for moms with careers on their minds

A few weeks ago, my friend Anne (who works for WomenVenture, a non-profit that helps women — and men — start businesses, discern career directions and become more financially literate) invited me to be part of a focus group to help plan a new class WomenVenture is offering — "Career and Life Planning for Moms." It sounded like such an interesting class that I decided to take it myself. I hope it'll help give me some direction about eventually re-entering the work world (work outside of mothering, I should say), whether that's via freelancing or something new and different a few years down the road. And hey — after Baby No. 2 is born, it's going to be a lot harder to leave the kids home with Steve on Saturday mornings and do something like this.

I thought I'd post some information about the class here, since I know a number of you may be contemplating some of the same issues. So ... click here if you're interested. (I think there may be a discount on the registration fee.)

(Here are Anne and me on Saturday night — a few friends and I got together to celebrate my birthday. We went to Buca's, and to steal a lyric from that famous Italian-American Frank Sinatra, it was a very good time.)

like I really need this stress

Argggh! Since mid-November, I've been working on an article that has been one of my most challenging and frustrating experiences in my 15 years of doing journalism. It's supposed to be a profile on the founder and former CEO of a big company known for his ethical business practices, his philanthropy, his sense of integrity. And, apparently, his extreme privacy. He won't talk to me. The people at his company who handle his calls have consistently told me his schedule is too busy, that he gets so many media requests that he turns many of them down. (There is much more to this story, which I originally relayed here in detail, but I've cut it because I don't feel comfortable having it on this blog.) At any rate, I have to try to do this article in the best way I can, culling information from public sources, which basically means things I can find online and in previously published materials, and getting comments and anecdotes from people who know this man. What was supposed to be a straightforward little profile has morphed into something that feels overwhelming. And I don't have a lot of time to devote to it, since my main work time is at night and on weekends.

So today, in my latest phone conversation with the company's communications director, Daniel was squawking and running around and upsetting papers, and I kept having to say, "Excuse me" to her while I calmed him down. At one point she told me something that really made me bristle. (Again, I've cut the specifics.) And when I got off the phone, I called Steve, and when I got off the phone with Steve, I walked into the living room, and Daniel had scrawled several square feet's worth of lines and circles all over the wall with a blue crayon. I lost it then and there, sat down on the floor and started crying. I hate crying in front of him. He doesn't understand, and he doesn't know what to do. But I felt totally overcome by frustration, probably helped along considerably by hormones. I don't think he's scarred for life, at any rate. He seems to have gotten over it, and he enjoyed watching Steve clean the wall. And now it's Friday night, and I'm OK too, except I have a whole weekend to stew over this and try to figure out how to shape the story.

It gives me a lot to think about as I work my way into the freelancing world. At this stage, I may agree to do jobs that don't necessarily excite me; it's a good way to get a variety of clips and develop some experience and connections with different publications. Besides, I often learn something from those articles and end up being more engaged than I thought I would. But my hope is that somewhere down the line, I will hold the reins a bit more and decide what I want to write about and what types of jobs to pass on — and that I'll be able to do this work with more of a sense of direction. Plus, I'd like to learn how to better evaluate ahead of time how much time and energy a job is going to take, and to decide: How much stress am I willing to allow myself? At what point do I say, "This is enough?"

my radio debut

I was on a national radio program tonight! OK, that sounds more impressive than it probably is, but hey, my cheerleading squad (Steve) thinks it's cool. I wrote an article recently for National Catholic Reporter on small Christian communities. It was one of the stories I was hurrying to finish before I had my surgery, actually, but despite the rush on my end, it ended up being the cover story for the week they ran it. A few weeks after that, someone from Sirius Satellite Radio's The Catholic Channel ("your exclusive satellite radio home for Notre Dame football"!) contacted me and asked if I'd be willing to be interviewed about the story for one of their shows, called Busted Halo. With encouragement from my cheerleader, I said OK, and tonight I had my 15 minutes of air time. I was kind of nervous, but (much like lectoring) once it got started, it went fine — which means I didn't say "um" too much or choke up! It was a pretty light, upbeat show, and the guy who interviewed me didn't ask anything too tough. Phew!

daniel the lion

Daniel loves to growl. Sometimes he'll just growl, out of the blue, just because he feels like it. And lately, he growls when he's playing with his little plastic lion. Today, we were playing with the lion and his yellow rubber ducky, which usually resides at the edge of the bathtub but today had found its way into the living room. He loves ducks, too, and he always smiles when I show how they say, "Quack-quack." So he had his lion in one hand and his ducky in the other. "What does the lion say?" I asked. He growled. "What does the duck say?" I asked. And without missing a beat, Daniel said, "Caa-caa." Steve and I just about fell over in delight! Is that his first real word?

On a mostly unrelated note (unless you want to go into our possible propensity for a love of words!), The New York Times had an article today about how the new generations of librarians are considerably more hip than their bespectacled, shushing elders. I've always loved libraries — and I love reading and doing research and tracking down information — and when I read the article, a long-dormant desire to become a librarian reared its head. So I've been examining the College of St. Catherine's Master of Library and Information Science Web site, wondering ... wondering ...

happiness

This has been an amazing week. I have been feeling so happy being home with Daniel. Happy ... is that the right word? Content. Overflowing with love and excitement about being such an instrumental part of this little boy's life. Looking forward to what's ahead for him, for our family. I don't know what triggered it because last week I was in a funk about having stepped so far out of the career world, wondering if I would ever feel the sense of accomplishment that comes with winning awards and nailing major projects, wondering if I'll ever get this freelance thing off the ground to a point where I'm consistently doing work I'm proud of. Suddenly, this week, it's as if the sense of accomplishment is coming from somewhere else, inside me.

We walked through the College of St. Catherine campus today, as we do many days, to look at the ducks in the pond, and we saw a white heron, with a long, snaking neck, wading in the shallow edges and catching little minnows. It was mesmerizing to watch its sinewy movements, and Daniel was staring and grinning and kept letting out his big call of excitement ("ayyy!"), the same one he belts out when he sees other things that are precious to him — his daddy when he comes home from work, the pottery bunny on our bookshelf, the glossy Arts and Crafts tiles that hang at the end of our hallway, upon which he has gazed with adoration since he was three or four months old. So we're watching the heron, and I see other people walking around the campus, busy with their lives, going to reunions and conferences and jobs, and I am holding Daniel closely and already acutely aware of how much I will miss these moments when he is this young, still a baby, and I am just hit by this inner voice that says, "I am in the perfect place in my life right now."

I used to encounter a lot of middle-aged people in my job. I covered talks by fascinating people like Joan Chittister and Helen Prejean. Conferences on Celtic spirituality. Workshops on lectio divino, centering prayer, simple living. I get into that stuff, actually. I find it interesting and enriching. When I first moved here and started covering the church, I thought I had hit the jackpot. I knew God had sent me in the right direction. But it aged me, too. Young people typically do not go to these religious events. It's the midlifers, who wear comfortable sweaters over turtlenecks and Birkenstocks and talk about their teenage children and laugh knowingly about things I don't understand yet and still simmer about women's ordination even though by now they've mostly justified why they stay in the church anyway. I took so much from the speakers and conferences and workshops, but I started to feel like the middle-aged people who attended them. After too much spirituality, especially when I first started working for the paper, I sometimes found myself needing to go to bars and drink flirty cocktails and watch Sex and the City, just to tip the seesaw the other way.

So today, we walked past a lot of middle-aged women on the campus, and they reminded me. Memories of myself at those events washed over me, but suddenly it crystallized in my mind that I am still young, that even if technically I am approaching middle age, I am a young mother, and I have many years of being a young mother ahead of me, and I should embrace them because I will have plenty of years to be a middle-aged woman (hopefully fabulous and wise) when that time comes. I looked at myself through their eyes, which saw the young mother and her baby in the stroller and conveyed, "We've been there already. It goes fast, so enjoy yourself."

So I've been going to play groups and making friends with other moms and going with Daniel and Stephen to Music Together classes and kissing my son until he giggles. The world is his to discover, and he's exploring it with a ferocity that astonishes me. I'm relishing in it, this week. I've found that when I am truly present to the moment I am in (which is not always easy for me), I feel as if there's no place I'd rather be, nothing else I'd rather be doing, than just watching and loving and nurturing this happy, smart, adventurous little child. And, yes, maybe trying to make another one. I told Steve on Wednesday that I am having one of those weeks where I want another baby ... just because I feel like I have so much more love to give — and energy, too. I'm not as tired as I was in those first few months. Even though I'm chasing Daniel around a lot more, I feel as if I could possible manage another one without it totally depleting me.

And maybe it's OK if I don't have a career plan nailed down. That all my size 4 work clothes from before I was pregnant have gone to charity or consignment shops. That I go out every day dressed like in my capri pants (which I read somewhere are the "new mommy jeans"), and that I don't have intellectually stimulating conversations about world issues when I stop for coffee, and that my belly still resembles a bassett hound's droopy, wrinkly face. That the highlight of my "work day" sometimes dancing around the room with Daniel, singing songs from his Music Together CD. All of this is OK. I am loving it. When I am right here in the moment, it is exactly what I want to do right now. I am in the perfect place in my life.

maternity leave is over

All of a sudden, my life has become so busy. A glance at my calendar finds Liturgy Committee meetings, a two-day lector workshop, lector commitments on Sundays, ballet class twice a week, Early Childhood and Family Education class, get-together with some of the moms from that class, another get-together with some other moms at the end of the month, a leadership dinner at church, two articles to write for the paper, a couple of days going in to the paper to help with deadline while Steve stays home with Daniel, dinner with friends in Rochester, haircut, meeting with custom window decorator from J.C. Penney (!!), Lenten evening prayer services, and so on and so on. And that's on top of my "full-time" job of being Daniel's mom.

What I marvel at is the fact that I am able to keep pace with all the stuff on my plate. I doubt I'd have had the energy for all this a month ago, and definitely not three months ago. If I'd gone ahead with my plans to go back to work after my maternity leave ended, I would have started on March 5. Even without an in-office job to return to, it still feels like my life has kicked back into full speed. Crazy.

reduction

In cooking, sometimes you have to boil a liquid down to its essence, to concentrate and intensify the flavors left in the pan. A reduction, it's called. I was doing this a couple of weeks ago, trying to make a gravy, when it occurred to me that my work-daycare decision is also about boiling something down to its essence. And the essence of the matter was that I don't want Daniel in daycare. So how do we make everything else work around that? When I figured out the basic intention, everything else — whether to go back to work, whether to work from home, whether to try it out and see how daycare goes before making a decision — just sort of fell together. Therefore (went my line of thought): I won't go back to the office. I will stay home with Daniel. We will live on a tighter budget. Whatever I would like to do in the way of work will be accomplished around that. It really became quite simple ... I don't know why it was so agonizing before. (And in case you're wondering, unhelpful guilt-trips such as those left in random comments here on this blog did not factor into my decision.)

Not that staying home with Daniel full-time will always be easy. It can be monumentally hard work at times. I understand why some moms find it mind-numbing. Mind-numbing, but also (at times when I need it most) ridiculously joyful. This morning, I sat at the table in mismatched sweats and slippers, spooning puréed carrots into his mouth and scraping the runoff from his chin, saying "yum yum" and "good boy", and I thought, "Look at me now. I am so far from the nicely dressed professional I was six months ago. I used to spend my days writing articles, researching interesting topics, editing page proofs. I used my strengths, my intelligence, my social skills. I used my college degree. Now I use my sleeve to wipe slobber off mouths, and I consider it normal to go two days without bathing. I have absolutely no training in child development. I hardly recognize myself." And then I looked at Daniel's eager little face waiting for the next spoonful and felt such a wave of love and protectiveness toward this precious, vulnerable little child. This job is important, too — maybe the most important one I will ever have, and I don't want to hand it off to anyone else. (Except maybe Steve sometimes!) Yes, sometimes I don't recognize myself. But I am still here, just learning — new skills, new challenges, new ways of loving and living.

I feel certain that I won't lose that old part of myself, though. (Heck, with the amount of time I spend reading about my latest obsession — vaccines — I come close to feeling like my old self at times!) I will continue to look for ways to preserve my individuality, to protect my passions, to keep my writer's identity honed. In that respect, I am lucky to have the boss that I do; he's willing to let me do some work for the paper from home. Plus, I really do hope to get this freelancing thing going and slowly, eventually build it into a larger business.

Meanwhile, Daniel naps on my lap as I write. He likes to sleep in my lap, and unless I have something else to do, like pump breastmilk or make myself lunch, I don't mind holding him. It's a Friday afternoon, the end of a long, cold week, and we didn't go out into the near-zero temperatures today. I usually go a little stir-crazy if I don't get out of the house, so I've tried to make it a priority, at least most days. Lately, we've been to the Minneapolis Institute of Art, where Daniel smiled back at the Buddhas; the Rosedale mall, where I bought a belt to cinch my now-too-big post-partum jeans; and the St. Paul downtown library, where we hung out in the warm magazine room with the homeless people, and I paged through old issues of Vogue and the Utne Reader. It felt like a luxury.

two short, unrelated thoughts

I'm not a football fan, really, but I am ridiculously thrilled that the Indianapolis Colts are going to the Superbowl at last! Living in Mississippi gave me a real appreciation for Peyton Manning, not to mention his dad Archie, a former Saints star. Wouldn't it have been cool if the Saints had beat the Bears and gone ahead to face the Colts this year?

Out of the blue last Friday, I was offered chance to do a freelance piece for someone I've written for in the past. $500. Is that a sign?

knots

Time for some brainstorming. Starting with: Why did I make the decision to go back to work?

• Because they value me there, and to be wanted and needed is a nice feeling.
• Because I hate to let them down.
• Because the extra money would be very nice.
• Because I am afraid of losing my edge and my skills and my hireability with a break in my resume if I become a stay-at-home mom.
• Because so much of how I see myself — my identity — is based on my job as a writer and reporter and editor. Giving that up would be scary (unless I shifted into freelance work).
• Because going to an existing job is so much easier than taking the big leap into freelancing.
• Because my job puts me in a larger world where I know people and have some influence.
• Because staying home all day with a baby would be so hard.
• Because I may start to crave the adult company and intellectual stimulation.
• Because part-time work is a nice, flexible balance that many women would love to have. Am I crazy to give that up?

And why am I now doubting that decision?

• Because I love this boy in my lap so much it hurts to think of being apart from him.
• Because no matter how hard taking care of — and rearing — a baby is, I am not sure I want to hand the job over to anyone else.
• Because the idea of starting something new, like freelancing — on my own time and schedule — could be very exciting. And I've been thinking about it for several years, and maybe now is the time to get going with it.
• Because Daniel is only going to be little once.
• Because we don't need the extra income and could live on Stephen's if we chose to. (And I'm on his health insurance now.)
• Because I like the flexibility of our days — sleeping in until whenever he's ready to get up, going on outings and walks, and not having to be anywhere at any specific time.
• Because I don't want to expose him to a room full of eight other babies' germs, especially if we decide not to vaccinate him 100 percent, or according to the typical schedule.

A couple of years ago, I applied for a job at my work that would have been a promotion. I'd been in a rut, and this seemed like an obvious way to advance in my career and learn some new skills. After I submitted the application, and especially after I made the cut to the next round, it started to gnaw at my stomach, big time. Steve and I were trying to have a baby, and I knew that if I got this job, it would mean more hours and more stress at a time when I really wanted less of both. I agonized about it for a while and ended up withdrawing my application; afterward, it felt so right, but until the moment I did it, I really wasn't sure if it was the right decision ... or if I was one of those people who is afraid of success. It all worked out; the guy they hired is absolutely the right person for the job, and I have loved working for him. And almost a year after that, I got pregnant!

This must be a pattern with how I make decisions because I'm doing it again now: Taking a step toward something — securing a slot in a daycare, for instance — and seeing if it feels right or if I get the knots in my stomach. It's not an intentional plan to try out an option; more a gut reaction that crops up after I've taken the step toward it. So I've got some knots. Especially after Christmas, when I saw Daniel interact with lots of people and saw how he was a good sport for a while but always ended up wanting to be with Stephen or me, and how glad I always was to get him back. Ugh. I need to get clear on what to do.

charlotte

Here's something else I shouldn't be reading right now, in my highly emotional pregnant state: articles and theological statements on artificial nutrition and hydration for patients in what they call a "persistent vegetative state." But I'm working on an article, so read them I must, and I've doing it all morning and a good part of the week.

I cannot read about this stuff without imagining what it would be like if Steve or I were faced with such a situation. This morning, my mind spins a scene where I am caring for my husband at home. He's hooked up to feeding tubes but no longer able to communicate with the outside world. (He does not want this. He has told me. Yet and still, the scenario remains ...) How would I make his life the best it could be? Maybe we'd watch movies together. I'd make sure he doesn't miss an episode of Washington Week each Friday night and reruns of The Office. I'd take him outdoors for walks in his wheelchair, if he's able to sit up, just so he can feel the sun on his face. I'd surround him with Monterey cypress trees and the rocks from the North Shore that he loves to collect, in hopes he's aware of their presence. I'd kiss him every day and remind him of times we've shared. I'd sing him songs and play his favorite music: Maybe he can still hear through his iPod.

Would these things make him happy? Would he be relieved to be alive, grateful for the life force he still has? Or would he stew about his condition, resenting shows like Washington Week because politics mean nothing to him now? Would he hate me for keeping him going when he'd rather go meet his maker? (Would I be strong or sure enough to honor his wish, if that's what he wants? Would it be the right thing to do?) Would he even register what's happening on the outside? What about me? Would I be strong enough to care for him? Would I be able to do these things without crying all the time? Would I be angry and have trouble accepting this lot in life, or would I be grateful to have any part of him still with me? Would caring for him make me a better person, teach me important lessons about dignity and humility and humanity? Just thinking about it puts me close to tears. I have to shake my head and refocus on the white page in front of me, the red pen in my hand. It's just work. It's just an assignment. It's not likely to happen to us.

My parents are friends with a couple who live on the Oregon coast and have two daughters. One of them, Charlotte, is my age. We both loved reading and writing as kids, and I remember her as serious and quiet. One Christmas vacation during college, when our family was visiting, we sat on her bedroom floor in front of her tall bookcase and talked about becoming writers someday. She was interested in journalism. She loaned me a couple of her favorite writing books, including one by Natalie Goldberg, which I still go to sometimes when I need a creative jolt. Not long after that, she was coasting down a hill on her bike and was hit by a truck. She has been in a coma ever since. Now I am the journalist, and I still have her books.

She lives near her parents in a home that gives her special care, and her parents still visit her regularly. I don't think she can communicate with them, but who knows? Maybe she has mastered some slight movement that enables her to get through to the outside world. I don't really know what her life is like now, but I'd like to know how her parents do it — how they make her life special, what they talk about when they visit her, how they cope. Something makes me want to go see her the next time I'm there, if it wouldn't be upsetting for her parents or for her. I don't know what I'd tell her, but I wish she could know that I think about her and remember the time we spent together as kids. Does she remember me? I wonder if she writes stories in her head. I wonder, if she ever were to come out of her coma, what words would tumble out of her onto a sheet of paper or a computer screen. I wonder if she feels grateful to be alive.

my unexpected interview

So I was at St. Patrick’s Guild Saturday afternoon, buying a baptism gift for a friend's baby, when I ran into a woman Steve and I used to know. (OK, she was our natural family planning teacher, back in the days when we thought fertility awareness and good timing would be all we needed to get me pregnant.) She took note of my big belly, and we had a few excited moments of catching up. I almost forgot that she and I had really rubbed each other the wrong way during those classes.

An older, grey-haired man with a Roman collar shortly joined her, and she introduced us. He happened to be a bishop from Pakistan, in town for the weekend. They had gotten together to talk about NFP stuff, and she was helping him borrow a red stole he could wear for Masses the next day, as he'd accidentally left his at home. It turned out he was staying at the Basilica and preaching at all the weekend Masses there to raise money for his diocese. He was so delightful to chat with in the store that I asked if he'd be available for an interview, and he gave me his cell phone number.

We met yesterday morning, before he left for the airport, in the guest quarters of the Basilica rectory — which I have to say is nicer than many B&B rooms I've seen. (It worked out well for the bishop, too, as I was able to return the stole to St. Patrick's Guild for him afterward. And he gave me a Pakistani pillow slipcover as a gift!) We talked for an hour and a half about life for the minority Christian population in Pakistan, their views of the war in Iraq, Muslim views of Christians, etc. He had some intelligent, thoughtful, and sometimes surprising things to say — all of which are too jumbled in my mind to get anything down right now. Except the story he told about one of his parishioners, a Catholic teenager who was found murdered outside his family's home after it was learned that he had been friendly with a local Muslim girl around his age. She was found dead, too, and common knowledge held that her father had taken justice into his own hands.

Now I'm in the middle of the tough part — transcribing the interview so I can shape it into something readable. It's brain-numbing work, and I'm doing what I can to prolong this break! I'd better get back to it, though.

benedict and esther de waal

I'm working this week on an article about the Benedictine oblate program at St. John's Abbey in Collegeville, in which lay people of any denomination who want to live out the Benedictine charism and way of life can attach themselves symbolically to the monastery. It's an interesting topic to me; the spirituality of St. Benedict (who lived in the sixth century and wrote the famous Rule, which now guides Benedictine communities) has appealed to me ever since I first started reading and hearing about it, in much the same way that Celtic spirituality attracts me. It's earthy, not ethereal. There's a sense of hospitality and stability, finding the holiness in everyday things, seeing the face of Christ in others. It just feels real.

While I was reading about the oblate program, I ran across a copy of this speech given by the spiritual writer and historian Esther de Waal, who is Anglican. Her words can be weighty at times, but they always resonate with me. Here are some nuggets:

When I first picked up the Rule [of St. Benedict] one sentence leapt out at me. It was that statement in chapter 31 which discusses the role of the monastic cellarer, what we might call the business manager. Benedict tells us to handle the things of the kitchen, the pantry, the garden, with as much love, reverence and respect as the sacred vessels of the altar.

. . . It is compelling to me that Benedict always speaks in totally practical terms. He gives his teaching in the most practical and down-to-earth way possible. This is one of the reasons I can hear him and find him unthreatening. I have a built-in resistance, which I share with many others, to being presented with ethical demands and moral statements such as the declarations and pronouncements that emanate from the institutional church. However, my reaction is entirely different when profound theological teachings and spiritual insights are given in the context of real-life situations or through portraits of ordinary people. I am ready to listen, to hear and to follow. When Benedict talks to me about handling with care, about reverence and respect for material things, he does it in a way that is immediate and specific, and therefore difficult to evade.

. . . Above all, Benedictine spirituality is a shared, common, corporate spirituality. We have all these good things to share with the whole of God's family. We are partners with God in handling all these good gifts. This isn't an individualistic or isolated spirituality. It's about community life in whatever shape or form that may take. For those of us who are living outside monastic communities, we expect that form to change throughout our lives, involving overlapping circles as we are inserted into a succession of relationships, including relationships with the non-human. Benedict touches a deep and universal truth which traditional peoples know. Time and again in Celtic understanding — and you know it from Native American experience — we see that we are inserted into the whole web of creation. It's important that we stay with this.

And then there is this little passage of hers, which I have kept with me for a number of years, and which has helped ground me at times when I've felt like I'm losing my anchor:

Stability

Everyone needs to feel at home, to feel earthed. Without roots we can neither discover where we belong, nor can we grow. Without stability we cannot confront the basic questions of life. Without stability we cannot know our true selves. For we are pulled apart by so many conflicting demands, so many things deserving of our attention, that often it seems as though the center cannot hold.

Simply at the level of working out an acceptable life-style, the choices have now become quite bewildering. Shall I support Mother Teresa in Calcutta or help leprous children in Tanzania? Shall I take up liberation theology or go in for Zen? Shall I work for Save the Children or for battered wives? Shall I become a vegetarian or throw myself into the cause of solar energy? I may well end up flitting from one to the other until I have collected a ragbag for myself of well-intentioned but half-thought-out ideas based on a confused and superficial amalgam of some of the more attractive elements in each. The danger of course is that I too become confused and superficial.

Instead of this bewildering and exhausting rushing from one thing to another, stability means accepting this particular community, this place and these people, this and no other, as the way to God. The man or woman who voluntarily limits himself or herself to one building and a few acres of ground for the rest of life is saying that contentment and fulfilment do not consist in constant change, that true happiness cannot necessarily be found anywhere other than in this time and this place.

catholic identity

Whew! As our paper goes to press today, I am breathing a huge sigh of relief: A huge project is finally off my back and on the page, for better or worse. I've spent the past month or so working on a perspective-type article examining questions of Catholic identity at (Catholic) universities around the country - what it means in this day and age, how perceptions have shifted in light of JPII's Ex Corde Ecclesiae document, how identity questions are playing out at a time when secular cultural influences have become pretty commonplace in Catholic universities, how different universities have responded to resulting pressures to become more "Catholic." If you live in Minnesota, you might have heard in the news that the University of St. Thomas has been embroiled in a dispute over whether unmarried faculty and staff should be allowed to travel together and share a room on student trips. That was the springboard for the piece, but as a weekly, we aren't really the right type of newspaper to keep up with the blow-by-blow details. I wanted to take a broader look at the issue.

It was a pretty overwhelming task. My stack of notes for this story is so thick that I could have written 10 times more than the 60 column inches I did. Now that it's out of my hands, I keep thinking about what nuances I may have left out. Did I overlook an obvious angle? Did I answer all my own questions? Did I adequately represent the Catholic Studies professor's point about the importance of dialogue in maintaining a vital Catholic intellectual tradition? Would the story have been better if the College of St. Catherine's president had gotten back to me in time with her responses to my questions? Is it balanced, or is it too weighted toward conservative viewpoints? My editor has already reassured me that my article is probably "98 percent perfect," but it's the 2 percent I worry about - and it's the 2 percent that will generate letters to the editor or grumbling sources.

Well, I've got that out. So now I can stop thinking about it. Right?

A friend asked me how I feel personally about the St. Thomas situation, and I realized I have some mixed views. For the most part, I support St. Thomas' right to uphold moral policies based on its identity as a Catholic institution. But I do wonder at what point this right might go too far and intrude upon individual faculty members' right to live their private life as they wish. In a case where a professor is leading a student trip abroad, it seems clear that that is a professional role, not a private one. That professor is really on duty 24-7, so I think the university has a right to insist that the professor's sleeping arrangements model that university's value system. But as I said, where does that end? As one professor posed it to me: If someone is divorced and remarried but did not receive an annulment, that's adultery, according to the Catholic Church. Should (s)he be disallowed from leading a school trip or rooming with the new spouse? That may not happen (not at St. Thomas, anyway - I've heard about divorced faculty being an issue elsewhere). The point is, there's a big grey area.

Also, there is the fact that when many of these faculty were hired, the climate at St. Thomas may have been quite different from what it is now - more open to tolerance of diverse lifestyles without as much of a focus on Catholic morality, for example. (Though the school apparently does have a big nondiscrimination policy even now.) I have empathy for those folks who were hired with a certain set of expectations and now find the climate of their workplace changing. It's not their fault, so no wonder they feel some resistance.

It will be interesting to see how it all unfolds.