As we were passing around the white lightning as the lightning crackled through the sky last night, each one sharing a toast as it was our turn to drink, one of the guys shared this, "as my great grandma told me on her death bed:
"Remember the storks, which bring the good babies,
and remember the ravens, which bring the bad babies,
and remember the swallows, which bring no babies at all."
Now, it was a joke, and it was funny, and I laughed with the rest (though I'm pretty sure my wife hadn't joined the circle yet). But I've been reflecting a lot lately on how we've turned the pleasure of our sexuality into its purpose. Don't get me wrong: I'm not suggesting that each act of sex should have the goal of conception, nor that couples who can't (or mustn't) conceive shouldn't have sex or take appropriate action when they do. But that doesn't mean I'm not aware of the attitude that a baby is an undesirable outcome of the expression of our love, or worse, the ultimate damper on our fun. This separation of sex from procreation is at the root of a vast set of misunderstandings we have about ourselves and our world. Pope Paul VI was prophetic when he wrote of the fruit that the contraceptive mindset would bear. We must be careful, even when our circumstances compel us to choose in apparent diversion from the ideal, not to let this choice erode the sanctity of our sexual nature as couples and as a culture.
I'm not so good at that.
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