Can you stand to hear a story that’s probably a little too personal for these august pages? Because I have one! And I do have a reason for telling it.
I’m 50 years old. I have 10 children, and the youngest one just turned 10. I have grey hair and wrinkles and a little arthritis, and I spend more time hunting for my reading glasses than I spend on almost any other activity. The other day, I couldn’t remember the word “fork.”
I also have a body that stubbornly continues to keep popping out ova every month, right on schedule. As far as I can tell, I could probably get pregnant again if I wanted to, which I most adamantly do not. I know the chances of carrying a healthy baby to term at my age are (unlike myself) much slimmer than they used to be, but they certainly aren’t zero. I look at my family history and I think, nah, I’m not taking any chances.
I really like walking past the diaper aisle without buying anything! I like being able to take medicine without freaking out about possible birth defects. I prefer to spend my days in agonising worry over the 10 children I already have, thank you very much. I really don’t want another baby.
Well, maybe a little bit. I do like babies. I actually love babies. If we had another baby, I would adore him from the very first second I knew he existed, and it would be incredible. It would be amazing. It would be preposterous. It would be insane. It would be so nice.
These are the thoughts that run through my head every month.
So the other morning, I groaned as I dragged my sorry self out of bed to do what I not-very-funnily call “my chemistry experiment,” to see if I was fertile that day or not. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror in my schlumpy old pajamas and thought how absurd it was that I still have to DO this. I’m so old! It’s so ridiculous! I am HALF A CENTURY OLD.
Then I thought, and how ridiculous would it be to show up at the OB/GYN with my grey hair and wrinkles and arthritis and a big ol’ pregnant belly? So I sighed, and did my dang fertility test.
I was chatting about this with some Catholic women my age, about how ridiculous it would be; and one of them said that, if I were pregnant, it wouldn’t be ridiculous. It would be beautiful!
Ladies and gentlemen, it would be both.
Two things can be true at the same time. In fact, most true things are at least two things at the same time. When we get ourselves into trouble is when we expect some human experience to be pure, unmixed, and clearly labelled as one thing or another.
Let me give you some more examples.
Marriage is a divine institution, and it can be a great source of joy and sanctification. It can also be a tremendous burden and source of pain and sorrow.
Leaving an abusive marriage can be the best, smartest, healthiest thing you’ve ever done, and also crushingly tragic.
God cares about every hair on our heads and doesn’t let a single breath of ours pass in or out of our lungs without his ardent attention. And also, sometimes he does not speak to us.
A priest is an “alter Christus,” and sometimes also complete jackasses, or silly, or weak, or mean.
Death of a loved one can be a gutting loss, and also a relief.
The Eucharist is the source and summit of our Catholic faith, and it also feels like standing in line and getting a piece of cracker.
Conquering an addiction can be a relief, and also a loss.
People can be evil and also charming. People can be evil with some good qualities. People can be good with a mean streak. People can be good and evil at the same time, in the same day.
We like to talk about how human beings are both body and soul, and how that makes for some, to put it mildly, complications in how we make our way through life. I think we sometimes underestimate how that duality tends to multiply and echo throughout so many other aspects of our existence.
Like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said, “The line separating good and evil runs not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart.” And all the little tributaries of good and evil—generosity and selfishness, kindness and cruelty, bravery and cravenness, and even wonderfulness and ridiculousness—all these also run through every human heart.
So it’s a waste of time to expect some human experience—even a sacred one—to be entirely pure and unmixed. Expecting it to be this way will only lead to disappointment, resentment, or the haunting fear that there is something wrong with you. It’s just what life is like. It’s complicated! It’s okay. It’s normal.
But it’s worse than a waste of time to look at one of our fellow human beings and think we can decide if they’re one of those good people, or one of those bad people. They’re definitely both. So are all of us. It is wonderful, and ridiculous.
Two things at once! And so shall it ever be, until we are perfected in paradise.