My Mother, the Other Me

Mothers and children have a deep connection - deeper than what may be perceived at first. For example, say you have a friend that you have become close with. What is one way to gesture your closeness to them? By introducing them to your mother. Think about it: how many of your friends would you like your mother to meet? How many of your friends have already met your mother, and how close are you with them? I started thinking about this, and then I began to wonder about the relationships we have with our moms.

Another example that reflects the deep connection between a person and their mother is how people get offended when someone insults their mom.

 People take these insults personally - they seem to be more offensive when directed at someone's mother than when they are directed at the person themselves. But why should there be this offense? What kind of a bond is there that a mother carries so much importance in a person's life?

If we examine how a human connects with his mother on a biological level, we find something very interesting. When an embryo implants in his mother's womb, there is an exchange of cells that takes place. Some of the baby's cells move into the mother's body, and some of the mother's cells are taken into the baby. But this physical exchange is not the only way a mother shares herself with her child.

Our mothers are our first teachers; they communicate to us how to walk, eat, and live. But they also communicate a part of themselves to us. As children, we naturally imitate our parents. We pick up their mannerisms, their accents, and sometimes even their bad habits. Some of these things may change as we grow, but other things will stay, and become ingrained in our spirit.

So when a person introduces their mother to a friend, it is an intimate gesture. It is saying, "Meet this person, my mother. Not only did she help give me life, she is a part of who I am. She is like me, before I was me." On the other side, a mother is very sensitive to her children. When she sees them succeeding, she feels as if she were a success. When they hurt, she feels the pain. That is because they are a part of her. They will carry her with them through their lives, and keep her alive long after she is dead.

Some people don't have this connection with their mothers. Some mothers don't have this connection with their children. Both are tragedies. When a person doesn't care about his mother, he is neglecting a part of himself. Similarly, when a mother refuses to love or care for her child, she is missing the purpose of her life. Mothers who kill their unborn children are especially alienated from themselves. The part of their body that they will miss after an abortion is not as big as the part of their soul that will remain unfulfilled with the loss of their little one. There are some mothers who realize this later on in life, and their suffering is very great.

No mother suffers as greatly as Our Blessed Mother

Mothers, love your children more than you love yourselves. To the people that have mothers - biological, adopted, through wedlock - love them more than they love you. And when you look at your mother, remember that she is, and always will be, a part of you are.

"Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you. See, upon the palms of my hands I have engraved you." -Isaiah 49:15-16

10 Reasons why Trans Men might not be more Comfortable in a Women's Restroom

1. You need to have a friend to go with...always.

You don't just go to the restroom alone. Like, ever. You need one of your girls to go with you.

2. The lines.

Oh, the lines. They are always there.

3. The LINES.

They always take forever. Especially when you really have to go.

4. THE LINES.

WHY ARE THERE ALWAYS LINES?!?!

5. Scary toilet seats.

Real women sit down to pee. And when you encounter something like this, you suddenly become very concerned about which surface your tush touches.

6. Broken bathroom stalls.

If you didn't bring one of your friends (like you were supposed to) to hold the door, you have to wait longer for a stall that closes; or, figure out a way to hold it closed yourself (good luck)

7. Missing purse hangers.

You do not, I repeat, DO NOT want to put your purse on the nasty bathroom floor. Do you know how many germs the bottom of your purse collects??

8. Toilets that don't flush.

Because then you have to tell the person going into the stall after you (and there will be someone, because there are always lines) that you didn't forget to flush the toilet, it's just that the toilet doesn't flush very well. It's not your fault. So they can't blame you for it.

9. Mirrors.

You thought you looked just fine until you caught a glimpse of yourself. Why didn't your friends tell you that your hair looked like it had been through an F-3 tornado? Or that your mascara was starting to flake off and make you look like a melting witch?

10. Small, overflowing trashcans.

Tampons don't flush well. You're expected to know that, and to dispose of it properly. If you haven't noticed, there is a little trashcan by the toilet paper in the stall that you may use - just hold your nose before you open it.


I hope you have a good idea now why using the women's restroom might not be more "comfortable" after all. Honestly, sticking with the guys just saves a lot of time.

Masking our Problems

Society today, especially American society, is filled with problems. Whether liberal or conservative, I think we can all agree on that. Depending on your political stance, you may be more optimistic or pessimistic about the resolution of those problems. But I am not writing this post on any hot topic currently trending on Facebook. Instead, I want to address a philosophical issue.

Yes, I know "philosophy is boring" and most people think it's all a matter of opinion anyway. But a true student of philosophy knows that the driving forces behind current issues all stand on philosophical grounds. When I took my first philosophy class, I was amazed to learn that my ideas really weren't my own. Most of them came from a man who lived 800 years ago. I'm sure that if you decided to study philosophy, you too would find the source of most of your beliefs/opinions comes from some dude who lived a long time ago. So when I look at the news for current issues or trends, I keep in mind the history of philosophical thought - and it really helps to explain how societal thought is developing the way it is (without all the conspiracy-theory stuff).

For example, when I see a big debate between a progressive and a conservative, I can find the philosophical basis from which either side is arguing. In the case of the conservative, they could be arguing from traditional philosophy. That is, they think that absolute truth exists, and consequently ethics is determined by what is true and good - there is no room for adjustment. If one breaks the moral code, then they are living in untruth, and they will be punished either in time or at the end of time by the Almighty God. (Some may argue that belief in God is not necessary to abide by fixed moral standards, but I just don't see how that is possible.) On the other hand, the progressive might argue from a modern philosophical approach. They deny the existence of absolute truth, and consequently they think that values are relative, and can be determined by the collective view of society. If a person does not like the current moral code, then they can simply change it to fit whatever way they believe they should act. The progressive view recognizes that there are many different perspectives in the world, and they profess an attitude of "tolerance" in order to accommodate the kaleidoscope of beliefs.

Now you might be surprised to learn that even though one philosophy is called "traditional" and the other "progressive," both have been around for millennia.   Yes folks, we have been arguing about the same things for thousands of years. There really is nothing new under the sun. You can find all these ideas back in Plato's writings (around 400 BC). It might be a little discouraging that no one has really won the debate between these two sides in nearly three thousand years, but I suppose we are argumentative creatures at heart.

Anyway, the real point of this post is to address the modern attitude of tolerance. It seems to me that the progressives who preach this attitude do so in an attempt to solve any conflict that might result from differing ideas.One person sees something as wrong, the other one thinks it could be right. So what is the solution? Do we break out the boxing gloves and let them fight it out? Or, in an effort to keep the peace, do we tell them both to "tolerate" the other's views? What would be the consequences of both? Well, I have a story.

A husband and wife are flipping through the TV stations late at night, when the husband lands on an X-rated show. He thinks there is no problem watching this, but his wife is concerned. She has heard about the effects pornography can have on a marriage, and she doesn't want her husband watching this show. She says as much to him, but he protests that he should have the freedom to watch whatever he wants to. What do they do?

Well, let's say the wife tolerates her husband's decision. She doesn't want to watch the show, so she goes to bed and lets her husband stay up. Now this isn't going to be the only time they run across this issue in their marriage. So let's say this keeps happening - weekly or monthly, whatever you prefer. Each time, the wife goes to bed alone out of tolerance for her husband's preferences. Over time, the effects of pornography start to wear on their marriage. Their love life dwindles, and the wife notices her husband staying up more frequently to watch those shows. Tensions increase in their marriage, until one night the wife wakes up to find her husband gone. She calls him, but he doesn't answer his phone. She waits up all night, full of anxiety for what might've happened to him. He returns early in the morning, with a drowsy look on his face. The wife asks him where he's been, and he casually replies that he spent the night with a few girls he picked up at a strip club. The wife is outraged, and in tears asks her husband why he would betray her. He gives her a funny look and says that he hasn't betrayed her - he just doesn't believe that a man should be limited to having sex with only his wife while he is married. What is the wife to do now? Will she tolerate this action of her husband as well?

Let's go back to that first night. What if the wife chose to fight it out with her husband? Sure this can be done in different ways - they could both calmly discuss why the wife thinks pornography is bad, and why the husband doesn't see any problem with it, and mutually come to a conclusion that they both believe is right. Or if they are very passionate people, they could do this with red faces and raised voices. Either way, one is going to have to give in to the other. This isn't just "tolerance," but is a conversion. Let's say the wife has a stronger argument, being based on empirical evidence and absolute truth. The husband recognizes this, and eventually agrees that she is right. They turn off the TV and go to bed, the conflict resolved, so they can move on with their lives in the morning.

Society today is like the husband and wife. There may be many different perspectives, but attempting to deal with all of these by covering them with the umbrella of tolerance is only masking the issue. It is a temporary fix, and over time it will not hold. What is needed is communication, dialogue, maybe even some fist fights. Above all, there needs to be an attitude of humility - people must be willing to admit they are wrong, and convert to the other side if they are the ones standing in truth. Stubbornness and tolerance aren't going to fix anything. They are a neutral area with a timer running - if you don't move when the time is up, the floor will collapse under your feet.

America, your time is up. Your tolerance gave way to radically opposed parties, and it might've even helped to create the monster that is Donald Trump. We need to reconcile with each other, and start really coming together, before the bottom drops out beneath us.

Why Women Aren't Chickens

The other day I was watching the movie Jupiter Ascending, and while the romance between the half-wolf good guy and the rags-to-riches damsel-in-distress quickly grew tiresome, I found comedic relief in Jupiter's Russian family members. At one point in the movie [this isn't a big spoiler if you can see through basic plot lines] the uncle finds out that his son was trying to convince Jupiter to sell her eggs and split the money with him. He hits him with a pillow and shouts, "WHAT DO YOU THINK SHE IS, A CHICKEN?!?" at which point I started laughing so hard I woke my fiance sitting next to me. [He didn't think the movie was that great either.]

I was laughing because I thought it was so ironic and I wondered why I hadn't thought of it before. I've recently been seeing ads all over the internet asking me to donate my eggs, but I wasn't witty enough to think of the chicken comparison on my own. But it is so true. Ladies, if one of your friends walked up to you and asked you for your eggs, wouldn't you feel like a hen? Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if it were someone you knew, but what if some business approached you and promised you thousands of dollars if you would give away a part of your body to a complete stranger? There's not so many warm-and-fuzzies in that situation. In fact, if you thought about it long enough, you might connect the dots to something along the lines of prostitution.

Ouch. That name hurts worse than the other. Somehow a person who sells her body for money seems lower than an animal bred for her produce. But do I really have the gall to call those women who sell their eggs prostitutes and hens? Aren't they rather very generous and courageous for choosing to give up a part of themselves? After all, their eggs often go to women who do not have many themselves, or women who know their genes have certain traits that would be unfavorable in a future child. Isn't this a worthy cause, and a far cry from the sexual or voracious appetites of men?

Here's the issue with anyone who tries to make egg donation seem like anything better than old-fashioned prostitution: they are forgetting that the ends never justify the means. Let's say I decided to play Grinch this Christmas and steal most the presents of everyone in my neighborhood. But instead of keeping them for myself, I gave them to the homeless and those living in poverty. Now, giving to the needy is a good deed, but not when it is supplied by stolen goods (sorry Robin Hood). Theft is against the law, and it cannot be justified by a corresponding generous act. Back to egg donation. Selling your body goes against your dignity as a person, which is why the chicken comparison is so accurate. Even though the recipients may be less fortunate, the fact remains that a person should not be treated as means to someone else's end. No amount of financial compensation or encouraging words can make up for the fact that a woman is being used for her body.

So ladies, when you see those ads for egg donations and feel a cringe inside, don't try to reason it away with false ideas of generosity and charity. If you want to be generous and charitable to your friend who wasn't born with as many eggs as you, try talking with her about NaPro technology or even the benefits of adoption. Better yet, just be there for her as a friend. And tell those who would get you to sell yourself: "I'm not a chicken. You can't have my eggs."

The Alternative to You is Nothing

“Now I know why women need sports bras”

If I didn’t know who said this when I first heard it, I would guess it came from a thirteen-year-old girl who was still “becoming a woman”. However, those words came from the mouth of Bruce Jenner, who is not a teenage girl, but a middle-aged man. He is not “becoming a woman” as the media would have you believe, but he is pretending to take on the identity of a woman. His pretense is as transparent as it is offensive. “Now I know why women need sports bras,” tells me that Bruce Jenner doesn’t know the first thing about being a woman. He can give himself a female name, massacre his genitalia, tromp around in high heels and wear tight clothes to reveal his implants, but he will never have the identity of a woman.

The problem with transgender ideology (not to mention “gender theory” as a whole) proclaiming that gender can be altered by a simple surgical procedure (or how you “feel”) is their reductionist concept of traditional male and female identities. This is due in part, to how we see men and women portrayed on a daily basis. Mass media, for example, would have you believe that being a woman is all about the clothes you wear, the products you buy, and the yoga classes you attend. But womanhood is not merely materialistic femininity. We need to take a closer look, and ask ourselves what it means to have the mind of a woman, the heart of a woman, and the will of a woman. When we begin to understand these things, then we are discovering the essence of feminine sexuality. The same thing can be said about men. They cannot be reduced to the jokes they tell, the way they behave, and the jobs they hold. Men and women have completely different (while complementary) identities, and they ought to be respected as something deeper than what we can perceive through the five senses. When we understand the truth of our sexuality, we realize that we cannot attempt to change our gender without changing our level of existence as a whole.

God created each one of us, out of nothing, as unique individuals. No matter how much “rebirth” is passed around, the truth is that there has never been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. Furthermore, God loved you into existence – not Bob Alou, your imaginary friend. Your life is so precious, because you were given the gift of existence. You were one of the chosen few that were drawn forth from not-being into being; and you were given a body, and a name. God made you in his image and likeness, but also gave you individuality. You have had your own identity since conception – an identity that you alone possess. We have seen, through the actions of transsexuals, that you can strip yourself of some of your identity. Men who surgically alter their sexual organs cannot really be called women, but neither are they still fully men – hence the term “it” that has so long been applied to transsexuals. When you strip yourself of your sexuality, you throw away a fundamental part of your identity that makes you a reality.  You begin to lose yourself, and you take a step back into the nothing that you came from. This is why a man cannot become a woman, and a woman cannot become a man: because the alternative to “you” is not “someone else”, but nothing at all.

“Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire.” –St. Catherine of Siena

On the Evolution of Stoning

People aren't judged. Actions are judged; people are rewarded, punished, or condemned. Every morally upright person has a right to judge his or her actions and the actions of those around them as right or wrong. But no one has the right to condemn another person.

First, let's not confuse punishment with condemnation. Punishment is "the state of being made to suffer for wrongdoing." I think the best example of this is spanking a disobedient child. When I disobeyed my mother, she spanked me so I would know there is a consequence for misbehaving. This is justice. It would not have been just if she told me "You're going to hell" every time I did something wrong. That is condemnation. 

To condemn means "to declare to be reprehensible, wrong, or evil usually after weighing evidence and without reservation." When a person condemns another, they are making a statement about the whole person: "Charles Manson is evil." When people say, "Don't judge me," they mean "Don't condemn me." This is a legitimate request - I cannot declare anyone to be completely evil, because I can only know their actions and what they choose to tell me about what they were thinking when they performed those actions. I can never know the entire character of the person, because I cannot be them. I cannot look into their soul and see if they have any goodness in their heart. I cannot perform any scientific tests to prove their moral character. Only God knows the soul, therefore, only God has a right to condemn.

Man tends to play God when he has too much power. This is dangerous, because man is not God - and he will never be as perfect as God. But man's power has been increasing with technology, so much so to where he has given himself the power of determining his own moral truths. When man ceases to follow natural law, he is bound to an abuse of power.

We see this today in what is called "cyber bullying." This destructive behavior has been enabled by social media, which has given every man the power to communicate his thoughts to another person instantaneously, no matter the distance. Man is removed from accountability, because he can silence those who would call on his conscience by simply "deleting" them. This makes him feel as if he were annihilating that person (which even God would not do), when really he is only removing them from his life - without bearing the consequences of the hurt he is causing them.

Man is seeking to throw off the cross of responsibility and increase his power to be the only master of his life - he is becoming Satanic. Cyber bullying is one of many atrocities that have come about in this new age of man. This kind of demonic activity must be rebuked and put to an end. And it must be done by those of us who are willing to fight for the dignity of our brethren.

No man has the right to condemn a man to death. No man (or woman) has the right to abort the lives of unborn babies. And no one has the right to tell my brother to "kill himself." The Hebrews of the Old Testament were criticized for public stoning. But we are worse today. Instead of throwing stones than harm the body, we throw hateful words that harm the soul. 

"Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." . . . Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" She replied, "No one, sir." Then Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more." -John 8:7,10-11