The Vatican View of Women

Tiring of Hallmark movies and horrible COVID-19 news, several days ago I tuned into my local PBS station where they were re-running a special called "Inside the Vatican". This episode concerned the preparations for Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday within the Vatican.

They showed how the groundskeepers and maintenance men worked overtime to prep various venues for celebrations for these two pivotal events in the Catholic calendar. From dusting the tippy-top of the sculptures over the altar to sweeping Vatican Square for bombs. From grooming the shrubs which would be in front of His Holiness to testing the TV equipment which would carry the Pope's voice around the world. How the administrators oversaw those preparations. How various bishops and cardinals prepared themselves spiritually for the Great Day.

As I watched in fascination the extraordinary access the film makers were given, I was struck by a blaring (at least for me) hole in the personnel covered. Is their coverage "holy"? Or is their coverage exactly as the situation appears in the Vatican?

• No female journalists who cover the Vatican for global papers
• No female groundskeepers, whose job it was, among others, to cut branches for Palm Sunday
• No female choir singers (boys sang the soprano parts)
• No female administrators
• No female security personnel
• No statuary of female saints
• No female ambassadors from any nation

There was the brief scene of nuns, preparing meals for the poor and downtrodden. (Women's work, I guess.) There was a female assistant to the assistant ambassador, to be fair. And one solitary female translator. But zero female person in any role of import and zero female person in a role of consequence.

The retinue of inmates from a local prison who came to offer the Pope their feet to wash (a piece of theatre worthy of a PR person's wet dream) were all male. Even the clerical tailor shop is a run by guy. Wonder how many seamstresses he has in his employ?


One journalist who covers the Vatican said "Pope Francis isn't a liberal nor a conservative but a radical" and proceeded to tout all the "changes" the Pope has made to the way things are run in the Vatican.




Except the "changes" aren't really changes at all. He hasn't changed one damn thing, whether it is regarding the way child abuse charges are handled by the Vatican, nor by allowing women to follow their consciences when it comes to birth control or divorce, nor has anything changed in allowing women to serve as priests. And if women cannot become priests, they cannot climb the corporate ladder to become bishops or cardinals or even Pope.

So where is the so-called "radicalism" of the Pope? Status quo doesn't seem to me to be all that radical. Twenty-six hundred people work at the Vatican. Maybe 2% of those workers are female. "Radical"?

                                         
Until the Catholics (and other lesser-known Christian sects) change their views on women, they will continue to lose membership. Surely women have proven that they are as well prepared as men to take leadership roles and that they are worthy of more than being members of the altar society and embroidering vestments?

I guess Mary, a female saint who was privileged to carry the Christ Child, is so much chopped liver? Because even images of Mary were few and far between. This is the crux. Until the Church stops looking at women as wombs, capable of holding the Divine but not worthy of anything more important than their embroidery skills would dictate, religion will continue to decline. You cannot ignore 51% of the population.

I'm reminded of a sermon I heard way back when. "The Seven Last Words of the Church--'We never did it that way before.'"

The Gift of the Magi

It hangs next to my fireplace and chimes the hour and half hour. My antique wall clock. I suppose since it is only a reproduction from the New England Clock Company and was purchased sometime in the mid 60's, it doesn't really qualify as a true antique.
The body is of wood, its design reminiscent of a Swiss chalet, with a brass pendulum and two heavy weights hanging from chains which periodically have to be raised. Their weight is what gives the clock its movement.
The face of the clock is hand-painted, with the rather sobering sermon "Hark, what's the cry, Prepare to meet thy God today." Now that I think of it, it is a little creepy. Kinda like when we teach little children the prayer "If I should die before I wake..."

I discovered a little while back when googling the New England Clock Company that they use that very clock for their web page. I also discovered that it is supposed to have a little weather vane on top. Long gone. Its twin is currently on eBay.
This clock is especially dear to me. A little back story:
My parents were looking around an Ethan Allen store back in the 60's. It was Mom's favorite store. Ever. They both almost simultaneously saw this wall clock. Mom had pined for years for a grandfather clock but A) they are expensive and B) she had five kids.
So they spot this clock and speak briefly to the salesman on the floor. They wander off in different directions and Mom sneaks around to the salesman and says quietly "Put that clock back in and I'll pay you later." Did I mention it was close to Christmas?
Mom wanders off and pretty soon, Dad comes up to the same salesman and quietly says "Put that clock back in the back and I'll pay for it later."
What is a salesman to do? He evidently dithered about it for a minute or two, then went up to Mom and quietly told her that both of them had asked for the clock to be put back. Obviously, they didn't want two clocks that looked the same, did they? Mom quietly tells him to remove her name from the order and to not say anything to Daddy.
I imagine it would be difficult for couples as close as my folks to surprise each other with their Christmas gifts. I mean, they were practically of one mind, truly 'mind melded'. So it was something of a miracle that Daddy frequently was able to fool Mom so she had no idea what her gift from him was.
Not that Christmas. She was holding the box containing the clock in her lap and prior to opening it, she turned to Daddy and told him she knew what it was. He was totally shocked. So she told us the story that was so sweet. So deep was their love, they had both chosen to give the other the same exact same gift.
I love my clock. Except twice a year. You know, when Daylight Savings time comes and when it goes. Especially when it goes. You see, the way you 'reset' this clock involves manually turning the minute hand around the face and waiting at the half hour for a single chime, then moving it to the o'clock position and waiting for it to chime however many times it is. Nine o'clock, ten o'clock, eleven o'clock...you get my drift. If you don't take the time to wait for it to chime before moving on, the clock becomes disoriented and will chime twice at nine, eight times at four. It literally loses its mind, kinda like a somewhat-dim pet who wants to please but can't figure out what you want of it. This process can sometimes take a half hour or more, depending on if you screw it up and have to start over.
Another family story about this clock:
When we were all married and having kids and going home for Christmas, Mom made sure that every single couple had a place to sleep. She had only one extra bedroom, with Daddy's study the third bedroom. That was where grandkids slept on the floor. Her living room and family room both had sleeper sofas so they doubled as bedrooms when we were home for the holidays. Margery and Daniel frequently ended up in the living room. Where the chiming clock hung. Daniel would stop the pendulum so the clock would stop and not chime all through the night.
The following morning, Daddy would laborously reset the clock, moving it through its paces hour by hour. (Daniel was always the rebel...when he was dating Margery, and he'd bring her home for a goodnight kiss, he'd unscrew all the Christmas lights on the front porch, the better to have a little privacy.)
I guess that is why I have so many precious things. A tray I got as wedding gift from a dear professor, the blue glass collection I got from my mom, and the Clock. All having been in the family long enough to be imbued with memories. Deep in the very materials these things are constructed of, in the very atoms that form these objects, are memories.
My family's own "Gift of the Magi" story, soaked into a wooden wall clock, with weights and a pendulum.

No Way to Run a Government

I watch a lot of news during the day. I became curious lately, hearing about this caucus or that caucus, as to what these numerous groups have to do with actually governing. You know, making laws and compromising with The Loyal Opposition to get things done. Governing.

I recently counted and the 435 members of Congress are involved in 220 caucuses. I did, I counted them. Let's see, let's do the math. Four hundred thirty five members divided by 220, carry the 1 (I know, mixed math) means that each member is a member of 1.97 caucuses. Presumably, we can round up and make it an even 2. Caucuses have way more than 2 members each so members of Congress are probably involved in way more than 2 apiece.

There is, I kid you not, a Cement Caucus. (It's true...look it up.) A Bike Caucus (presumably bicycles, though one can never tell. Perhaps they are bipartisan enough to include motorcycles). Does this include only members of Congress who bike to work? Doubtful. They mostly get to work being driven individually in limos. If we have another gas crisis like in the '70's, could they at least carpool? Again, doubtful.

                              - Editor's Note: The above is a rare example of what happens
                                 when the joint committee on Printing gets its teeth into a
                                                project... trains start to run upside down.

 What with caucuses and committee meetings, one wonders how they ever get ANYTHING done. It is a miracle, really. I didn't have the courage to look up the caucuses in the Senate at this time. I'm guessing here, but I doubt there is a Black Caucus in the Senate, since there's only one black senator and who's he going to caucus with, really?

It is easy to imagine that some caucuses overlap in their mission statements. The Cement Caucus might be a subset of the Construction Caucus. There is no caucus for skateboards, which might be included in the Bike Caucus. Or perhaps there could be a Recreational Vehicles Caucus or even a Things That Go on Two/Four Wheels Caucus. Of course then we'd need a caucus for unicycles and tricycles.

Then there are committees. (Not to mention "Joint" Committees where members of both bodies meet together, held for the really important stuff like Printing and the Library.) Several committees have similar names...Homeland Security in the House vs. Homeland Security and Government Affairs in the Senate, Small Business in the House vs. Small Business and Entrepreneurship in the Senate. I guess those topics aren't important enough to have Joint Committees. One can excuse the Rules and Administration Committee in the Senate and the Rules Committee in the House--commonly known as the Speaker's committee--as those two bodies have vastly different ways of conducting their affairs, more's the pity.

Don't get me started on informal groups, like the Tuesday Morning group in the Senate.

In an era of division, perhaps there should be fewer caucuses and committees. More talking to people you disagree with, and finding common purpose. But I ain't holding my breath.

Victimless Crimes

Last night, while watching a DVD (yes, I'm old-school...can't figure out how to "live-stream" or whatever), the usual official warning came on. You know, the FBI's seal and the statement "Piracy is not a victimless crime"...


It got me to thinking about the phrase "victimless crime". There is no such thing. I mean, if there's no victim, there's no crime, right? If there's a victim, there is a crime, sometimes a horrendous crime, sometimes a more minor one.


Which brings me to the attitude of many voters having put into office a Groper-in-Chief. "No one was hurt, right?" Millions of voters believed that what they thought he'd do as President outweighed his behavior toward women, toward minorities, toward the disabled, toward war heroes.


True story: When I was in my 40's, having attained a BA in English and Communications and a Master's in Public Administration and had several decades of career in the non-profit sector, I was looking for a change of scenery. So I enrolled in the Horticulture program at Warrensburg's Central Missouri State, the only such program within driving distance of my home in Kansas City. At first, it was great. I got a graduate assistantship and my job was caring for the University's greenhouse. I had many years of experience in home gardening and looked forward to learning the ways of the greenhouse (which is a different kettle of fish from taking care of plants in the garden).


The Horticulture program had a single professor and was a sub-set of the Agriculture department. I loved and learned a lot in Soil Science, I learned a lot in Plant Identification. I struggled through Calculus, all the while wondering what Calculus had to do with Horticulture. It was a totally different world from my previous BA in studying literature, being steeped in science and math. But I prevailed and got good grades. I also had a summer internship at Powell Display Gardens in King. All in all, a great experience.


Except, of course, for that Horticulture prof being a groper. I was a, ahem, "mature" student so I thought I could keep it inside, fend him off and deal with it. Until I found out that he was doing the same to younger, more impressionable women who were, in many cases, fresh off the farm and unable to deal with it. I found that I was not alone in keeping it from my significant other, for fear he would take matters into his own hands. I found out that he was teaching young male students how to grope and not get caught.


Another "mature" student and I started talking to present and past female students and found that he was doing it a lot. Had been for years. To dozens of female students. All from his position of authority over us. So we gathered ourselves together and a group of four of us (the rest, fearing retaliation, couldn't go) went to the Dean and lodged a complaint. Oddly, he'd never been reported before, or so they said. The Dean made all the right noises and promised to look into it.


Which she did. The prof was "counseled" to not do it again and I was removed from all the classes I had under him. I guess I was allowed to continue my work in the greenhouse (the one place where he and I were frequently alone) because the thought was I was on my own there. No witnesses. I was enrolled in alternate classes like "Agriculture in Third World Countries", a subject which wasn't required for my Hort degree and which I had no interest in.


(I will say I learned a lot and it was interesting from the standpoint that the seminar-style class had a total of 6 students, I being the only female. There was a student from Kenya and one from Afghanistan who argued that Afghanistan shouldn't be considered a third-world country just because they ignore half their population in terms of education and productivity, but that's another day.)


The upshot of all of this was, I couldn't avoid being in a class with the groper without drastically altering my educational experience. I left the University when it became clear that nothing was going to be done to him and that I was going to be penalized for having reported him


I've said all this to say that groping isn't a victimless crime. I regret to this day that I didn't go into Horticulture as a profession. His seemingly innocuous groping altered the course of my career life.
I awakened on Nov. 9, 2016 to the news that our voting population (well, at least the Electoral College) had voted for a Groper-in-Chief, KNOWING that he was a groper and potentially an assaulter of teenage girls.


I have no words to describe how that made me feel. It brought up all those moments with my groper again and all the feelings of helplessness and outrage that come with groping. Not only did he grope, he made lewd jokes during class, made comments about female students' endowments, and trained young males that, not only is it okay (who is hurt by groping, huh?) but how to get away with it.



Victimless crime, indeed.

I Am a Business Man

(I have been looking for this in my files for several years, but finally found it.  I think Daddy must have written it soon after coming back from a trip to Bethlehem and seeing how an "inn with no room" would have looked. Merry Christmas to all! )

I AM A BUSINESS MAN

A Christmas Story

by Carl Goodson

I am first of all a business man. My caravanseri or travelers' rest is my life. Whatever of the events of town or country or empire affects my business is all that I've ever been interested in; nothing else has before concerned me.


Yet, the things that happened in my inn a few years ago have given me pause and wonder at the smallness of my world and the greatness of one tiny babe.


I run the largest and best guest house in Bethlehem--as fine as any you will find even in the capital city of Jerusalem. I'm a native of our town--and proud of it. Our community is important out of all proportion to its physical size.  It has a glorious history, being the natal town of our great King David, who made Jerusalem the great capital of our nation, but Bethlehem forever the home town of his people.


Our town and country have both known better days. We are a people under the heel of the Roman soldier. He is everywhere. He tells us what we may do and we reluctantly do it, whether it be to carry his soldier's pack for the legal mile or to stand wordlessly while he conscripts whatever or whomever of ours he fancies. And I know I must take his insolence or I wouldn't be in business.


Yes, we have a king who is supposed to be our own. But he is Herod, a hated Idumean with not a drop of Jewish blood in his veins. His only legal claim to our glorious throne is his marriage to Mariamne, the loveliest flower of the Asmonaean warrior-priests who had ruled us for five generations before Herod. It is whispered behind doors that Herod murdered Mariamne and their two sons to protect his own position, but the Romans who are interested only in keeping the letter of their laws have made no investigation. We are convinced that under Herod, justice will never be done.


But I started to tell you about my inn, and the strange events which have taken place there. The outside walls of my establishment are thick and stout and high. No guest of mine has ever lost a denarius from a thief climbing up and dropping into the enclosure. The large central court will accommodate at least a hundred head of camels or half again as many asses.


Around the outside wall of the compound are the stalls for my customers, high off the ground to give the merchant a view of his beasts and wares and deep enough against the wall to protect the weary traveler from the chill winter winds or the hot desert blasts that seasonally sweep up from the Dead Sea country. The overhanging roofs project far enough toward the court that my clients are comforted against the cold rains or the summer's brassy sun.


I shall never forget that day. It was in the early part of our year of the census. We had heard for months before that it was coming. It was justified, said the Romans, because only so could they regulate the military needs of the various parts of the empire. But we businessmen knew that it was only the Roman way of prodding into every corner of our lives both private and public for purposes of taxing us to the limit of any profit our industry and ingenuity might produce. Still, because so many Jews considered this home, it had brought the crowds to Bethlehem and was good for business.


The whole day long the streets teemed with increasing crowds of travelers and their animals. I fully believe that my compartments began to fill early by those who left the streets so they could escape the press of the throngs. One admitted that he came in just so he could breath. Two hours before the sun went down the inn, was already full of traveling merchants, many of them my regular customers. Then the Romans came, soldiers who shoved my best friends out of their places to take the choice spots and insisted that their horses be given the leeward shelter of the court. Every animal already tethered had to be moved to accommodate them.


Feeling good that so many coins had fallen into my pouch for one day's traffic, I went at sunset to close the gate of the stockade for the night. The second great leaf was almost shut when I saw them.


He was running and shouting for me to wait. I was inclined to pretend not to notice him and bang closed the gate when I spied her, seated on a seedy little donkey, both rider and beast so travel worn that they looked as if they could not go another step. Some urgency in the voice of the man arrested my hand and I felt without wanting to that I must do something. The woman was with child. Although ordinarily I could turn anyone away without a qualm, I was powerless to push the gate further.


He was from Galilee, you could tell it by his northern burr. He told of several days of hard travel from Nazareth, an insignificant hill town on the Capernaeum-Joppa road. He begged for shelter for the woman, who by this time had drawn near enough or me to see the mask of maternity which softened the lines of concern and pain in her face.


I was explaining that the compartments were full to overflowing, and there wasn't room for a single person, much less a couple wanting privacy, when the donkey interrupted by slowly and resignedly collapsing under his load. The man had time only to catch the woman in his strong capable arms and save her from sliding completely to the ground.


What could I do? I am no sentimentalist, and still was seeking an excuse to shut out the problem, when a simple solution occurred to me. I offered the man room in the court yard where the animals were stabled, for the woman, himself and his beast. They would have no roof, but they would have the comparative safety of the walls and some warmth from the screen of animal bodies. He accepted with the resignation of one who knew not what else he might do.


So I swung the door wide and he carried the woman across the threshold with all the tenderness of a gallant groom bringing his bride into his palace. He took her into the mass of the beasts and laid her gently down in a small clearing on a pile of hay. Returning he coaxed the tired burro to its feet and into the gate, tethering him within reach of a trough of hay and another of water. I closed the gate and shot the bolt and went to my own cubicle to spend a sleepless night.


The crowd within the walls was restive and noisy. In one quarter I could hear some camel drivers arguing loudly and cursing one another. Elsewhere there was a game of dice in progress among the soldiers. Some merchants were bargaining loudly and fruitlessly. Even the beasts seemed that they would never quiet down. And the noise of the street took ever so long in subsiding.

It wasn't till near midnight that the crowd began to prepare for sleep. Gradually the noises of the compound were replaced with the sleepy murmur of compartment mates, with the less frequent swish of hay, and the snores of the sleepers.


Finally all sounds seemed to stop together. It must have been at the midnight hour itself that a calm and peace lay over the town that felt as though it extended to the end of the world.


Then a baby cried. A baby! At once I knew. The woman had been delivered of her child. There, with only God's sky over her and with no more privacy than the bodies of weary pack animals and the unconcern of men could afford, she had silently labored and borne a new life into this troubled. world. I did not go to see, feeling that no one could attend her more faithfully or capably than the man.


The night was not an hour older when there cam a knock at the compound gate. I hastened to see who might want attention so late. At the entry were some local shepherds--no friends of mine since I had never had any of them within my walls before. But I knew them as simple men whose trade worked loneliness into the fabric of their lives but who were not without a local reputation of steadfastness and basic honesty.


They brought an incredible tale. They had been tending their sheep, they said, in nearby fields, when a light as bright as noonday had blinded their eyes. A messenger out of the brilliance had spoken a message to arrest the most stolid heart and set it throbbing with hope.


They said they came seeking a child, newborn, and already swathed in the baby-bands, but--and on this point they were most insistent--the child must be sleeping in a feed trough! That they were here was a miracle. By what instinct they came I know not, but here they were at the one place in all the world where the wonder of a human birth would be most humbled by the locale, by the unconcern of men, by the ignorance of beasts, by my own unwillingness to inconvenience myself.


I admitted the shepherds, and quietly we made our way to the spot where the Galileans had bedded down. Breathlessly the shepherds approached and when they got near enough to see with their keen eyes in the night's soft light, they knelt!


Then I saw. The stalwart man standing guard, the patient woman, reclining, yet relieved and relaxed, and the child. Oh, the feeling that swept over me, dashing away my worry of Rome and her soldiers, of Jerusalem and its tyrant, of all men and their greed, and of my own daily driving concern for things--things which now seemed so petty. And I began to hope with the hope of generations of my people, that here in this wondrous night, a child's birth would bring God's peace.

Road Trip

I just got back from a road trip with my 2 year-old granddaughter, our first ever. I sincerely hope it isn't our last. I also sincerely hope that she will be older when we do it again. Because 1) she will hopefully remember it better and 2) it won't be so physically exhausting. The exhaustion part was as much about the weather as about her energy.
You see, we were stuck in a condo with little outdoor time due to rainy, gloomy, icky weather. The many games and toys I had brought got old really quickly. I had coloring books, markers, magnetic letters, books, animal card games ad nauseum. The most favorite game? Her Leap Frog. I was very grateful to her mom for packing it. She is, after all, a child of the 21st century and is more facile with it than I am with my laptop.
We had maybe two minor meltdowns. I don't think she was feeling well after a long car trip. We sang the Itsy-Bitsy Spider and I'm a Little Teapot and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star like 60 times. I didn't feel so hot after that either. But singing in the car was one way my family passed the time when on long car trips, so in a way it was carrying on a tradition.
I did get to give her some new experiences.
We saw mountains and added that word to her vocabulary. We drove through the Smokies and saw "fog", which she conflated with "frog" and said "ribbit, ribbit". (You should try it sometime...try to describe and point to fog, in a way that a 2 yo can understand!) We saw different colored trees. (It was October along the Blue Ridge Parkway and Great Smokey Mountains, a trip everyone should have on their bucket list) We went through not one but two TUNNELS!!!Another vocab addition. She kept asking for more tunnels, as if in her mind, Grammer had conjured up the other ones and could easy build another tunnel with her mind power. It is lovely to think of myself as a super hero in her eyes.
On the way there, she asked "Back to Grammer's house?" I replied that we were going someplace different. She started to whine "Jumping on the bed"...an activity she greatly enjoys at my house. I assured her that, while we weren't going to Grammer's house, there were beds to be jumped on at the condo. Okay, then...fine by her.
There are few attractions in the wilds of Tennessee. We spent most of an afternoon looking for the "World's Largest Tree House". When we finally found it, it was no longer open to the public and frankly, one couldn't tell from a distance that it WAS a tree house. Sure, there were trees growing up through it, but the foundations was very much grounded on the ground. We had to rearrange, due to nap timing, a trip to a restored Homestead WPA-built house/museum, only to arrive after it was closed.
She didn't cry for her mom or dad but she talked to her mom on the phone about tunnels and mountains and swimming. (She adores swimming and the complex where we stayed sported an indoor pool.) She has patience I would not expect of a Terrible Two...and that is both a good thing and a bad thing. She was patient, spending many hours in the car with a few breaks. She was patient in asking for M&M's which, for some strange reason, she called "beans". She asked patiently for "beans" a lot. She also patiently asked for "cereal" over and over again until I gave her some, despite the fact that I was trying to pack the car and we were going to Shoney's for breakfast buffet before hitting the road. Miracle of miracles, they had "fairy cakes" (her word for mini cupcakes) at the breakfast buffet.
I tried not to fulfill all her requests for sweets, having had a few battles with my mother-in-law over the amount of sweets she gave my two sons. I try to balance spoiling her, which is after all the prerogative of grandparents, with following her parents' guidance over what they allow and what they disallow. They ARE her parents when all is said and done.
Mostly, she and Aunt Lynn and I spent the time just hanging out in the condo, musing about the golfers parading past our window in a steady drizzle and using sidewalk chalk on the wet deck and chatting about how brilliant my granddaughter is. I have envied my sister for YEARS, envied her her smart, beautiful grandchildren and the fact that she has lived with 2 of the 4 grandchildren she has. I must confess, I really enjoyed showing off MY smart, beautiful grandchild and letting Auntie to get to know her just a little. And I am oh, so grateful for my son and daughter-in-law, that they loved me and loved her enough to trust me with their treasure.
I have memories now, of seeing the Fall put on a show for us and watching her sleep and trying not to give her too many "beans" and jumping on the bed (of course, I HAD to fulfill that promise) and playing with Playdoh on the coffee table and making numerous trips up and down the stairs to rescue Bear and get diapers. (I never seemed to have everything I needed on the level we were on, probably because I live in a one-story house and don't usually have to plan trips up and down stairs. It was a good workout for me.)
I hope, oh, I so hope, she will have memories too...of mountains in full color and rain for the trees to drink and tunnels and time spent with me. And I hope they are all good.

To Choose or Not to Choose

I just watched an interview with a couple of authors who have both written about the myth of choice in our country. This is a subject I haven't necessarily studied at great length, but I've spent a good deal of my life thinking in terms of my own choices...or non-choices.

I remember vividly in my late 20's suddenly coming to the realization that there were some major life choices I didn't really make consciously. That is, I didn't know there were other options.

An example: I don't remember making the conscious choice about whether or not to marry. I made choices about when and who and where, just not ever making the choice to not stay single. Or, having children. I remember deciding how many kids I would have and when I would have them, but I don't remember making the choice to have them or not.

Don't get me wrong...I think I would have made the same choices anyway, and with the same result. I'm just not sure one can call it a "choice" if you don't see any other options.

The guy author, whose book is "The Myth of Choice", pointed out that perhaps we have far too many choices in our culture. Not the big ones, but the small ones. We expend way too much time and energy and capital on making choices that aren't earthshaking. It takes me far too long to do my grocery shopping, as an example, because there's like 300 different types of coffee on the shelves, with 200 different prices and  100 different ecological ramifications. It would take me far less time to complete my shopping list if there were only 10. Or 8.

In college, in a sociology class, I remember reading that we think we have choices in this country for our life mate, but really, we are so hemmed in by societal strictures about which race would be an appropriate husband material, and age and socio-economic status and education level and geographical location and...the list is endless which limits our "choice" of even whom to date, let alone whom to marry.

A man I met and dated in high school came to my college my freshman year and proposed marriage to me. Yet he was enrolled in another college located a state away and I couldn't see how a long-distance relationship would work. So, despite the fact that I loved him greatly, I sadly had to say no.

But back to the coffee analogy, maybe we are better off not having 150 million men to choose from. How would we EVER make a choice? Would we all die single and alone if we had to choose one life mate out of all the men in the world?

Not to get too political, but the Anti-Abortion folks think that, given a "choice", pregnant women would ALWAYS choose abortion over adoption or keeping the baby. They haven't a clue that sometimes, there is no other choice. If the father is absent and not wanting to be involved, if the woman is compromised by her health, if the fetus is no longer viable...the list is endless about why abortion would be a sad choice. If you do away with abortion altogether (an impossibility, but that's what they think) and one's only "option" is to carry the baby to term, regardless of the baby's health, that's really not a choice.

Or the anti-abortion folks who had a choice themselves, they just don't trust anyone else to make the "moral" choice they did. Sarah Palin once famously said  (I'm paraphrasing here) that she had made the difficult choice to carry her Down's Syndrome baby and she was glad she had. Reading between the lines, she made a conscious decision to have her baby, but other women wouldn't have the same courage to make that choice as well. Ergo, they shouldn't have a choice.

I heard somewhere that we make an average of 70 choices per day. Now, most of those are trivia: what should I wear to work, should I go out to lunch or carry it, what will I have for dinner? But some of them are life-changing. Sometimes our "choices" are the result of dithering and not making a choice, which is in itself a choice.

This week's Time Magazine has an article about people who choose not to have children. I remember leaving my kids' with a childless couple up my street while on a work-related trip. When I returned home, Terry confided in me that they saw this as an opportunity to decide for good whether or not to have children and they had confirmed their latent desire to remain childless.

I was horrified, thinking that the boys had been so bad, they had perhaps pushed Terry and Dan over the childless edge. No, she hastened to reassure me, they hadn't been bad. It was just that they had taken so much time from her home-based business. She had had no idea that she couldn't just park my kids in front of a TV and go about her business.

Many childless couples receive the label of "selfish" when they say that they have chosen to be childless. Sympathies abound for those sad couples who don't choose to be childless but who nevertheless are. But perish the thought that some couples choose for whatever reason to not have kids. They are truly being selfless, not bringing a baby into this world, overpopulated as it is, to a family that doesn't want them, or wants them just to keep Grandma happy or due to societal pressure or because all their friends are doing it. (We all remember our mothers' answer to that excuse. Some variation of "If all your friends jump off a cliff...")

I moved to North  Carolina on a split second decision, thinking as I did so that many of my life-changing decisions, made with a lot of thought and prayer, turned out to be so abysmal, so I should try making a life-changing decision on a whim.

I haven't yet decided whether this post makes any sense, so I'll just post it anyway. Maybe all of us should make decisions with the clear understanding that we really don't have unlimited choices and sometimes, it's a mere choice between two evils. And never, ever judge anyone else's choice.