UPFRONT:DEAR MISS INGLE, Responsible couples (men and women) will prepare well and properly for marriage. Being pregnant before marriage is sinful, wrong and against God's laws for marriage.
Many young people today living together before marriage are acting like love rats with no respect for the marriage sacrament.
Yours faithfully,
Irish Timesreader
Dear Reader,
Thanks for your note. I would write back to you privately except you didn't leave a name or a forwarding address. It's a curious thing, faithful ITreader. Most of the correspondents like yourself who write in to me or my colleagues moralising about sex or marriage or the youth of today don't have the courage to put their names to their letters. This seems strange as your convictions are clearly deeply held, even if they are, with respect, different to mine.
Take your first four words. "Responsible couples (men and women)". I find it interesting that you stipulated the gender of those you consider responsible couples. I know of many responsible relationships that don't fit neatly into that box. Men and men. Women and women. Roy and Hayley Cropper off Coronation Street. You get my drift.
If I think your views are bonkers I can only imagine what you think of mine. Even so, what I'd really like to talk to you about is your view that being "pregnant before marriage" is "sinful, wrong and against God's laws for marriage". The thing is, dear ITreader, this very much depends upon what kind of God you believe in. No offence, but I don't fancy yours much. Let me tell you about mine.
She is Love. She doesn't care two crucifixes about rites or rituals or churches or statues or Vatican-style wealth or stations of the cross. She does not go to Mass. She is not a Catholic. Or a Protestant. Or a born-again Christian. She doesn't believe in sacraments. Or transubstantiation. She giggles at the man-made laws of religions, smiles when a church choir sends a stream of exalted energy out to the universe or when a moment of mass meditation transcends these laws and she weeps when these same laws cause hate and war and greed. She is Love.
He feels compassion for you always, even as you sit down to write a letter full of judgment, even as you use your words to poison the most precious thing that's ever happened in my life. He feels compassion for me, as I open the letter, as I give in to anger instead of turning the other cheek, as my head throbs with the desire to lash out at a world that contains so many people who think the way you do. He calms me down. He fills me with compassion.
It is Love. It knows that you were brought up at a time when religion was beaten into a good portion of the population. It knows back then that some men in robes and some women in habits abused what they believed were God-given powers and that they instilled fear. It knows you are scared sometimes, fearful about the changing world around you. It knows that the words in your letter do not represent your true spirit. It sees your true spirit shining even if you can't, white and pure like an electrical current around you and in you. It loves you.
He knows that a lot of the time these days I'm scared out of my mind and that sometimes this fear makes me confused about whether this pregnancy is really what I want. He knows it's hard for me because I don't like being out of control. He knows I worry about looking after a tiny vulnerable being when I've been known to make a right hames of looking after myself.
He knows that marriage is not important, that it means nothing except what society has decreed in law and custom. He knows I am lucky enough to share a deep commitment and love with the father of my child, who as it happens is the opposite of a love rat - a love dove, something like that.
Anyway, She loves me. He forgives me. It loves you. She forgives you. She whispers in my ear that everything is exactly as it should be, even the horrible, heartbreaking stuff. He makes me love you and all those like you, faithful IT reader, even though an hour ago I couldn't stand you and all those like you. It is Love.