Is there a theologian in the house?
Because I am a bit baffled by this:
I am a 54-year-old widow, with four adult children. My husband died suddenly of a massive heart attack two years ago. My problem is in coping with my decision, as a practising Catholic, to remain celibate for the rest of my natural life; I cannot be the only person in this position. I thought as time passed this choice would feel more natural and become easier. Au contraire! I am finding abstinence increasingly difficult to cope with. Any advice on helpful reading or tactics that will allow me to keep my sanity along with my celibacy?
As I understand it, remarriage after the death of a spouse is permitted in the Catholic church, to the extent that there was a 1961 movie Divorce Italian Style which was, indeed, about getting rid of existing spouse in order to marry Another. Okay, if woman in question is 54 she's unlikely to be able to start a new family, but to the best of my knowledge, intercourse after menopause is not actually prohibited?
Will concede, that in my not necessarily typical experience and with no religious angle to the question, I do have the feeling that I have been so very long with one particular person that I find it very difficult to get my head around how one gets to be with someone else, but that seems to me to be a rather different problem. And that circumstances might well alter cases.
***
Plus a few links for your delectation:
Clarks shoes are back in fashion, thanks to dancehall artist Vybz Kartel. This is poss a lot more amusing if one's main association with Clark's Shoes is knowing somewhat about that Quaker family of enlightened capitalists which included the first-wave feminist historian Alice Clark.
Readers recommends songs about South America. Alas, no mention of the title song from the Bogglemen's movie, 'Bogglin' down to Rio'? (or even 'Copacabana Beach Boggle') (I thought I had a post on this lost gem of the cheesy 1960s pop movie genre, all very obvious stock back projections of location, highly implausible plot, and shoehorned-in songs, but it must have been something in comments somewhere.)
I am quite often annoyed by Peter Bradshaw's critical judgements about movies, but this made me smirk: 'really quite staggeringly boring in the way only a deeply personal film from a deeply important film-maker can be'.
Galleries and museums face summer of protest over BP arts sponsorship
"There is gender asbestos - it's in the walls and it will take a bit of time and more work to get it out": Businesswomen call for end to workplace inequality.
And I am just going 'How cool is it that the new Australian PM is an unmarried childless woman who was a 10-pound Pom?'
This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/1248959.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
comments.