Talk me down from being an irresponsible selfish idiot?

[Rob_s_Wife]

Maybe you could just go splurge locally on a Swedish massage?

Margaret

**ewww. no way. the idea of a have some person I don’t know rub all over me freaks me out as way too creepy. **

I had an opportunity to go to on a pilgrimage to Europe 10 years ago that didn’t work out. I was so disappointed, but then I found out I was expecting our fourth baby!! Just a few weeks before we conceived my dh who had been adamant that we were “done,” had had a sudden change of heart.

I like my new present better than the one I asked for.

I still hope you get to go, though.

**hmm. **

---

**I bet I could get my in-laws to pay for the trip if it would mean not having another baby. **

---

I can hear them now, “We’ll pay for a 2 weeks trip to Europe if Rob shows us the bill for a vasectomy.”

---

**Naw… I’d rather have a chance at God’s blessings than their’s. **

 

[HouseArrest]

**ewww. no way. the idea of a have some person I don’t know rub all over me freaks me out as way too creepy. **

**hmm. **

---

**I bet I could get my in-laws to pay for the trip if it would mean not having another baby. **

---

I can hear them now, “We’ll pay for a 2 weeks trip to Europe if Rob shows us the bill for a vasectomy.”

---

**Naw… I’d rather have a chance at God’s blessings than their’s. **

HAAAAAA! HAAAAA! This made my day. I hear “the comments” too because of the 7 kids here - people are just amazed, aren’t they?

You’re going to think this is nuts, but, here’s one of my tricks, maybe it will work for you. Plan the trip, the whole trip, get prices, choose your flight times, etc., etc., then just don’t go on it.

I used to do that with kids clothing catalogs. Instead of dragging out all the hand me downs and sorting through bags of old clothes to see what fit, what didn’t, what looked okay for church, what we’d wear outside in the mud, I got out a catalog, “placed an order” for one season’s worth of clothes for everyone, dreamed about throwing out the stuff in the attic, looked at the price, and then didn’t order a thing. I went back to my sorting. For some reason after I thought it all through I realized I wanted it but didn’t need it. Now a trip might be different and it might actually make you want to go more, but…

 

[monicatholic]

rob’s wife, i gotta say, to me, this is not about a disordered sense of worldliness. it’s so understandable to want to go. there’s nothinbg wrong with wanting it.

i think leoni’s response was beautiful. if God closes this door, let’s ask that He opens another opportunity for you. His surprises are wonderful.

if it was me, my husband would save me from myself, for sure. even if we had the money, he’d consider transatlantic flight, international customs and navigating foreign cities with the seven kids who are still at home (out of our ten) and he would put the kabosh to the whole thing.

but you bring up an issue that stings me a little, too. all my sibs have travelled to europe, several asia, all to the tropics. my own grown kids have been to ireland, scotland, poland, rome, japan, and yes, hiking the swiss alps. my mom (since my dad died) has been all over europe and the US.

raising ten kids doesn’t leve much time and money to hike the swiss alps.

if it weren’t Lent, i might risk some complaining, but i’m not. i’m just saying. i’d like to travel, too. i hear you.

 

[ElizabethPH]

I’ve always had the travel bug. When I was young of course it was always out of the question. I dreamed of doing the Grand Tour. But I had two kid’s, I worked and so did my husband, but still the best we could do was an over-niter at a friends house in the next town over. Or camping in the mountains. Once we managed a trip to Mexico just the two of us while my sister watched the boys. We drove down to Puerto Vallarta…we did it on a shoe string and camped. As far as over seas travel I resigned myself to the fact that I would just have to wait till I retire and can afford it. And that’s what’s happened. I did take the Grand Tour all over Europe. Been to other places. And I’m planning on a Holy Land tour next. I had to work many years saving my money to afford that kind of travel. It takes me a few years to save for an over seas trip. It is always on a shoe string budget…but I manage it OK…not the top hotels that’s for sure or even the moderate ones, but I don’t mind. I still love to camp and take road trips around the country too.

Good luck to you. Save for that big trip. Take a little of the severance and tuck it away. When things are better and you can travel more responsibly, you will enjoy it better. I have a feeling if you did it now, you’ll be regretting it.

 

[White_Tree]

I think that The Imitation of Christ actually has a very good response to this type of query, though (as is Thomas’s style) it is very direct. I hope this doesn’t offend anyone.
Thomas Á Kempis:

Why do you long to see that which is not lawful for you to possess? The world itself passes away, and all the desires of it. The desires of the senses call you to roam abroad, but when their hour is spent, what do you bring back but a burdened conscience and a distracted heart? A cheerful going out often brings a sad home-coming, and a merry evening brings a sorry morning. For every bodily pleasure brings joy at first, but at length it bites and destroys.

What can you see elsewhere that you cannot see here? Look at the sky, the earth, and all the elements, for of these all things are made. What can you see anywhere under the sun that can endure for long? You hope, perhaps to find complete satisfaction; but this you will never do. Were you to see all things at present in existence spread out before your eyes, what would it be but an unprofitable vision? Lift up your eyes to God on high, and beg forgiveness for your sin and neglectfulness. Leave empty matters to the empty-headed, and give your attention to those things that God commands you. Shut your door upon you, and call upon Jesus the Beloved. Remain with Him in your cell, for you will not find so great a peace anywhere else. Had you never gone out and listened to idle talk, you would the better have remained perfectly at peace. But if it pleases you to hear the news of the world, you must always suffer disquiet of heart as a result.

 

[monicatholic]

i think Kempis’ recriminations are not central to this. It isn’t lawless for Rob’ds Wife to wish to travel.

But, Rob’s Wife, I was remined about a confession I’ve several times made. The CCC describes coveting as a sadness. When I read that, it struck home with me. I don’t ususally have a resentment against others for having/ experiencing many things, instead I feel a certain sadness that I cannot have/experience those things myself.

2540 Envy represents a form of sadness and therefore a refusal of charity; the baptized person should struggle against it by exercising good will. Envy often comes from pride; the baptized person should train himself to live in humility:

Rob’s Wife, I’m prone to this sadness, so I understand your insistent querry to once in your life, ‘live a little.’ I will pray that the sadness of going without will be lifted from your heart. Then you will be at peace to make a peaceful decision.

No matter how you decide, it should be a decision toward peace and love of God and neighbor. (I’m writing this for me as much as for you, RW.) be blessed.

 

[Litcrit]

One of my closest friends lives in Sweden. I’m dreaming of visiting her, because I miss her, but I never seem to be able to afford it, and I only have one kid.

She finds it an extremely depressing, boring place. Stockholm, she says, is the only city she can live without getting positively suicidal. If you decide not to go, you can use this for ‘sour grapes’

All my friends seem to be traveling all the time - India, the US, Spain, Turkey, for next to no money, and these opportunities somehow pass me every time, and that has been my one fantasy and desire since I was a kid - to see the world, or at least its more interesting parts.

I pray that I go where I’m supposed to go and see what I’m supposed to see, whenever. Sometimes that calms me.

Maybe your great desire to go to Sweden, no matter what, is an inspiration - maybe it’s a temptation. No one can know that for sure, especially not us.

 

[Appleby]

OK, what I am about to say doesn’t have anything to do with the OP, it has to do with Appleby’s attitude.

I want to point out something that really bugs me about a statement Appleby made. And it’s not just Appleby, I’ve heard it a lot! He/she basically said it’s OK to be irresponsible and then rely on God to bail you out. That is a horrible attitude. You can’t do anything you please and then “trust God to see you through”. That is wrong! God gave people brains and freewill and the ability to make sound choices. He isn’t there for folks to do foolish things and then hope He will pull them out of the mess. He gave you gifts to keep yourself from getting into the mess in the first place. God does help people in need. He is there to help those who truly need His help or to heal the sick, etc. But it’s not right to knowingly get yourself in trouble and then say “God will pull you through”. That is disrespectful and arrogant. He gave you talents and brains for a reason…so that you can use them. It’s also arrogant to think that just because you are a Christian you are entitled to help when you know what you are doing isn’t good for you. That’s just not right. And what I am saying has nothing to do with the question of “is it OK to take an expensive trip or not”, it’s about respecting the wisdom God gave you. And “trusting in God” doesn’t give you a free ticket to be irresponsible. I am having a hard time putting into words what I am trying to say because this is one thing that really gets my dander up. And like I said before, this has nothing to do with the OP’s original question. As a matter of fact, it seems as if Rob’s Wife is using the brains that God gave her as she is struggling with this decision. I commend you Rob’s Wife.

My beloved Daddy, who died last October 7, took that as his mantra all his life long. He grew up in a family where they were dirt poor and had nothing, worked his way out of it, and made his mission in life to leave his children with the one thing he could never have: happy memories of their father. We travelled frequently even if we had to scrimp and save on other things, and we went on frequent weekend trips and picnics and cross-country drives together because Daddy believed that God would see us through – and He always did. When Daddy was finally confined to the Hospice, it was a great comfort to him that we girls sat round his bedside and talked about all the wonderful things we did together. We didn’t talk about how all the bills were paid and the house payments made, or that we had a new car every two years, or even that we shared a common clothes closet and never had anything new until we went to work and earned it ourselves. We talked about the travelling, the intoxicating delight of staying in our very own motel room with our very own TV and ‘magic fingers’ vibrating bed, and the delight of that big swimming pool just outside the window … or the little cabin in Vermont where we all crowded together at night and were released at daylight into the big yard with our balls, hoola-hoops, jump ropes and jacks to run through crackling leaves and breathe crisp fall air … or, for us older girls, sitting on the axel of “crestfallen manor” the handmade trailer we slept in at the race track where we sat in lawn chairs and watched Daddy try to make the field for Sunday’s race … and if we had to eat eggs and tuna fish for the next week and take banana sandwiches in our lunch boxes, so what? God would see us through. And you know what? I never once wished during my lifetime that Daddy had deprived us of those happy experiences in order to pay off the mortgage six months sooner.

God DOES see you through. And I do believe that God wants His children to enjoy the world He created, not just stick their heads down on the ground and trudge along, paying bills and saving pennies for the day when everything is paid for and finally they’re worthy of happiness.

I am glad my Daddy was a man who trusted in God to see us through. He never failed all his life to remind us that when we though we were at the end of our string, God would come through, and I bless him for it.

 

[Cristiano]

from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

Prudence
(Latin prudentia, contracted from providentia, seeing ahead).

One of the four cardinal virtues. Definitions of it are plentiful from Aristotle down. His “recta ratio agibilium” has the merits of brevity and inclusiveness. Father Rickaby aptly renders it as “right reason applied to practice”. A fuller description and one more serviceable is this: an intellectual habit enabling us to see in any given juncture of human affairs what is virtuous and what is not, and how to come at the one and avoid the other. It is to be observed that prudence, whilst possessing in some sort an empire over all the moral virtues, itself aims to perfect not the will but the intellect in its practical decisions. Its function is to point out which course of action is to be taken in any round of concrete circumstances. It indicates which, here and now, is the golden mean wherein the essence of all virtue lies. It has nothing to do with directly willing the good it discerns. That is done by the particular moral virtue within whose province it falls. Prudence, therefore, has a directive capacity with regard to the other virtues. It lights the way and measures the arena for their exercise. The insight it confers makes one distinguish successfully between their mere semblance and their reality. It must preside over the eliciting of allacts proper to any one of them at least if they be taken in their formal sense. Thus, without prudence bravery becomes foolhardiness; mercy sinks into weakness, and temperance into fanaticism. But it must not be forgotten that prudence is a virtue adequately distinct from the others, and not simply a condition attendant upon their operation. Its office is to determine for each in practice those circumstances of time, place, manner, etc. which should be observed, and which the Scholastics comprise under the term medium rationis. So it is that whilst it qualifies immediately the intellect and not the will, it is nevertheless rightly styled a moral virtue.

This is because the moral agent finds in it, if not the eliciting, at any rate the directive principle of virtuous actions. According to St. Thomas (II-II, Q. xlvii, a. 8) it is its function to do three things: to take counsel, i.e. to cast about for the means suited in the particular case under consideration to reach the end of any onemoral virtue; to judge soundly of the fitness of the means suggested; and, finally, to command their employment. If these are to be done well they necessarily exclude remissness and lack of concern; they demand the use of such diligence and care that the resultant act can be described as prudent, in spite of whatever speculative error may have been at the bottom of the process. Readiness in finding out and ability in adapting means to an end does not always imply prudence. If the end happens to be a vicious one, a certain adroitness or sagacity may be exhibited in its pursuit. This, however, according to St. Thomas, will only deserve to be called false prudence and is identical with that referred to in Rom., viii, 6, “the wisdom of the flesh is death”. Besides the prudence which is the fruit of training and experience, and is developed into a stable habit by repeated acts, there is another sort termed “infused”. This is directly bestowed by God’s bounty. It is inseparable from the condition of supernatural charity and so is to be found only in those who are in the state of grace. Its scope of course is to make provision of what is necessary for eternal salvation. Although acquired prudence considered as a principle of operation is quite compatible with sin in the agent, still it is well to note that vice obscures or at times utterly beclouds its judgment. Thus it is true that prudence and the other moral virtues are mutually interdependent. Imprudence in so far as it implies a want of obligatory prudence and not a mere gap in practical mentality is a sin, not however always necessarily distinct from the special wicked indulgence which it happens to accompany. If it proceeds to the length of formal scorn of the Divine utterances on the point, it will be a mortal sin.

 

[MooCowSteph]

I would do it. I have only five children right now, but I would GO! Sensibility in finances is overrated.

That was my first thought too, although I am a terrible person to be giving financial advice.

When will he know if he has another job? How much will you be saving by going when dh is going for business? Could you plan another family trip, maybe in the fall? You could make it one week instead of two and save a little. Maybe put all that money in a CD and as soon as DH has a job plan the big trip. Let the debts sit for a little longer. Let the kids see the world.

Or here’s another thought. Get a tv show on TLC and you can get FREE trips to Maui to renew your vows, Disney Land, CA, NYC, and DC snark

 

[Jennifer_J]

I don’t know that I have anything horribly valuable to say, just our story…my dh also travels a lot for research and conferences and colaborations and such–leaving me at home with the kids. Usually this doesn’t bother me, as I don’t long to travel. However, I often long to not have the whole responsibilty of 6 children for weeks at a time. It’s stressful–I really don’t know how single parents do it. I’ve never once been on one of these trips, but he has taken our oldest ds on a couple. Joy of all joys, though, I think this summer may mark a momentous event–the grandparents have agreed to keep all but the youngest for 2 weeks so I can accompany my dh on a research trip. Could we spend the money on better things? Probably, but most of the trip is already covered (he has to have a hotel, and his ticket is paid for) so we just have to cover my ticket (frequent flier miles). What a bargain–how can I say no? I can’t. I only wish we could afford to take everyone so that we enjoy seeing new things together, however, the older kids will get to spend time with cousins they only see once a year and are very excited to do that!

Robswife, if the situation was bit different, I would say “GO FOR IT” , and I think you realize that the situation is less than ideal . Maybe you’ll get chance to go soon. I’ll join the above prayer that if this trip doesn’t work out, that something even better comes along for you!!

 

[HouseArrest]

Appleby, I think it sounds like you had a wonderful life and some great opportunities. I think there’s a difference here and it’s the job loss.

I also think none of us has to worry about Martha, though, she’s not going to do anything that will put her family in jeopardy. If there’s a way to work it out she will, if not, she won’t.

 

[VivienneJ]

In fact, I think that if you look closely at the last three words in the title of this thread, Martha has already made the sensible, wise decision.

I liked the idea someone gave of planning the whole trip (as long as that won’t make the wishing worse) and then still doing the more sensible thing in the present circumstances. ( :blushing: Oops, I just checked back and see it was your suggestion HouseArrest I’ve done a lot of things in theory, especially ones that involved money that could be better used on other things.)

 

[noclevername]

My beloved Daddy, who died last October 7, took that as his mantra all his life long. He grew up in a family where they were dirt poor and had nothing, worked his way out of it, and made his mission in life to leave his children with the one thing he could never have: happy memories of their father. We travelled frequently even if we had to scrimp and save on other things, and we went on frequent weekend trips and picnics and cross-country drives together because Daddy believed that God would see us through – and He always did. When Daddy was finally confined to the Hospice, it was a great comfort to him that we girls sat round his bedside and talked about all the wonderful things we did together. We didn’t talk about how all the bills were paid and the house payments made, or that we had a new car every two years, or even that we shared a common clothes closet and never had anything new until we went to work and earned it ourselves. We talked about the travelling, the intoxicating delight of staying in our very own motel room with our very own TV and ‘magic fingers’ vibrating bed, and the delight of that big swimming pool just outside the window … or the little cabin in Vermont where we all crowded together at night and were released at daylight into the big yard with our balls, hoola-hoops, jump ropes and jacks to run through crackling leaves and breathe crisp fall air … or, for us older girls, sitting on the axel of “crestfallen manor” the handmade trailer we slept in at the race track where we sat in lawn chairs and watched Daddy try to make the field for Sunday’s race … and if we had to eat eggs and tuna fish for the next week and take banana sandwiches in our lunch boxes, so what? God would see us through. And you know what? I never once wished during my lifetime that Daddy had deprived us of those happy experiences in order to pay off the mortgage six months sooner.

God DOES see you through. And I do believe that God wants His children to enjoy the world He created, not just stick their heads down on the ground and trudge along, paying bills and saving pennies for the day when everything is paid for and finally they’re worthy of happiness.

I am glad my Daddy was a man who trusted in God to see us through. He never failed all his life to remind us that when we though we were at the end of our string, God would come through, and I bless him for it.

I knew you were going to say that and I almost addressed it in my first post but I didn’t. You missed my point. I am saying that people have to take responsibility in their own decisions. They can’t make frivolous decisions and expect God to take care of you afterwards. Apparently going on a trip with your Dad wasnt’ frivolous. However, people have to take responsibility. God gave people the free will to be able to make good decisions.