic trainees and laugh with a certain superior attitude and say, "Awww! Did the big scary Drill Sergeant yell at you? Just wait until you get into the real army!" But I can't do it. I still remember what it was like. I was terrified. I was alone and isolated, I didn't like or trust my fellow soldiers and they didn't like me. We learned to get along but I had no real friends. To this day I do not like yelling, I don't like calling people names or hearing people called names. There is a certain irony in the fact that I practice killing people on a regular basis, but sarcasm shivers me to my very soul.

To the people in the midst of discernment it is a very real cross. It has to be. I didn't wake up one morning in the middle of Camp McCall North Carolina and find myself training to be a Green Beret. I had to go through everything that led up to it, and struggle and feel small and pitiful, and want to quit a million times. Of course to a Green Beret my little struggles would look small. But then again, I was small, and those struggles were making me bigger.

Mark's idea "Just get married," kind of appeals to me. That is, he appeals to duty, and I like duty. Duty is solid. Duty is not complicated. Just figure out what it is and the rest is simple. Everything is always simpler when you no longer have to worry about what or whether, but only how.

On the other hand, most people don't have that attitude, and I am not sure it is a correct one in regards to marriage. There is something to be said for doing the right thing, regardless of how you feel about it, but, as a reader reminded me in a post a few months ago, no woman wants to feel like she is a chore. The problem is at its root a problem of desire. Perhaps getting married out of a sense of duty is better than not getting married at all, and perhaps it is not. The problem runs deeper. The very fact that we are discussing what should be the most natural and desirable thing in the world as a duty, that in itself is evidence of a problem.

There are two answers to that. The first and simplest is that all we need is to be wakened. Most guys will probably find that it is pretty natural and even fun, being in love. Like when we were little and my older brother didn't want to do anything with the family on the weekends because he was a teenager. He would whine and moan about it, but once we got going he would get into it, and by the end he would be having more fun than anyone. I suspect that all those Catholic guys out there who, for whatever reason, just don't feel like dating, would probably find themselves enjoying it if they once got into it.

(Incidentally I also expect they would find themselves hating it often enough. Being in a relationship is hard work. It requires you to get up off the couch, stop playing WOW and pick up the phone and call someone, schedule activities and actually honor those commitments. Since this is a relationship with a view to marriage, it reuires you to get to know the person, pray with her, and ultimately to make a choice concerning her. It requires inventiveness, attention, commitment, sacrifice, and whole host of other bloody uncomfortable things. On the whole, video games are a lot easier. So is porn. So is hanging out with the bros (they don't give you hell if you don't call everyday.) Almost anything is easier. But that is not the way to holiness. For something that is handed out as free gift, holiness sure does take a lot of work.)

The second answer to the problem of desire (two paragraphs up, if my parenthetical paragraph distracted you. [I am noticing I have a thing for parenthetical phrases]) is much more complex. In speaking of rekindling a desire and passion for marriage as a vocation on a serious cultural level we are getting into a problem too broad for the tail end of an already overly long blog post, and too in depth for my powers of analysis at 9:40 PM, even after two beers. (They weren't really great beers. Not bad, but not spectacular. For spectacular blogging I reccomend spectacular beer.)

Individual choices. That's what interests me right now, and so that is what I will stick to for now. Goodnight, Y'all.

Differentiation

Part three of four posts, based on a conversation with Mark Miloscia, Catholic Lobbyist for WA state legislature. Part one, part two, and part four.

I challenged his assumption we are all called either to the clergy/religious life or to the married life, and he acknowledged that there were exceptions to the general rule, but insisted that for most people marriage was the path to holiness. "That is the only way we learn how to love. I could have been more blunt about it. I could have gone around the room and asked every individual person, 'Why aren't you married? Why aren't you married?' But everyone needs to be if they are not called to the religious life."

The question of vocation is one I have written about before. I have thought about it a great deal for the last ten years or so, but always trying to make sure that, even in the midst of seeminly endless discernment I was at least trying to do something worthwhile.

For Catholics the typical options are:
1) The priesthood or religious life (which includes celibacy).
2) Marriage, family, children etc.

For Mark, these are the only two options, (with a few rare and grudging exceptions) and most people will be called to the married life. He approached the subject in conversation with a refreshing directness and firmness of choice reminiscent of a time with fewer options. When he grew up, perpetual singlehood was simply not a common choice.

Whereas in Mark's day "discernment" was almost an unheard of concept, in our day it is expected of every good Catholic girl and boy. Why? We as a generation, we young adults, have been given more options than any other generation. Careers are open to us, dreams, aspirations, hopes, nothing is out of our reach it seems. We have been given so much! From my experience most of the Catholic young people I know who take their faith seriously at all have a strong sense that much has been given us and much will be expected from us. We want to dare and do great things, but at the same time we also want the comfort of home and relationships. We have so many possibilities, but the very surplus of possibilities seems to have a paralyzing effect on us. We are a lot like stem cells, full of potential. However, the only way to realize that potential is to differentiate, become one thing or the other, giving up all other possibilities.

I think, as a response to the lack of priests and nuns that has plagued the Church for the last thirty or forty years, parents, parish staff, youth ministers and everyone else in authority has been pushing the idea of discerning a vocation to the priesthood or religious life. Sometimes it seems that marriage is veiwed as almost a second-rate vocation, for those who can't hack it alone. None of those who encouraged the young people in their care would ever say so, or even think it, but the effect is measurable. It is seen in that nagging feeling so many young people experience that we should be doing more, something better. The emphasis is on doing things for God, visible things.

I like Mark's idea that marriage is the only way most of us will learn to love. It counteracts the idea that holiness can be seized by doing great deeds. It does not deny the great deeds done by great Saints, like Mother Teresa. Instead, it acknowledges the true source of those great deeds. She did not become holy because she did great things. She did great things because she became holy. She became holy because she did little things with great love.

I cannot agree that marriage is the only path to holiness for most people. I believe it is the ideal path for most people, but, society being what it is, I have to acknowledge that some people will never find themselves on that path. Nevertheless, they will still find their way to holiness if they desire it. Some people, because of the wounds they have suffered growing up or in previous relationships simply do not have the capacity to live in a loving, respectful, human relationship. Others simply lack the desire, which is certainly a crippling emotional defect (not to be confused with an overabundance of desire for something greater, which is a great grace.)

The answer, I think, is to remember that marriage is not the end, it is only the means to the end, which is preparation for heaven. Heaven is relationship with God and with all other people in Heaven, and that relationship will be closer and more intimate than any relationship on earth ever could be. The purpose of marriage in this life is as a sort of purgatory, to draw the person out of himself and teach him to surrender his own wants and needs for someone else, constantly, day in and day out, in sickness and health, in richness and poverty. The purpose of the celibate life is to learn to let go of all temporal goods, including relationships with other people, for the sake of a deeper relationship with God. Both cramp our style. Both are necessary aspects of preparing for heaven, and whichever one we don't have time for on earth, we will make up in purgatory.

So this is my principle, for now (until I learn more and revise it again.) Live life so as to love God and love your neighbor. Life is in time and therefore I cannot love both with totality yet. I can only love one at a time, and I must choose one thing and follow that with all the strength God gives me. True, I will not learn some things that I would have learned had I gone the other way, but by God's mercy I can finish the rest of my education in purgatory.

Why the Men are not Getting Married

Part two of four posts, based on a conversation with Mark Miloscia, Catholic Lobbyist for WA state legislature. Part one, part three, and part four.

1) I was specifically interested in his ideas on underlying causes for the dearth of marriages. He didn't have much idea as to the why of it, not on the level of social dynamics, which is what I was interested in. He went straight to the underlying cause: "We live in a selfish and individualistic society. It's all about sex, drugs and rock-n-roll." He left me to fill in the blanks for myself.

It's easy enough to see how marriage just isn't a priority for those living the casual sex, one-night stand, hookup cultural lifestyle. Marriage intrinsically involves sacrifice, commitment, responsibility, and these are not qualities exercised by the hook-up culture. Those who live in that culture find themselves ill-prepared to desire marriage, and ill-prepared to maintain it if they do get married.

For those who aren't in the hookup scene, but are cohabitating or having sex before marriage, the lack of marriage is also easy to account for. Why would you take the formal step, make that formal commitment, if you are getting all the benefits without all the responsibilities of it? In a non-married relationship there is always the walk-off option. No cost, no lawyers, no courts. Child support, of course, but thats what we have contraception for.

No, the lack of marriage in society at large is not puzzling at all. The demographic I was thinking about when I asked the question was the Catholic Young Adult scene, since that is my demographic and it was a Catholic Young Adult group that hosted the talk. These young folks are not sleeping around, not co-habitating, living out the Church's sexual morality, sometimes to an extreme extent. Modesty is practiced by the women, and respectful talk and behavior by the men. There is mutual respect, strong friendship, fellowship, community. There is just very little dating. Very few of my friends my own age are in marriage track relationships. Those who are dating are likely to date for years without getting engaged.

Why?

I am not really qualified to comment on the women. It seems to me most would like to be married and are willing to be pursued and won. There are exceptions, of course, and the world being what it is, most women have their share of baggage, either from families, previous relationships, or both. Some few cannot seem to decide whether they are called to marriage or not, but that issue cuts across gender lines among the most devout young people these days.

The men, on the other hand, I can take some guesses at:

• Financial climate: It is hard enough for a young man to support himself in our current economic climate, especially if he is going to college, or has no degree. The blue collar jobs that once kept America strong are not what they used to be. The worker has become a means of production and the cheapest workers all live in China. The lack of jobs means a lack of money. Men are far less likely to pursue marriage when they don't feel financially stable.
• Entertainment culture: Video games, facebook, youtube, etc. All of these are useful and enjoyable pastimes, but they can be traps. It is very possible for a young man to use facebook, or comments on a blog or video channel, or twitter followers as a substitute for relationships. They fill the immediate craving, lessening any sense of urgency to pursue a real relationship, but in the long run they do not satisfy the real longing of the human heart for communion. Not that any human relationship can, but a real relationship with a real person is a means to learning to love, which is the perequisite for that ultimately satisfying relationship.
• Pornography: It is an open secret that internet pornography is the plague of Christian manhood. Around the American Catholic Church and the Protestant churches very few men have never seen pornography, and far too many have viewed it deliberately and habitually. It is an issue that is too big to cover here, but I consider pornography to be a huge discouragement to marriage for two reasons: 1) It is an outlet for the sexual instinct that should be directing men towards marriage. It is not satisfying, and ultimately it frustrates and stunts the drive it professes to fulfill, but in the short term a man without that sexual tension driving him to seek a lawful outlet is not likely to seek out marriage. 2) It establishes an unreasonable standard of sexual attractiveness. No woman can hope to look like an airbrushed model, and shouldn't bother trying. A porno star never argues, never has her own opinions, and never suffers from PMS. The man who lives on a steady diet of such unreality will lose his ability to fall in love with a real woman. Even if he does "settle" for someone who is not quite as hot as the women on the computer screen, even if he falls in love with her personality or her character, he is still splitting himself. He is splitting the sexual desire from the personal desire and it will bear rotten fruit later on. So, whether porn use completely stifles his desire for marriage, or merely delays him in acting on it, I still classify it as a severe impediment to Catholic Marriage.
• Lack of Example: We are all, to some extent, products of our culture. Our culture does not value marriage. It values the "bro-life." Unbridled freedom from responsibility, self-actuation, self, self, self is our cultural idol. Guys who get married and work 9-5 and drive a minivan are not cool. They don't have big-screen TV's, they don't drive fast cars, they don't stay out late anymore. They are not the ones that young men want to emulate. They don't make marriage look fun. (No offense meant to the many wonderful married men I know. I am just generalizing.) This cultural reality bleeds over into the Church. Even though we may agree in theory that marriage is a worthy goal for "someday" the single life is fun, free of responsibility, and has its own business. We let the urgent override the important.
• Within the Church there is the phenomenon of endless "discernment." To which I can only say that, even if there is a "right" and "wrong" decision (which I am not convinced of), the worst possible decision is no decision. Rather like the three servants in Matthew 25:14-30. One made more than the other, but the only one who was punished was the one who did nothing with what he had been given.
• And of course we must not forget the individual story. Each particular man has his own background and his own call. Some men may very well be called to do some work for God which is their true vocation, and they are not able to marry. For that they are responsible to explain themselves to no one but God.

This is not meant to be an all inclusive list. It is just my continuing thoughts.

Catholic Marriage: the New Vocation Crisis?

Part One of a series of four posts. Part two, part three and part four.

I wrote about this before, and have put more thought into it since, but the idea was brought strongly before my mind last tuesday night at a talk I went to. Here in the Archdiocese of Seattle, the Office of Young Adult Ministries puts on a talk series called "Wine and Wisdom" several times a year. The premise is a lot like "Theology on Tap" except that it is specifically geared towards young adults. Last Tuesday's speaker was Mark Miloscia, a former Representative in WA state legislature, and now a Catholic lobbyist. He hit on a number of themes, including the need for evangelization, the need for political activism, and the need for solidarity among Catholics in the political spere. However, one of his most pointed themes was on the need for Catholic marriages. He couched it in much the same language that is used of the dearth of vocations to the priesthood and religious life. He even asked how many of us were married and when only one person raised her hand (the mother of one of our college kids) the look on his face was one of bewilderment. I could almost hear him thinking, "Wow! Do I put them on the spot or just let it go?" He let it go, mostly.

I asked him more about it after the talk, and came up with three major points I want to examine more closely:

1) I was specifically interested in his ideas on underlying causes. He didn't have much idea as to the why of it, not on the level of social dynamics, which is what I was interested in. He went straight to the underlying cause: "We live in a selfish and individualistic society. It's all about sex, drugs and rock-n-roll." He left me to fill in the blanks for myself.

2) I challenged his assumption we are all called either to the clergy/religious life or to the married life, and he acknowledged that there were exceptions to the general rule, but insisted that for most people marriage was the path to holiness. "That is the only way we learn how to love. I could have been more blunt about it. I could have gone around the room and asked every individual person, 'Why aren't you married? Why aren't you married?' But everyone needs to be if they are not called to the religious life."

3) I asked him what he thought we should do about it. He looked at me as if I had asked a question to which the answer was obvious and said, "Get married." I appreciate the simplicity and directness of that answer, but pressed him further. Given the fact that we live in a society that, for whatever reason, young men are not motivated to seek out marriage, I asked if he reccomended that we just get married out of a sense of duty. He answered unequivocally, "Yes."

I want to take a bit of a closer look at each one of these in subsequent posts.