Become Who You Are
What’s the meaning and purpose of my life? What is my true identity? Why were we created male and female? How do I find happiness, joy and peace? How do I find love that lasts, forever? These are the timeless questions of the human heart. Join Jack Rigert and his guests for lively insights, reading the signs of our times through the lens of Catholic Teaching and the insights of Saint John Paul ll to guide us.
Saint Catherine of Siena said "Become who you are and you would set the world on fire".
Become Who You Are
#579 Rediscovering the Divine Design in Natural Family Planning: With Dr. William White!
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Imagine a world where family life aligns effortlessly with the natural order of things. That's the enlightening journey we embark on with Dr. William White, past president of the Catholic Medical Association.
Dr. White shares his insights from over four decades of experience, revealing the beauty and challenges of embracing a family life that respects the divine design.
Our conversation touches on everything from the rewards of home births and large families to the growing interest among young couples who are seeking alternatives to artificial contraceptives and a desire to foster a deeper connection with their spouse while viewing children as their most precious gift from God.
Join us for this enriching dialogue that promises to enlighten and challenge your views on family and faith.
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Welcome to Become who you Are podcast, a production of the John Paul II Renewal Center. I'm Jack Rigg, your host. Hey, thanks for joining me today. St Catherine of Siena said that if you become who you are, that you would literally set the world on fire. And St Athanasius, an early church father and a doctor of the church, said the son of God became man so that we might become God. You know I make a wild guess at this, but I bet you, most of us, are a bit disconnected from this divine life that these saints are pointing us to. Yet Saint John Paul II said there's an echo of the story of this divine life that we're created for, inscribed in each human heart, in your human heart, and if you put on the proper lens if I put on the proper lens we can get in touch with this echo within us in such a way that we have that aha moment. See, that's the genus of St John Paul II's theology of the body. It connects our lived experience of life to the gospel in such a way that our life takes on a whole new meaning and helps us answer those big questions that our whole culture is so confused about today meaning and helps us answer those big questions that our whole culture is so confused about today. Who am I? What's my purpose? Why were we created male and female? How do I find happiness here on earth? How do I find love that satisfies forever? Hey, glad you're with me, I'll be Well.
Speaker 1:I am honored and grateful to have Dr William G White on the show today. Dr White is the past president of what is now the Catholic Medical Association. He's the last doctor in Illinois to assist with home births, the last doctor in Illinois to assist with home births, and David Avignone, our executive director. Actually Dr White helped him with a couple of his children at home, so you don't hear about that too much anymore. I want to talk to him a little bit about that, but he's a family physician who had spent over 40 years with hundreds of families who faced all kinds of different challenges. I asked Dr White to come on because he's written so beautifully about the family, about John Paul II, his work, but it's specifically today about natural family planning. He wrote an article called Happiness in the Family and Openness to Life. There's so many questions about natural family planning. What is it? How should I use it when I give presentations and not enough information out there. So, dr White, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:Glad to be here. Thank you, and you know, probably a good way to start out with. Is there anything I'd look at? You know you did so much over the last 40 years. Anything else you want to add to that bio?
Speaker 2:Well, I delivered a lot of babies, or at least I was there when they were born.
Speaker 1:The mothers did most of the work.
Speaker 2:I also with the more than help. Actually, my wife did almost all of it, but we raised seven children and we now have 34 grandchildren and just recently we had our first great grandchild.
Speaker 1:Wow, congratulations. We're very blessed. Let's think about that for a second. 34 grandchildren, I have seven, I have some catching up to do, and what a blessing that is. That's a blessing, dr White, that you have written about so well that too many people are missing today, and so I think that's part of this discussion today. Isn't it the beauty of these families, children, grandchildren, as much work as all that is? Dr White, would you change anything?
Speaker 2:Not a, thing, no.
Speaker 1:No, not a thing. And that's when I'm speaking to people. Nobody ever tells me gosh, I wish I would have had less kids or I've got too many grandkids. Nobody has ever said that to me. And I've been doing this for a while not as long as you, dr White, but for quite a while. So thanks again. You know, those home births are almost unimaginable for some people. But I have friends like David Avignone, who I just mentioned, mark Schmidt, another friend of ours, who just had another child at home, and you, just, you know, it's kind of a gutsy, gutsy thing, I would imagine. You know you, you, you know you're there. So they feel good about that. But what, what, what, what, what is it that with a family and a couple, how do they make that decision to have a child at home In today's time, would you say, dr White? And they are. I know people that are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think largely they want to avoid the dangers of the hospital.
Speaker 1:When you say that, anything specific coming to mind. I mean when I think of dangers in the hospital, I'm thinking viruses and all these other things, Anything else that you're thinking about when you say that.
Speaker 2:Well, childbirth has become very technological today and people are looking for something more natural, more the way God created it. They're aware that there can be problems, but childbirth itself is not a pathological process. It's a normal process? It sure is, and in the vast majority of cases, especially if the couple is well-prepared, they can deliver the baby without intervention.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's amazing, huh?
Speaker 1:Well, the other thing that we get a lot of questions you mentioned natural is natural family planning.
Speaker 1:I'm running into more young couples today that never heard it, but when I speak about it, when I speak about it, they're very interested because they also know this toxic culture that we're in. They see all the problems and really, when Theology of the Body, john Paul's work, is brought forward, they see the beauty in it which you've written about before. And when they see that beauty they go yes, I want that. I see the divorces, I see all the problems and they don't realize until we really speak to them about the beauty of our human sexuality, expressing the divine love of God himself with these couples. So they're starting to say, yeah, you know what I have to get away from, what you called in your article and Pope Paul VI called the contraceptive mentality right. So maybe, if you don't mind, dr White, can you define natural family planning for, say, people that are listening to the show today that never really heard about it, or they heard about it and they're wondering what it is. It's a bit of a misnomer.
Speaker 2:Actually, technically, what it is is periodic abstinence, In other words, abstinence from marital relations during the fertile period of the monthly cycle, and I prefer to call natural family planning getting married and just naturally planning to have a family, and without all the bells and whistles, and without all the bells and whistles.
Speaker 2:And I think the great beauty of periodic abstinence, what's called natural family planning, is that it's a huge step up from contraception, which really violates the personhood of the husband and the wife, as well as depriving them of God's most precious gift, which is children.
Speaker 2:So periodic abstinence can be used either for decreasing or increasing the chance of conceiving a child, and for couples who are having trouble with infertility, it can help them to conceive, and for couples who need, for some, some very serious reason to avoid a child. And again, why would you want to avoid God's most precious gift to you? And I think a lot of times people think that something is very, very serious, but if they really reflect on it for example, a job is it really necessary nowadays for families to have two incomes? A lot of times it's thought that it must be, and in fact couples who get along on one income do have to struggle, sometimes financially, but in the long run they have a much more wholesome family life and they may find that they are able to if they're not as caught up in the rat race and the financial seeking and so forth, they're able to open themselves to more children and ultimately that's going to make them far more happy than whatever else they're pursuing in life.
Speaker 1:Yes, you know, you made a point here, and John Paul would make this all the time, especially to young people, but to all of us, of course. He'd say to young people young people, you know that your life has meaning to the extent that it's given away as a gift to one another, and this is what you're describing. You know, and I think this is the beauty of it, this is what so many people miss with the contraceptive mentality. Even if we don't try to do this, we start to use one another. Especially. This can happen with a man, I think you know he sees his wife, you know, and he doesn't mean to do this at first, but this is what happens over time starts to see her as someone to to use for almost a sexual release. When you start to to, to be open to life and things like natural family planning, you look at each other differently, don't you, dr White? You know there's, there's something just so beautiful and powerful in a spousal relationship. When you're discussing fertility, when you're discussing these things on a monthly basis, isn't it?
Speaker 2:well, I don't think you really have to discuss anything on a monthly basis. As I say, I'm more in favor of the most natural family planning, which is getting married and planning to have a family, and therefore you don't need to worry about the monthly cycle. But if you keep going up, you'll get to what the author, darius Aki, called the most natural family planning of all, which is just naturally planning to have a family.
Speaker 2:And I think that that is based upon a recognition that God wants to give us his most precious gift. He wants to give us what's going to make us happy. He wants us to be happy here in this life. He doesn't want us to be miserable so that we can be happy later on. He wants us to be happy now and for most people who get married. If there are other vocations, obviously, to religious life or single life, but for people who get married, the thing that's going to make them the most happy is children.
Speaker 2:And children are a great gift from the husband to the wife, from the wife to the husband and, most of all, to their already existing children. There's nothing more they can give them that's more valuable than a brother or sister.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, it's interesting when you say that. I remember there was a clip I saw of Bill Gates and he went to Africa and he was pushing contraception, like he always does, you know, in these countries, and he was telling this tribe, which was an African tribe, and he was telling them through an interpreter, that there's a way to contrac contracept so they don't have so many children. And they didn't understand, dr white, what he was talking about. And he said well, tell them that they can, they, they will have more things, they'll have more treasures here if they don't have so many children. And they still didn't understand and they and one woman got up and they and and said but our children are our treasure. I don't understand what he's talking about. And what a beautiful thing. And that's what you're just saying. Now here's an interesting thing. I think that a lot of people don't know about breastfeeding. Can you talk about that, dr White? That breastfeeding itself actually leads to spacing of children, just naturally, just like you said.
Speaker 2:Well, one of the facets of being open to God and open to nature, which he created for us, is to feed our children in the way that he designed. It's not only better for them physically, it's better for the family as a whole, and it does, in fact that he designed. It's not only better for them physically, it's better for the family as a whole and it does in fact space children. Naturally, there is a normal period of infertility. The average spacing in a family that breastfeeds in a way that's called ecological breastfeeding, which means not limiting it, not adding extra bottles or pacifiers, just nursing the baby whenever he needs to be nursed or she needs to be nursed, and that the average spacing then between children will be somewhere between a year and a half to three years. As a couple is younger late teens, early twenties their fertility is higher, so their children may come more. As they get old and tired, they also become less fertile, and so God made this great plan where children would come less often and eventually, obviously without making a conscious decision to have another child or not to have another child they just stop coming.
Speaker 2:But I don't think there's a mechanistic viewpoint which even uses periodic abstinence in a mechanistic way, and that is that we have to decide when to have a child. Well, we decided that when we got married, actually and now it's God who decides when we're going to have the next child he sends another child. All we have to do is lead a normal married life and love each other. The spouses have to love each other and love their other children. Sometimes children will prevent the immediate pregnancy that will lead to another brother or sister. It's interesting. It's a subtle mechanism that only God could have thought of. But if you have a child, what they call a high-need child, who needs motherly attention more than some other kid who's off, running around, being very independent, the needy child will nurse more. That will delay the onset of the next child and that needy child then will have a longer period of exclusive relationship with his mother.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And this is the time, I think, when a man is really into this, what John Paul called, you know, this kind of, you know the spousal gift to one another, when a man really sees his wife as not only his you know his, you know a sexual mate, but really a partner in this beauty that God has brought into his life. The respect for a woman, what you're talking about here, the respect for a woman, is so important for a man in these situations, isn't it? In other words, if my wife decides to stay home, like mine did after our second child and then into the third, what I really blew I think I really didn't do very well at this, dr White and I was growing businesses and I was tired and different things, but I didn't give my wife enough encouragement, I didn't tell her enough that she was really valued enough that I realized that she was home with three kids, which at that time and I couldn't have done it myself I'd rather go to work for 12 hours, you know, because that's a hard job, and I think that you're more cognizant of that when you don't have this contraceptive mentality, when you don't see your wife as just an end, an object to use, and I don't mean that we always mean to do that, it just happens that way.
Speaker 1:You know a man's heart is—.
Speaker 2:One of the best ways for men to learn to respect their wives is to go through pregnancy, childbirth, labor, delivery to help them with breastfeeding. Not that they can do it for them, but one of the things. If you have more than one child, if mom is nursing the baby several times every night through the night, at least dad can get and and get the toddler a drink of water or walk him or change his diaper or whatever. He can take over a lot of the other child care that his, that his wife is unable to do because she's taking care of the newborn infant so I think that
Speaker 2:men's. There is a differentiation of roles which helps men and women to appreciate each other, to help each other, a complementarity in other words, it extends to the role in the family, now somewhat reviled is that the woman works full-time in the home to make a home, to raise the children. The man goes outside of the home and works outside the home for his family. They're both contributing tremendously to society and this way they're contributing to each other and it allows for, and the main goal of a family obviously is raising children. That's, the children are the purpose of the family.
Speaker 2:So that if you do this traditional division of labor, you can allow the mother to be more attentive to the very small children who need her more immediately. Children need a mother and a father both obviously, but they need them in different ways. And I think the children would be very much like the African couple who would say what do you mean? There's no difference between a mother and a father. There's a mother and a father and they're night and day.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is.
Speaker 2:Not that one is good and one's bad, but you need them both, but in a different way.
Speaker 1:Yes, you do. And let's talk a little bit about declining fertility, because David Avignone again, he's our executive director, who you know well, and he introduced us, executive director, who you know well, and he introduced us, and he said, you know, jack, he said I spent all this time studying natural family planning and techniques and how to use it, and he said then we'd never used it because of all the things that you're saying, dr White. And then what you find is, you know, people are getting married later on in life and there's a naturally declining fertility and people don't realize it. It doesn't last forever, does it?
Speaker 2:No, as I said before, the highest level of fertility is probably late teens to early 20s. During the 20s and 30s it begins to decline and a few couples are blessed with children after the age of 40, but that's pretty rare, maybe one, yeah, yeah. No, in terms of people not ever needing to use natural family planning.
Speaker 2:I always felt that I had one of the most easy jobs in the world because I had nature on my side, so when I was trying to, I didn't have to browbeat patients and shake them and try to get them to do things the way I wanted them to. I just said, well, you know what about this? Why don't you try that? Oh yeah, again, getting back to the breastfeeding if you choose breastfeeding for all of its advantages, especially the fact that it's better in so many ways for children.
Speaker 1:And we're learning more and more about that, aren't we?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but then as a side benefit you get this natural spacing, and it's funny. I've dealt with people who were using periodic abstinence and who had this attitude that we must plan every child.
Speaker 1:That's our duty and the funny thing was a lot of them had moderately large families.
Speaker 2:You know six, eight kids, sometimes only two or four. You know sometimes none at all because infertility is a very, very prevalent problem among human beings.
Speaker 2:But they would be using periodic abstinence and they would decide intellectually now is the time that we should have another child. And I think that what they thought was their intellectual decision-making was in fact their hormones, because they were fertile again after a period of breastfeeding and all of a sudden it dawned on them well gee, we should be be having another child, because they felt it in here okay, so there's a real safe mechanism with with breastfeeding and natural child spacing that's a beautiful thing to keep in mind.
Speaker 1:You know, and and again, you know people get into, like you said, the 40s. You know this is before menopause, right? So people think you know for a woman it's menopause, that they said, well, now I can't get pregnant anymore. But actually fertility has already decreased. In some cases it's gone. You know well, before that isn't it? And look, I'm not an expert on that, but I just just, if you, if you don't mind, just a quick comment on that.
Speaker 2:Well, even people who are experts in charting and watching for all the symptoms and so forth think they're still fertile, and in fact they're not, and they're agonizing at the age of 45. Well gee, do we still need to be practicing this periodic abstinence? Because, well, my wife shows all the signs of fertility? But in fact, even whether they did or not, they'd be very unlikely to. In many years of practice, I knew of only two women who had babies at the age of 47. I had two or three women that had babies at the age of 45., but at the age of 47, I only knew of two women.
Speaker 2:They weren't patients of mine. One was my mother and the other was my sister, and they had babies at 47.
Speaker 1:And I had.
Speaker 2:Finally, in the later years of my practice, I had a patient who had a baby at 47. It was great, it was wonderful, perfectly normal pregnancy, normal delivery. And then she came back three years later and had another one.
Speaker 1:That was, but that was very rare, that was out of you know over 2000 babies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, it's an interesting thing when and I don't know many people like that either, but I do meet them once in a while and I'll say, jack, you know that last child was a total surprise came six years later after my other children, or seven years later, but what a gift, what a gift that is.
Speaker 1:You know, it keeps me young, it keeps me young. They said my, my oldest, my, my youngest brothers, you know, 13, 14 years younger than me, and what a gift he is. You know there's, there's five of us and my dad and mom were just natural. That's just how many kids they had, right, and so I'm the oldest, it goes down to the youngest 13 years later, and they were spaced out pretty good. Just like you said, the first three of us came pretty fast and as my mom got a little older you know it was it was three years or four years in between the fourth brother and then another three or four years before the last one was born, and it was just natural. It was a beautiful thing to see, but I could not imagine Dr White being without any of those brothers of mine Exactly.
Speaker 2:Sometimes people would come into the office and say you know, I've got four kids or five kids or whatever. And you know, I just I need a way. I want to do natural family planning because I just I'm overwhelmed with all these things.
Speaker 2:A lot of times there are other things that are overwhelming people. That's right. So there are times and they ascribe it to the children and I said sometimes well, instead of practicing all this periodic abstinence and trying to avoid another pregnancy, why don't you just give up one of your current children for adoption?
Speaker 1:oh no, I couldn't do that I love them.
Speaker 2:Well, you're gonna love the next one too, you know yeah, yeah, but.
Speaker 1:But. But to your point, if there was and I think it's good for people to know natural family planning is not the old rhythm method, it actually is pretty scientific. You know we use the word scientific now not knowing what science means anymore. We've seen it twisted and distorted so many ways but it's actually effective, isn't it? I mean, if people really need to do it and I agree with what you said, you know natural is the best course, but if people need to do it and they want to have it, you know, as kind of a backstop if something comes up, it's effective, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yes, it is yeah, yeah. And so, with this contraceptive mentality that I think we come into, it's a what we see so many families in disarray, in dysfunction, husband or wife not getting along. We've lost and, dr White, you know this and this will be a little off tangent, but I don't think much, we've lost the beauty of the sacramental beauty of this reflection of God's design. You know, right away from Genesis, chapter 1, right, we, you know, god is creating us in His image, in the divine image. He created us, male and female. He created us, and again, I always remind couples right, there was a moment in time, you know, what do we think about with the Trinity? Well, we think, you know, the Father gives us love to the Son. The Son receives that love. It's so beautiful and profound, it comes out in the form of a person, the Holy Spirit. So what does this male and female thing got to do with it?
Speaker 1:Well, after one of my children was born, one time, after my knees stopped shaking, you know, and just being there for that whole process, and I sat down and I go, oh my gosh, nine months before, my wife and I became one, literally, physically one, right in a marital embrace, and in an instant there was a love bomb explosion that went off, called the child. So, again, my wife received my love. She gave it back to me. It was so beautiful and profound. It came out in the form of a person. We called that person a child. It's a beautiful reflection of Trinitarian love.
Speaker 1:And it wasn't until I started to understand everything that we're talking about here, right, the beauty of relationships, the beauty of complementarity, the beauty of recognizing and letting my wife know how important and how beautiful she was and what she was doing. Having more patience, I became a better man, and it was not easy for me to do. I was not naturally patient, you know. I could have a little bit of a temper myself, but over time, you know, I saw this love of my wife to my children and to our children and I became a better man through all this. And it's that self-sacrifice, isn't it, dr White, when you start to look at the other person as a gift and I want what's good for them. Right, that's what love is right.
Speaker 2:No, I think that the purpose of marriage is for men and women to help each other become better men and women. The wife helps the husband become a better man and the husband if he's a good husband and trying hard and a lot of times men tend to be kind of we're prone to mistakes, but if we keep trying, usually so I wasn't the only one.
Speaker 1:Huh, I'm not the only one.
Speaker 2:Yes, you know an opportunity to. But the other aspect of that is I don't know if you heard of Dr Herbert Ratner, the late Dr Ratner. He was a great teacher of families and a great pro-life leader and he said the purpose of children is to help parents grow up, which? We often think we're there to help them grow up. Yes, Because they have such immediate needs. They call upon us to be more generous and we grow up.
Speaker 1:Yes, no, I agree with you 100%. My wife and I are not spring chickens anymore and we're still learning how to grow up and how to become better friends. It's the most beautiful thing when you start getting older and my wife and I just became better friends. It's the most beautiful thing when you start getting older and you, you know, my wife and I just became better friends. You know, and, and, and you know it.
Speaker 1:It took a long time, you know, to get to that point, and it should have came sooner, and I think part of the reason are all these things that we're talking about now. On the flip side of it, a woman can't forget to compliment her husband once in a while too, because, you know, we need that as men too, right, we need to come home and our wife would say to us hey, thank you for doing so much last night, you know, or whatever. Maybe it should have been things we should have did, right, you know, got up, like you said, gave the little one water, or whatever, but still, it's nice to hear, it't it?
Speaker 2:sure, right, and I think women in this traditional form of the family, they appreciate the long hours of work that the guys out there in the rat race yeah, they're trying to bring home the bacon right, yeah, and there's pressure in that too.
Speaker 1:There's pressure in that, you know. One of the things I wanted to just touch base with you on is Humanae Vitae. Humanae Vitae, of course, was rejected by so many in 1968. When it came out, everybody expected contraception to be accepted by the Catholic Church. Catholic Church is amazing. It held out. You really see the Holy Spirit working through the Church, even when so many churchmen wanted a contraception, right, especially when the pill came out. Well, he didn't.
Speaker 1:Pope Paul VI didn't write this as a prophetic document, you know, it was just really explaining it. But it became a prophetic document as you read it now, and I always suggest to people to go back it's not a long encyclical and start at number 17. I always love number 17. I just want to read you just a little bit and get your comments on this, dr White. So he prophesied Basically he didn't say he was prophesying again, but I'm saying these are general prophecies what would happen if the church's teaching on contraception were ignored?
Speaker 1:Right, we threw it out, the basic teaching. He said no contraception were ignored? Right, we threw it out, the basic teaching. He said no contraception. First, he said it would lead to infidelity and a general lowering of all morality, beginning with sexual morality, and we see that today all over. Second, it would lead to a loss of respect for women, and this is kind of what you and I have been talking about a little bit here. But you'd see this pornography today. It's amazing twisting and distortion. Third, the abuse of power by the state and public authorities. We see this, you know, they're getting into all the aspects of our lives today. And finally, finally, the warning that contraception would lead man to think that he had unlimited dominion over his body, and we're even seeing these trans issues and all these things. We've totally lost sight of who we are as human beings and it would almost be impossible in 1968 to be able to look out and see that. Dr White, it's an amazing document, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it did cause a tremendous controversy. Yes, it did. I remember that I was in college and of course I think it was maybe Chesterton, I don't know. Whoever's not liberal when he's young has no heart, and whoever's not conservative when he's old has no brain.
Speaker 1:Oh, that sounds like a GK statement yes Say that again. Say that one more time, will you?
Speaker 2:Anyone who's not liberal when he's young or anyone has no heart and anyone who's not conservative when he's older has no brain. Oh how beautiful.
Speaker 1:A little oversimplified, but most quips are. Yes.
Speaker 2:But I remember somebody at the very liberal college I went to asked me what I thought of. This was a liberal professor who was asking me what did I think of Humanae Vitae? And I said, well, of course the Pope has no business telling us what we should do in our own bedrooms. But I think he was right and the guy was blown away. He couldn't make that distinction between what he felt was an overweening dictatorial papal statement and the fact that there may have been some truth in it. He couldn't see that.
Speaker 1:So it was interesting. There were a lot of varying views.
Speaker 1:Kudos to you for seeing it as a young, as a young man that obviously came out of your catholic background well, I had a good family yeah, yeah and not only with many children and grandchildren, but also with good parents and brothers and sisters and so forth this is is and people don't realize this when you see the breakdown around us, around the world, especially the Western civilization, and this lowering of morality, what we're doing to kids in the public school systems, the confusion, the sexual confusion, this all comes out of a twisting and distortion of the beauty of right from Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. The older I get, dr White, the more I realize what a gift we have here in the church. It's amazing. And we have so many shepherds all the way up into the Vatican that seem like they don't even believe in God anymore. But we have this beautiful deposit of faith that just keeps coming down to us, keeps coming down to us. And, like you said, you know, eternal happiness.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, you know, we think, oh, don't talk to me about eternal happiness, that's a long way off, and I go, no, no, no. Eternity doesn't mean tomorrow, eternity means forever. We're already eternal beings, aren't we, dr White? We're already moving toward this eternal life. But, man, you want to do it with a family, if you can right, with people around that you love. And you realize I have to sacrifice to be happy myself. It took me a long time to figure that out. I wish somebody would have just kept hitting me on the side of the head figure that out.
Speaker 2:I wish somebody would have just kept hitting me on the side of the head. I'm not a theologian and most of my professional life was working with nature. The word physician obviously comes from the Greek root physis for nature.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's a statement to make nowadays. That's beautiful to hear that.
Speaker 2:It's always helpful for me to realize that the author of the book of nature and the book of scripture is the same guy. Yes, we can learn a lot about what God's purpose for our lives is by reading the book of nature as well as by reading the book of scripture. So we have to be, aware and alert to the natural law, certainly in terms of the family contraception children.
Speaker 1:We learn a lot from nature and.
Speaker 2:I think, we'll have happier lives if we're listening.
Speaker 1:Yes, what a beautiful thing, and maybe, as we start to close here in conclusion, that's a good way to to really talk about that. You know, you know it's nature's law and natural law, nature's law just being like you said. You know, you can see this around us how our bodies are created, how do we're created to be complementary. You know, my wife and I, I have almost all the same organs, except for one that sexual organ. There's a reason for that isn't there. And then and and then, the same organs, except for one, that sexual organ. There's a reason for that isn't there. And then the Scripture will say you know, there's natural laws written on our hearts, isn't it? You know, this desire to love and be loved, to do the right thing. This is not some crazy Catholic thing, is it? This is the same designer, like you said, dr White, that's a beautiful way to start to wrap this up.
Speaker 2:I love you had a lot of protestant patients who had no particular theological objection to contraception at all. But if they started out with natural childbirth and then breastfeeding and they found that the babies were coming at a space spacing, that was reasonable and doable. Sure, having a family an enormous amount of work, but it was so rewarding that they never even. I'm amazed how seldom anybody ever asked me to prescribe contraception for them and these are Protestants as well as Catholics because they were living a naturally wholesome, good life and they didn't need it. Because they were living a naturally wholesome, good life and they didn't need it. There was a commentator Christopher Derrick, I think his name was back in the 70s or 80s, who said that he never understood why so many people wanted to practice contraception.
Speaker 1:It wasn't because it was immoral, but he found it disgusting, so he thought why would anybody want to?
Speaker 2:do that, you know.
Speaker 1:That's well you, you know. It reminds me now that you say all that. John paul was speaking to young men, that young married men, at a conference, and he made this one statement. He said before you go to make love to your wife, take your shoes off. You're entering unto holy ground, entering unto holy ground, entering onto holy ground. What a beautiful way. You know, when we start to see this, this self-sacrificial love, that you're entering into holy ground, an actual sacrament, and when the two come together, there's grace infused in this relationship. And I think this is such a big deal and this is why this discussion like this is so important. And, dr White, thank you so much, thanks for your time. I'm going to give you just a closing comment, if you have one there, but I really appreciate your time. This has been really enjoyable and very inspiring, actually. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Well, the closing comment might be from I think it might be from Chesterton again, although I'm not very good at footnotes. But sum up the whole moral love God and do as you please, because if you love God, you'll do what pleases you and what pleases him.
Speaker 1:I think that's a beautiful way to end. Hey, thank you. Thanks, dr White. Thank you everyone. Thanks for joining us today. We appreciate it. We'll talk again soon. Bye-bye.