Around These Parts, Every Week is NFP Awareness Week

Around These Parts, Every Week is NFP Awareness Week August 1, 2015

So I spent NFP Awareness Week cleaning my house.  Not just ordinary cleaning, but epic, Biblically-proportioned it’s as if we’re trying to get our life in order cleaning Not done yet, but one can only make so many decluttering decisions before it’s necessary to run away and ride roller coasters all day, which I also did.  There are scripture verses about this.

But fear not, we do NFP all year around here.  Technically the bishops do, too, but probably they try not to think about it more than one week in 52, and if I were a bishop I’d keep it that way myself.  Oh, look at my chart, it says I still have the fullness of the sacrament of Holy Orders.  Guess I’ll abstain again today. Sure, bishop-NFP is simple, but that’s no reason to be jealous.

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I endeavor to continue my erratic writing behavior into the near future, as I have to complete my Stage One Urgent Sorting and Filing Decisions by Thursday morning so we can have our living room back.  Fortunately other bloggers have stepped in to fill the gap.

For some of my favorite links below you’ll have to put on your thinking cap to figure out the NFP connection, but I promise you there is one:

1. For all your general-purpose NFP Awareness needs, check out NFP Aware.  Here’s the link to their latest infographic: #ditchtherisk linked and shared below.  You can listen to NFP instructor and the infographic’s author Kristin Putman and her husband radio host Timothy Putnam discussing NFP and the risks of contraception on the Outside the Walls radio show.  Check out the whole Outside the Walls blog, loads of cool stuff there.

2. Simcha Fisher writes “On Complaining Honestly About NFP.”  With links to me and Dr. Greg Popcak.  I want to be Simcha when I grow up.  I did once post a poem on the wall, so I’m getting there.

3. Evangelical Anglican philosophy student Scott Reeves decides to answer the horrible claims of the “patriarchy” movement with a thorough and well-reasoned rebuttal.  (Longtime readers will recall I went for decisively emphatic and left it at that.  Scott fills in the blanks, and he’s the man for it.)

4. Salim Furth takes a look at a book comparing American childhood poverty in 1959 and today, and notices a suspicious difference: In those days, poor children grew up in families with no money, in these days they grow up in money with no family.  The results are radically, direly different.

5. Morgan McFarlin writes on the merits of learning NFP for the single-and-celibate young woman.  Hint: It’s not Catholic birth control, and there are good reasons to consider learning more about how your body works.

6. Thanks to Michael Liccione for the link to this study on whether access to contraception reduces teen pregnancies.

7. This isn’t strictly speaking NFP, it’s just cool: A billionaire Catholic layman notes a need and decides to build a beautiful silent-retreat center in the midwest.  Those of us with sufficient awareness, of course, can think of ways such a thing might come in useful for the abstaining couple.

8.  You want to bring the best normal-people-compatible chastity program going to your diocese? Check out Family Honor.  It only takes one male and one female presenter to bring the most important program (the one for parents-only) to your area.  The preparation is top notch, and the programs are the most organized, professionally-run thing you’ll ever encounter — absolutely a dream to present for them, because you can walk on and go.  If you aren’t the next Jason Evert but you still have teenagers in your diocese who need family-centered chastity programs, Family Honor is your new best friend.

 

Image courtesy of the NFP Aware #ditchtherisk.  Click through for more information, including permission to print the poster for educational purposes (no permission to edit – use it how you found it).


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