When the Rubber Hits the Road

Subtitle:

How NFP is really hard.

Let us return to the title of this post, and do not push aside the double entendre. Go there. For nothing says qu

ite what I am trying to say in this post like the title. It is a good feeling because rarely does a title in the blogosphere ever truly hit the nail on the proverbial head.

Before your mind goes totally in the gutter, let me help you back onto the way. For starters, proponents of NFP do a really bad job of shooting straight. The crookedness of the rhetoric is not so much a deception, but many times a naiveté born in the fires of the sales meeting. The salesman with the ketchup popsicle just cannot wait to tell the woman in the white gloves how much she will love the way the red accents her shoes. So too, the college freshman or couple who have never had to actually practice NFP will boast of its blissful benefits. I hear it is even under 500 calories.

I know. I”ve talked like that before.

Poetry is a problem as well. There is nothing wrong with the poetic quality of the Theology of the Body, but there is a problem with people thinking that life is always like poetry. Life is not like poetry, and we know that for the very reason we like poetry and that really great musical score behind Downton Abbey. No. Life is 5 degrees flat most of the time — an aching back, a sick child, a glass that is half empty no matter what you say. Look, dangit! That glass clearly has only 3 ounces in it. That is real life — and it is why poetry is an escape that points us the Place that is in tune.

Let me be clear. NFP is better than its alternative. The rubber really must hit the road, because nothing could more counterintuitive to the sexual embrace than wrapping yourself in cellophane or jamming chemicals down your throat. There is of course that really medieval thing-a-ma-jigger that places itself at the impasse between life and death — thwarting the possibility of children with the precision of an American gladiator with one of those . Seriously folks, there is nothing like finding out over an episode of your favorite sitcom that your contraception has been recalled and that you or someone you love is in danger of having “serious heart or health problems“.

Sheesh.

Going natural might be what is best for you, but it does not mean that it is what is easiest for you. That, of course, is the illusion of modernity. Ease is the measurement of morality, thus all manner of malady and mental discord go by the wayside in a quid pro quo movement that leaves society with — to steal a phrase from NBC — a really “new normal”, and the rest of us holding the crazy bag. Like the man with three ounces in his glass, modern man chooses a three ounce glass to make him feel his glass is all right. Self control and self restraint are difficult, even painful. But who needs that when my therapist tells me that both are a social construct.

Bye bye sin. Welcome to wacky land.

But you and I know there is sin. God — a Word beyond poetic capture — became flesh and dwelt among us. We beheld His glory and beat him, spit upon him, and crucified Him.

And kind of like that go around, NFP is difficult. It is hard. It is a Cross. The world is selling easy, and the Church — empowered by the Spirit that hovered over the void, bringing forth an almost infinitude of matter over the course of a long travail — is selling reality. The real. It is just beyond the grasp of psychoanalysis, just too difficult for the physicist to conceptualize. It is lying in a manger, and we are too busy trying to TiVo the last season of Madmen. Even technology doesn”t make it easy enough.

We can never get enough, and while the insatiable desire can point us to an infinite otherness, it can also speak to our stupidity. We are like men gathered around a newly formed pool after a summer rain, hoping that it will irrigate the cracked soil enough for a new crop. Yet just like the pool quickly evaporates, so too does everything that this world promises. We are not gnostics, I admit, but that does not mean we are hedonists. And if modern man struggles between two extremes it is those two — to be a bodiless ghost or a spiritless body.

I am a married father of five. We will have been married ten years this December. Our kids range from 6 years to 2 months. At this moment in our lives, trying to balance homeschooling, paying the bills, raising our kids in the faith, et. al., we feel God calling us to take a respite. We believe God wants us to steward what He has given us. That, of course, does not mean we are cutting ourselves off from life, but rather embracing that which we have been given. Either road is suffering, but only the road of obedience leads to salvation. That, salvation, is what God is selling, or rather offering — as a gift.

The point of this little quasi-essay is to encourage those who might read it to “be of good cheer”. The Servant who was rejected understands the burden of the Cross. You are not alone on this path. He asked you to take it up. That said, He promises that you will not receive more than you can handle. His grace is sufficient.

There are blogs out there dedicated to the way-cool-awesomeness of NFP. There are poems that have been written about the complementarity of the husband-wife union. There are songs and sonnets that could be produced lauding the transcendent beauty of jargon otherwise not known to those outside of certain cliques. That is not this blog post. This blog post is to remind all of us that God is calling us to a Cross — and for some it is marriage. The joy we are to have, the peace, is not because of the circumstances of the moment to which we are called — for it is truly a Moment.

What I mean is that all of us, young and old, single and married, come to a place in our lives where the proverbial rubber hits the proverbial road. Some less proverbial than others (cough, cough). The point, nevertheless, is that faith without works is dead — and that the Moment provides for us an opportunity to live that which we profess in the Creed. If God did come, if He is the Maker, and is planning on returning and all the rest, we might want to live like it. That is a sobering message, but it is the truth.

I know that I may have just rained on someone”s NFP-is-the-best-thing-since-pre-sliced-bagels parade, but never mind that. It rains on the just and unjust, so we should not be surprised. Rain is only terrible if you get caught in it unprepared. I hope this post helps some of you either in marriage or preparing for marriage to have an umbrella — because the rain is coming. That is reality.

Peace to you on your journey

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Subtitle:
How NFP is really hard.
Let us return to the title of this post, and do not push aside the double entendre. Go there. For nothing says quite what I am trying to say in this post like the title. It is a good feeling because rarely does a title in the blogosphere ever truly hit the nail on the proverbial head.
Before your mind goes totally in the gutter, let me help you back onto the way. For starters, proponents of NFP do a really bad job of shooting straight. The crookedness of the rhetoric is not so much a deception, but many times a naiveté born in the fires of the sales meeting. The salesman with the ketchup popsicle just cannot wait to tell the woman in the white gloves how much she will love the way the red accents her shoes. So too, the college freshman or couple who have never had to actually practice NFP will boast of its blissful benefits. I hear it is even under 500 calories.
I know. I”ve talked like that before.
Poetry is a problem as well. There is nothing wrong with the poetic quality of the Theology of the Body, but there is a problem with people thinking that life is always like poetry. Life is not like poetry, and we know that for the very reason we like poetry and that really great musical score behind Downton Abbey. No. Life is 5 degrees flat most of the time — an aching back, a sick child, a glass that is half empty no matter what you say. Look, dangit! That glass clearly has only 3 ounces in it. That is real life — and it is why poetry is an escape that points us the Place that is in tune.
Let me be clear. NFP is better than its alternative. The rubber really must hit the road, because nothing could more counterintuitive to the sexual embrace than wrapping yourself in cellophane or jamming chemicals down your throat. There is of course that really medieval thing-a-ma-jigger that places itself at the impasse between life and death — thwarting the possibility of children with the precision of an American gladiator with one of those cue tip things. Seriously folks, there is nothing like finding out over an episode of your favorite sitcom that your contraception has been recalled and that you or someone you love is in danger of having “serious heart or health problems”.
Sheesh.
Going natural might be what is best for you, but it does not mean that it is what is easiest for you. That, of course, is the illusion of modernity. Ease is the measurement of morality, thus all manner of malady and mental discord go by the wayside in a quid pro quo movement that leaves society with — to steal a phrase from NBC — a really “new normal”, and the rest of us holding the crazy bag. Like the man with three ounces in his glass, modern man chooses a three ounce glass to make him feel his glass is all right. Self control and self restraint are difficult, even painful. But who needs that when my therapist tells me that both are a social construct.
Bye bye sin. Welcome to wacky land.
But you and I know there is sin. God — a Word beyond poetic capture — became flesh and dwelt among us. We beheld His glory and beat him, spit upon him, and crucified Him.

Not EasyAnd kind of like that go around, NFP is difficult. It is hard. It is a Cross. The world is selling easy, and the Church — empowered by the Spirit that hovered over the void, bringing forth an almost infinitude of matter over the course of a long travail — is selling reality. The real. It is just beyond the grasp of psychoanalysis, just too difficult for the physicist to conceptualize. It is lying in a manger, and we are too busy trying to TiVo the last season of Madmen. Even technology doesn”t make it easy enough.
We can never get enough, and while the insatiable desire can point us to an infinite otherness, it can also speak to our stupidity. We are like men gathered around a newly formed pool after a summer rain, hoping that it will irrigate the cracked soil enough for a new crop. Yet just like the pool quickly evaporates, so too does everything that this world promises. We are not gnostics, I admit, but that does not mean we are hedonists. And if modern man struggles between two extremes it is those two — to be a bodiless ghost or a spiritless body.
I am a married father of five. We will have been married ten years this December. Our kids range from 6 years to 2 months. At this moment in our lives, trying to balance homeschooling, paying the bills, raising our kids in the faith, et. al., we feel God calling us to take a respite. We believe God wants us to steward what He has given us. That, of course, does not mean we are cutting ourselves off from life, but rather embracing that which we have been given. Either road is suffering, but only the road of obedience leads to salvation. That, salvation, is what God is selling, or rather offering — as a gift.
The point of this little quasi-essay is to encourage those who might read it to “be of good cheer”. The Servant who was rejected understands the burden of the Cross. You are not alone on this path. He asked you to take it up. That said, He promises that you will not receive more than you can handle. His grace is sufficient.
There are blogs out there dedicated to the way-cool-awesomeness of NFP. There are poems that have been written about the complementarity of the husband-wife union. There are songs and sonnets that could be produced lauding the transcendent beauty of jargon otherwise not known to those outside of certain cliques. That is not this blog post. This blog post is to remind all of us that God is calling us to a Cross — and for some it is marriage. The joy we are to have, the peace, is not because of the circumstances of the moment to which we are called — for it is truly a Moment.
What I mean is that all of us, young and old, single and married, come to a place in our lives where the proverbial rubber hits the proverbial road. Some less proverbial than others (cough, cough). The point, nevertheless, is that faith without works is dead — and that the Moment provides for us an opportunity to live that which we profess in the Creed. If God did come, if He is the Maker, and is planning on returning and all the rest, we might want to live like it. That is a sobering message, but it is the truth.
I know that I may have just rained on someone”s NFP-is-the-best-thing-since-pre-sliced-bagels parade, but never mind that. It rains on the just and unjust, so we should not be surprised. Rain is only terrible if you get caught in it unprepared. I hope this post helps some of you either in marriage or preparing for marriage to have an umbrella — because the rain is coming. That is reality.
Peace to you on your journey

Path: