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5 important lessons to learn from ‘Old Fashioned’

WHO DIDN’T SEE FIFTY SHADES THIS WEEKEND? This girl! I, did, however, see the film Old Fashioned — a PG-13 alternative strategically released the same weekend. I didn’t hate it.

The movie is about Clay (Rik Swartzwelder) and Amber (Elizabeth Ann Roberts), whose worlds collide when her truck runs out of gas in his neighborhood. There, with her gas tank as her only guide, she — romantically albeit unrealistically — decides to rent an apartment.

The apartment belongs to Clay, the quiet owner of the antiques shop beneath it. She thinks he’s a prude. He thinks he’s prudent. (And yes, there is a difference). She’s flirty. He doesn’t sleep with the women he dates. The plot thickens while their attraction to each other kindles a unique relationship and their pasts threaten to extinguish it.

I won’t tell you how it ends. But I will tell you what we who watch it can learn from it: Continue reading “5 important lessons to learn from ‘Old Fashioned’”

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3 Lessons and 2 Tips from Bill Donaghy

3 Lessons and 2 Tips is a series of interviews in which some of my favorite people (and probably some of yours) share three lessons they’ve learned by being married, plus two tips for single people.

This edition features Bill Donaghy, the curriculum specialist at the Theology of the Body Institute whose son once called me “G-ma.” (which is definitely short for grandma. Long story.)

Bill also was the instructor of the Theology of the Body I: Head and Heart Immersion Course I took in the summer of 2013. The course, which is an introduction to St. JP2’s Theology of the Body, is a.k.a. one of the best weeks of my entire life.

I’m grateful for the growth experience he and his course helped facilitate and for his willingness to share three lessons and two tips with us: Continue reading “3 Lessons and 2 Tips from Bill Donaghy”

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Is there room for ‘Fifty Shades’ in Christianity?

[callout]A version of this post originally appeared on RelevantMagazine.com in 2012. I’m re-posting now, in advance of this weekend’s release of the movie Fifty Shades of Grey.[/callout]

I knew there wouldn’t be a second date the moment the guy asked this question: “How do you feel about strip clubs?” Not for ‘em, I said. “What about porn?” Are you kidding?

In the conversation that followed, I rebutted his defenses of both. He, a Christian (nominally, at least), was a consumer of erotic media, convinced that using it can be good. He is the only Christian I’ve met who has defended pornography. But he is not the only Christian who defends other kinds of erotic media.

When bestselling erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey and the movie Magic Mike, about a male stripper, simultaneously swept the female half of the U.S., Christian women spoke up. Some criticized the book because it promotes lust and sexual violence. Some criticized Magic Mike because it promotes the objectification of men. Others criticized the critics. Continue reading “Is there room for ‘Fifty Shades’ in Christianity?”

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Why contraception will never save the world.

Last week, a Huffington Post headline stung: “Dear Pope Francis: Saving the World Requires Contraception.” I clicked it anyway, to find an open letter to the Vicar of Christ.

It is written by John Seager, president of the Population Connection Action Fund, who — like lots of non- and nominal Catholics — is disturbed by the Catholic Church’s proscription of contraception. I — a proponent of all the Church’s teachings — at first was disturbed by what he wrote:

That contraception, for instance, provides people with healthy sex lives. That the pope has a responsibility to ensure that Catholics have the tools to reduce their “carbon output,” including contraception. That 90 percent of the unintended pregnancies in the Philippines “are the result of a lack of modern contraception.”

My heart pounded and ached, because Seager’s letter was a disappointing reminder of the widespread presumption that people can’t not have sex.

So to borrow a few of your own words, Seager, “Don’t get me wrong. You seem like a sincere, congenial man,” and I admire your impassioned desire to combat climate change. But while the pope’s defense of the Church’s teaching on contraception boggles your mind, what you wrote is starting to warm my heart. Continue reading “Why contraception will never save the world.”

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‘The Art of Loving God’

St. Francis de Sales has done it again. And by “it,” I mean “proven himself brilliant via a book.” Yesterday, I finished The Art of Loving God: Simple Virtues for the Christian Life, which is a series of talks he gave to a bunch of nuns, edited a little so what’s in it is relevant for laity.

De Sales discusses tough stuff: Humility. Obedience. Mortification. Holding ourselves to higher standards than we have before. Cutting ourselves slack where we should. Lots of it resonated (which means I underlined lots of it while I read). Here are 10 of my favorite excerpts: Continue reading “‘The Art of Loving God’”