feminine-genius

Voici!

The new book is officially out! It can be ordered here, and there's more information at the main site: feminine-genius.com

I'd love to share this good news with your women's groups, and am a reasonably cheap date (air travel being what it is). God's message of freedom through forgiveness should be shouted from the rooftops -- or blogs, or radio shows, and everywhere. I'm doing my part -- and count on your support.

Thoughts on Kristin

I've updated my website, and posted a review on Kristin Lavransdatter that has yet to be published. On second thought, it's not so much a review as a reflection on the trials of parents:

While I prepare each time [I read this book] to be absorbed into the life and struggles of another, I am always surprised by my changing reaction. As a young mother, the first reading allowed me to share Kristin's frustration with a husband who was inconstant, unreliable, and irreverent towards many Things That Matter. How could he shrug off incidents concerning duty, honor, and moral rectitude? Poor Kristin. The second time around, I realized that she knew these things about him before marriage; and he was right in saying he never promised her those things -- only his undying affections. Poor Erland to have married such a scold. The third time, I simply sighed upon finishing, recognizing certainly that, well, marriage is quite complicated.

But it's this fourth reading that shows, not only the trajectory of my own life with a small handful of children and a troubling culture lurking about to snatch them from the narrow road, but also how the purifying love of one's offspring throws us into the arms of God the Father -- as father...

Read it all here and enjoy the new site!

Bookmark

Just this last weekend, I spoke to some lovely women in Maine, the wives of members of the Knights of Columbus who had their annual state convention at Sunday River (Newry). Beautiful -- it even snowed! Subsequently, a woman wrote to me to ask if there are recorded talks anywhere, but other than the talks given to the women in the TASTE program in Baltimore and some recent talks to the "Women of the Blessed Sacrament" in Los Angeles, I don't know of any recordings.

But, this Bookmark audiofile should give a good sense of my message, if you're looking for a good summer read or a speaker for Fall/2012. By then, my new book on forgiveness will be out, and a day-long retreat would be a wonderful way to renew your faith. Also, remember that the book about which Doug and I spoke has a free study guide, if you want to go through it with a book club or prayer group.

Looking for a Lenten project?

I have a review at Catholic Lane of an excellent study for women -- it would be perfect to do alone, with friends in your living room or even in a more formal parish setting. With larger events swirling about us and making us wonder about how we'll be able to live our faith (with integrity) in the coming years, we would do well to remind ourselves of those who did the same over the centuries in the most trying of times. These books will be a practical and well-grounded help for all of us!

Jack the Ripper

I confess, I've never followed the story of Jack the Ripper closely, but like most, I knew that it involved a mystery killer and dead prostitutes. Even so, I never expected this:

A British newspaper features a new story that has the head of a UK pro-life group suggesting that the infamous Jack the Ripper may have been a prominent abortion practitioner in London.

“New evidence has emerged which may identify an abortionist as Jack the Ripper, the notorious serial killer of women in Victorian London,” says John Smeaton of SPUC. “A knife and samples of uterine tissue belonging to Sir John Williams, a famous surgeon who performed abortions, have been discovered by one of his relatives. Sir John was recorded to have had performed an abortion on one of the Ripper’s victims.”

Well, it's no surprise that those who traffic in prostitution and abortion will have other skewed ideas about the dignity of women and the value of human life. There may also be the twist of envy, which may have resulted from the fact that "Jack's" wife was barren. We'll see where this theory leads, but it all makes sense. I'm impressed that the man's descendant had no trouble being honest about these leads, as despicable as they are. One cannot take responsibility for one's ancestors, and knowing the dark side of the family tree should only intensify our prayers for the dead.

[There is an added wrinkle in that the doctor was Queen Victoria's surgeon. I have repeatedly expressed my antipathy for that woman, but must stress that this does not have a bearing on her. It's just an unfortunate coincidence. That said, I've discovered an excellent profile of her son, Edward VII, which seems to lay out her maternal deficiencies rather well. Not her fault, entirely, but toxic nonetheless.]

"Women were pretty mean to me"

That's the experience of Annette Charles after taking the role of "Cha Cha" in Grease, which you may remember (here's a little help). Even as a teenager, I despised the movie when I first saw it in the theatres, and I have only come to dislike it more as the years pass. (It doesn't help that every year Catholic schools across the country love to perform it with younger and younger casts.)

The movie was a riot of adults behaving badly, of teenagers lacking guidance, and of vice conquering virtue. Remember, just as bad boy Danny (John Travolta) realises that he should straighten up if he wants to win the pure Sandy (Olivia Newton-John) she likewise has a change of heart (and a change of costume) and embraces her inner sleeze.

This was just one in a long string of films that proved that the straight-laced 1950's was a hot-bed of hormones just waiting to spill over (Animal House was another in this genre) and that those who weren't complete hypocrites were just morons. The frustration may have been related to the often vapid, vaguely-Christian promotion of conformity and "good behaviour" as thin gruel--more important for social order than actual imitation of Christ. There was also a near-puritanical horror of sexual urges, and if we've learned nothing else in the last ten years, it's that Jansenism is no way to form children in authentic chastity.

I may be simplifying it too much, but something caused the culture to topple, and the Protestant ethos of the public square had no ability to push back. In fact, it buckled and caved. That said, we pray for the soul of Annette Charles. This starring role put her on the map, but her destination was somewhat confused after that--as was the nation that latched onto such entertainment at an enormous cost.

 

 

The "work-life balance" myth

Suzanne Venker has posted a very good piece at NRO about why careers will naturally be negatively impacted by decisions that prioritise family. It's the nature of reality.

What we never talk about is where this feminist utopia [of balancing work and family] leaves employers. Employers can not — they must not — be responsible for helping parents manage their family lives. If employers can afford to offer part-time employment, fine. If they can afford to allow their employees to take off an endless string of days and still make money in the meantime, more power to ’em. But come on: such businesses are few and far between. Employers are in business to make money. They may be sympathetic to the The Problem, but they cannot solve it.

This piece is similar to what I found in her new book, The Flipside of Feminism. While I promised a review, I'm not usually in the habit of doing negative reviews (at least not for the "good guys"). The book was good -- as far as it went. It was hard-hitting, enjoyable and completely conservative, but also entirely secular. There was a thin veil of Protestant virtue about it, but that veil hasn't sufficed to keep the country on track thus far, and it wasn't enough to recommend the book (though as a gift to non-religious recovering feminists, it would be great).

We know how America is supposed to work, and we know what rules should govern the workplace. All of that was covered very well, but Catholics know that there's more to life than a secular work-life dichotomy, and that secular paradigm never attempts to factor in vocation, a family wage, the hidden cost of vice, and the priorities that faith demands, etc. Apart from realigning the public sphere along Godly principles (which isn't going to happen any time soon) we will have to settle for these secular guidelines -- while providing a witness for something transcendent in our own lives. A challenge, indeed, but this wasn't the book to help with that quest.

Feminine genius?

I could watch Father Barron for hours, tackling topics in the popular culture and the sciences. I found this oldie (2007) which I had missed, perhaps because Fargo is not a movie I would watch. He boils it down to its essence, which provides another unlikely example of woman as icon if the Church: