Why don’t my wife Catherine and I have any children, you ask?

Actually, you totally didn‘t ask that. In the past two-and-a-half years, some 15,0000 comments have been left on this blog—and not once has anyone asked me why I don’t have kids.

Laggers. You know my life is an open book. I can’t imagine what you could ask me that I wouldn‘t answer.

Wait. Yes, I can.

Yikes. Thank goodness you guys would never ask me anything about that.

Anyway, yesterday the fellow who runs this blog here did ask me why my wife and I are sans youngins. And on the very off chance that you, too, are curious about that, here are the reasons that, some thirty years ago, Cat and I decided to fashion our lives in the way that we did.

1. Cat and I knew that it was going to take the rest of our lives to understand and (frankly) heal from the unbelievably awful childhoods we each suffered. I’m not generally keen on beginning one thing until I’ve concluded the first.

2. Like Cat, I have no emotional model in my head for Family Togetherness. I know a lot of people are motivated to have a family as a way of perpetuating the good, healthy family relationships they’ve always known. And what a beautifully nurturing thing that is! But for us, that would be like trying to sing along to a distant echo of a song we’ve never heard before. It’s a great song—maybe the great song! We just don’t know it in that personal, build-your-life-around-it kind of way.

3. All my life I’ve known that I had to be an artist whose medium is the written word. (I’m not proud of that, and I’m certainly not saying I’ve achieved anything in that regard. I’m only saying that I’ve always known that I would spend my life trying to produce art through writing.) Dedicating your life to one thing means not dedicating it to anything else. (Plus, I knew that being an artist could very well mean spending my life entirely poor. That had to be okay. And I knew that wouldn’t be okay with me if I were a father.)

4. This’ll sound insane (and insanely negative), but here it is: When I was about 10, I sort of all at once understood (and I’m not saying I was right, just that in my little 10-year-old brain I felt it true) that our planet was doomed. I was walking to school; I looked up at the mountains in the distance; and whooom: I knew we’d clog this earth beyond its capacity to recover itself. Talk about … stopping in your tracks. From that moment until now I’ve watched for evidence of it being Actually True that our race would fail from us destroying our planet. The fact that I’ve always been sure that would happen is why I was okay with not having children. I know it sounds terrible to say, but if our current system hangs together for just another 40 years or so, I’m good. But if I had kids of my own, I wouldn’t be even almost okay with such short-range hopes. Having no children leaves me free to shut the book on this story without really caring how it ends. (I want it to end well, of course! But people need to do whatever they do. And they/we will, as ever. Maybe that’ll involve saving the planet. Maybe it won’t.)

5. Cat and I figured we could always adopt. Why have a kid of your own, when the world’s already filled with perfectly great kids no one wants?

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Related post o’ mine: Unhappy? Reject Your Parents.

If you like this piece, please pass it on, or post its link on your blog, or your Facebook page—or e-mail it to your friends, or join my FB page (see below), or whatever you might. For verily am I loathe to write in anything resembling a vacuum, if you see why. Thanks.

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Are you kidding me, People magazine? This guy is your 2009 “Sexiest Man Alive”?! Oh, come on. He looks like one of the Village People on drugs. And his being on drugs would explain why Johnny No-Depth here is clearly hallucinating that he’s on a polar bear rug with a roaring fireplace behind him.

Plus—hello, People magazine: anyone there own a calendar? Because you should know 2009 isn’t even over yet. There’s still plenty of time left this year for a sexier guy than this to come along. The wino who lives in the park by my house would do. He actually dresses better than Mr. Raggedy Dandy here.

Okay, fine. I admit it. I’m bitter. Of course I am. Because I applied for People magazine’s 2009 Sexiest Man Alive contest, too. But did I win? No. Did any of the flack hacks at People even acknowledge the photo package I sent them (along with a list of my favorite things to do, and a sample of my favorite men’s cologne that was on a page I tore from a GQ?) No.

Sure, I gained a little weight this year. I know that. But unlike Johnny Diptstick’s, at least my bulges are real. And sure, I, too, could have taken a tip from the Popeye the Sailor Ham school of fashion, and used a kitchen towel to cover my receding hairline. I could have Photoshopped in some pec def; I could ripped the perfect little hole in my T-shirt. But that kind of chicanery is for losers, man. The photos I sent in were of a real man, man. The holes in my T-shirt were real. The bald spot you could see in the picture I took in my bathroom was real.

And do you think Johnny Depp took the trouble to write “Vote 4 Me!” in his wet back hair? I don’t either.

But he wins 2009’s “Sexiest Man of the Year,” while I didn’t even save copies of the photos I sent in for the same contest.

Oh, well. It’s their loss.

And, needless to say, yours.

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On the Christian website Crosswalk.com I yesterday spotted an article entitled (something like) “Can Pornography Be Educational?” Though I failed to read the article, its title did get me thinking about these top 10 lessons that I think can be learned by anyone who pays close enough attention to pornographic movies:

1. A porno movie is like a farmer in the city: they’re both desperate for even a little plot.

2. Porno is gossip boiled down to its most elemental components.

3. It apparently sometimes pleases God to indulge in anatomical exaggeration. And there’s nothing you can do about it.

4. Getting paid to pretend you’re enjoying sex is only a little more depressing than paying to watch someone who is getting paid to pretend they’re enjoying sex.

5. “Find repulsive; tolerate; accept; desire” are the steps to Satan’s four-step waltz.

6. You know you’ve watched too much computer porn when you realize you’re ambidextrous.

7. Porn is like lunch: it’s never, ever free.

8. Way, way too many men hate women.

9. Sex without love is depressing.

10. Sex without love is really depressing.

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Yesterday I wrote A Psychotherapist’s (Imagined) Field Notes on Why Church is So Boring, which is awesome even though I wrote it—but whatever.

But that piece did make me remember that I know from psychotherapy. For one, the man who for some ten years was my stepfather (that’s the guy who marries your mom, right?) was (and I promise I’m not even almost exaggerating) a world-renowned psychologist. So much so, in fact, that there’s no question but that your life has been directly if not dramatically impacted by his work.

And the good, hyper-charismatic doctor was/is ridiculously intelligent; as a kid, even I knew it. Sure, I had to lie awake at night listening to Dr. Feelgood have sex with my mother. But it was the 70’s, a truly unique period in the history of conventional sexual mores. On their coffee table, my mom and he kept a copy of The Joy of Sex, along with the latest issue of Penthouse.

You youngins may not know that there was a time when keeping a copy of Penthouse and/or (for the slightly more conventional) Playboy on your coffee table signified that you were part of the cutting-edge intelligentsia: you were (or at the very least were pretending to be) part of the feminist/intellectual/disestablishmentarianism set.

You were a radical. An artist. A freethinker.

You smoked pot. You did sculpture.

You totally traumatized your 13-year-old son in the middle of the night with sounds that there should be laws against anyone under the age of thirty ever having to hear.

But I digest. The point is, I was just now thinking how great it would be to turn the tables on the bit I wrote yesterday, and write from the point of view of a Christian analyzing why psychotherapy (as opposed to church, see) is so boringly lame.

Wouldn’t that have been great? But, alas, you see how much time I’ve already spent writing just this.

Time and space. Whaddaya gonna do?

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Yesterday whilst zipping about the web I saw a story headlined, “Psychotherapist Analyzes Why Church is So Boring.” I didn’t read the story because who gives a sprung couch spring—but then this morning I woke up imagining what Dr. Pill wrote in his notebook as he sat in the church service he analyzed. Maybe his notes looked something like this:

Benches too hard. Pew. P.U. Potty issues?

Men in suits. Church just another job?

Opening song: Awful. Rock of Aged. What about Stones, Clapton. Bob Marley? Polka? Anything.

Church announcements/biz. Meetings, meetings, meetingszzzzzzzz. Need scandal, gossip! Missed opp.

“Kidz Tyme.” (Why can’t Johnny’s dad spell?) Years for kids to finally gather up front. Mr. Child Relate tells story about choosing right present, or presenting right choice, or righting present choice. Yawnfest. Kids seem to enjoy! But at what cost?

Another song?! Worst rock concert EVER!!!

Sermon. So this is how Christians condition selves to experience eternity. I miss music.

People asking for prayers. Not boring. Cried a little. (Pray for cancer lady.) Put in more of this.

Another song. A.N.O.T.H.E.R.F.R.E.A.K.I.N.G.S.O.N.G!.!.!.!. I would buy this church a karaoke machine. Will.

Pass hat time. Please, God: buy music lessons for Lead Zeppelin.

Bread and wine time. Wine to vinegar if any slower. Seconds on wine ok? Cheez Whiz? Lox? (Hell for me?)

Final goodbye—go, be blessing to world, bore people into believing etc. Procession out: Plod of the Half-Dead. Must shake pastor’s hand. (Germs?)

Verdict? Not exactly Circ de’ Soul.

And yet. (!!!)

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Me

Tonight my wife Catherine and I went to Pottery Barn to buy two white panel curtains that I’ll later hang in her office using my drill, a screw driver, a pencil, a level, and a step-ladder. When we arrived home at around 8 p.m. I made myself a martini, which I sipped at the dining room table while Cat warmed us both up some soup. We enjoyed our soup while sitting in front of our big TV watching “Indiscreet,” starring Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman. About 10:30 I got tired, and went off to bed.

But now I can’t sleep. And the haunting thought that’s keeping me awake?

When—oh, God, when??— did I become my father?

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Now here's a guy who takes his punctuation seriously.

This morning I received a message from a new e-friend, Tammy Lubbers, whose Facebook page is here.

“You wrote a book about punctuation?” she wrote. [She is referring to Comma Sense, a book that I don't think it immodest of me to acknowledge has made me famous throughout my house.] I KNEW I liked you! I’ve decided to begin a petition to eradicate apostrophes, as they are rarely used correctly. Want to join?”

I was appalled; I was aghast; I was mortified; I was eating a bowl of Life cereal, which is perfectly named since it’s not quite sweet enough.

Milk flying everywhere, I fired back this missile of a missive:

“God, no. I LOVE and constantly use the semicolon; I wholly depend upon it. SEE?! You start a club about how to use [the semicolon] correctly, and I’m your man. But eradicate it? No, no, no, no, no. We only have 13 punctuation marks, total. I NEED the semicolon. NEED, I SAY!!!”

My wife Catherine thinks I’m insane about punctuation. She’s wrong, of course. Period.

Now then. As a reader of my blog, I know that you are a literate: sophisticated, educated, knowledgable knowledgible smart. And Mrs. Lubbers, I happen to know, isn’t exactly a drooling admirer of shiny objects. So I ask: What think you of this move I have reason to know is burgeoning out there, of eradicating the semicolon? Are you for that? Is anyone? Do people really not know how to use this noblest (if most finicky) of punctuation marks?

If more of you vote for eradicating than saving the semicolon, I will swallow my protests, bow to your will, and see to it that the semicolon vanishes from use.

That’s right. I can do that. They don’t let just anybody write those books, you know.

So what say you, reader? Thumbs up or down for Ye Oldye Semicolon?

Related to this is my completely excellent When Punctuation Goes Really, Really Wrong.

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To clear up what I know has amounted to a little bit of confusion: the reason Carrie Prejean and her representatives tried to get Prejean’s ex-boyfriend to lie and say that she was 17 when she made the porno tape of herself is because if she was 17 when she made the tape (she wasn’t; she was 20), that would make it child pornography—-which would make it illegal for anyone to show or sell.

I also wrote: Christians, Can We Please Stop Embarrassing Ourselves With the Likes of Carrie Prejean?

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It’s been my experience that what the statement, “It’s not Christ I have a problem with; it’s Christians,” invariably boils down to is, “I have a problem with Paul.” What do you think is the proper Christian response to that? Is there anywhere, you think, where Christ ends, and Paul begins? If so, what if anything does that distinction mean to you? More to the point, what if anything do you think it should mean to the non-Christian wondering about Christianity? In my discussions with non-Christians about my faith, this comes up a lot, so I thought I’d ask. **********************************************************************************************************
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Many people relish the Holiday Family Gathering. Ideally we would all relish it—but, alas, for many attending a HFG is like going to the dentist: unavoidable, uncomfortable, painful, disturbingly intrusive, and way too much about what you do and don’t eat.

Mostly, of course, both visits are all about enduring it while your open nerves get poked at and jabbed.

Does thinking about an upcoming family gathering make you want to hide beneath a lead blanket and start spitting? Good —because times of emotional stress are the times to heed Jesus.

Bearing that truth in mind, let us turn to the Beatitudes from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, that perfect distillation of his overall message to the world. At the beginning of each beatitude, Jesus teaches us one aspect of who we should strive to become in order to more fully manifest him. So let’s consider what role each beatitude might play in our attitude, in order to preclude our getting stewed, blued, in a feud (or booed!) when for the holidays we meet with our brood.

Don’t seclude; be renewed!

Annoy your readers, so they’ll attend St. Peter’s!

Please forgive me; I have some sort of … organic rhyming dysfunction.

Here’s what Jesus teaches us at Matthew 5:3-12, and how we can use it to this year be a blessing to ourselves and our families when we meet with them over the holidays.

Blessed are the poor in spirit. We tend to go into family gatherings pretty keyed up. We feel intense, alert, super-sensitive to everything everybody says and does; when we hear, “You’re here!” our spidey senses kick fully on. But that’s exactly the opposite of being “poor in spirit”; that’s being too rich in spirit. At its core that’s all about ego. Before stepping into your family gathering, take a minute, take a breath, and fill yourself with the Holy Spirit—which eradicates your grubby, score-keeping ego spirit, and brings in its place the spirit of Jesus. And if there’s one thing Jesus showed us, it’s that it’s all about wanting and keeping nothing for yourself.

Blessed are those who mourn. Again, this is about the Holy Spirit filling you with the understanding that everything of this world—including your family—is temporary. Centering yourself within that truth gives you the clarity to appreciate that everyone in your family is just like everyone else in the world: in need of constant, absolute, and perfect love. That’s a hunger that can’t get met on earth. And that fact does inform the human experience with a very great sadness. Know that. Be with that. Let the truth of that flow through you, so that you treat the members of your family not as people with whom you have your own specific, tangled history, but as co-travelers through what is, after all, this veil of tears we call life.

Blessed are the meek. Don’t fight. Don’t provoke. Don’t defend. Don’t insist that your thoughts and opinions are given their full weight. Let every last bit of that go. Allow others to go before you. Let others have the floor. Let others be right and strong and firm and clear in whatever way it’s important for them to be so. Support them in an unqualified way. Instead of saying the words your ego-self is first inclined to, say what you know would most please the other person. Why not? If Jesus can sacrifice his life in order for you to be reconciled with God, you can surely sacrifice a bit of yourself in order to promote harmony within your family.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Always look to, point at, emphasize, and celebrate the good. Forget everything else; for the time that you are with your family, allow all negativity to mean to you nothing whatsoever. Be the person who clearly aligns themselves with what’s right and true and just. Listen to the Holy Spirit, who will always carry you to where God is most fully manifested. Maybe that will be in the way your mother works so hard. Maybe it will be in the physical grace with which your father or brother moves. Whatever and wherever it is, find it. There’s God! Be with Him, and then be with them.

Blessed are the merciful. No mystery here. Forgive, forgive, forgive till it hurts. Why shouldn’t you? You’re no angel. None of us is. We’ve all done more wrong things than there are numbers to count them. Forgive everyone in your family. When it comes to our proper relationship to our family members, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do,” should be tattooed on our hearts. They didn’t know. They couldn’t. None of us can. Our only hope is forgive each other the way Christ forgave us all.

Blessed are the pure in heart. Don’t let the negative stay with you. When you see something that’s nasty or snarky or interested only in itself heading your way, step aside, and let it roll right past. Wave to it as it goes by—and then turn your attention back to the Holy Spirit within you. That is God—who, the Bible tells us, is love. There’s the source of your perpetually renewed purity.

Blessed are the peacemakers. It’s not possible to feel truly loving and forgiving without then acting upon that feeling. Show that the peace of the Lord is upon you by becoming the means by which others find peace between themselves. You can’t force that sort of thing, of course. But if you keep your loving heart open to it, you are guaranteed to find among your family members constant little revelations that, like all people, all they really want is to exist harmoniously with those nearest them. Guide the members of your family back together. Carefully and sensitively minister to their desire for reconciliation. Be bold about it, too: don’t be afraid to out-and-out suggest to someone whom they should forgive what, and exactly why. Sometimes you really do have to make peace. Whatever it takes. But you be the one to do it. And you start it, too: share with members of your family why you’re so pleased to take full responsibility for something that in the past went wrong between you and them. So what if it’s not really that cut and dried? It’s close enough. Let go of the wrong that tries to claim you as its own. Make peace.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness. Being truly right and loving can be truly lonely. So what? You don’t serve God because it feels good, or because of the great rewards that come with sacrifice. You serve God’s will because you know it’s the right and best thing to do. And sometimes that hurts. Which is fair: a sacrifice that feels good, after all, is no sacrifice at all. The devil takes a very acute interest in the person who aligns himself with God. You know that—so prepare for it. And how do you do that? By not even trying to fight the ever-wily devil yourself, but rather getting out of the way, and allowing God to bring the full measure of himself against Mr. Horny Head. That you will be persecuted on account of your aligning yourself with righteousness isn’t in question. The question is whether or not you can continue to feel blessed whilst that persecution is under way. And the quickest, surest way to do that is to remember how horribly Christ was treated. The simple, healing truth is that we are most like Christ when we are being persecuted the most. So don’t worry if your family, for instance, in any way derides you for your belief and faith in God. Just smile–and laugh, even, as you acknowledge the validity of how your passion for God must look to them. Just remain with the Lord, and like day follows night he’ll lead you back into Eden.

If you like this, do me a favor and pass it on/recommend it to your friends. Thanks.

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