Melody Lyons

Wife. Mother. Washer of dishes. Some other less important things. Author, The Sunshine Principle. “Awake, O sleeper…”

[Melody Lyons @melodymlyons]

Please teach your daughters that they’re bodies are not “gross” simply because men are visually stimulated. Please, please, please teach them that modesty is not desirable because their flesh is wicked, but because it has dignity.

We have a crisis of self-harm in women from eating disorders to cutting to surgical mutilation to reckless promiscuity. Young women learn very young to hate their physicality because it draws unwanted (and often abusive) attention, and yet…

At the same time seems the only apparent way to attract “love.”

Many women have never met or dated a man who treats her with Christ-like love. Never met a ma who sees her with vision that is untainted by porn. She doesn’t know how to be any other way. And neither do the men.

Many men here who have had conversions, and who are now shaming women for immodesty, were once young men who used young women for sexual pleasure.

And maybe they didn’t know better then, but they do now. The proper response is not hostility toward women, but compassion and commitment to protection.

Love your families. Make sure your daughters know love, safety, and that they are created good and with dignity (yes, their bodies, too). And with all other women…

Just be a gentlemen. Model for them the dignity of masculinity, which is not cruel, does not mock vulnerability, does not dehumanize.

[Melody Lyons @melodymlyons]

Rejection of moral teachings often follows a loss of trust in the Church. If the foundation of authority is shaken, not much is left. We talk about lousy catechesis and abuse, etc and then kick people in the head for not surviving it all. There are people who just want to do what they want to do even with the most loving circumstances… but my experience in the Church as a youth was not excellent. And now as a practicing faithful adult, it still has been difficult to the point of exquisite pain. Just lay off people. There’s zero positive reason for the op.

[Melody Lyons @melodymlyons]

@Murmurs16477916 @dlongenecker1 All kinds of possibilities that don’t fit neatly into the op

[Melody Lyons @melodymlyons]

@LeahLibresco @lukeburgis Amen

[Melody Lyons @melodymlyons]

@SrDorcee Thank you, Sister. ♥️

[Melody Lyons @melodymlyons]

When you get engaged, you think you’re about to spend the rest of your life with your best friend. It’s partially true. More likely, you will be spending most of your days apart and reconvening as two very tired souls in the evening. And much of your efforts in marriage will be spent trying to steal time from your obligations to spend it with your beloved.

Wrongly considered, it can be a persistent grief. Rightly considered, it can become a grand romantic adventure. Either way, I find that I often miss my husband. And my hope for his eventual retirement has nothing at all to do with a life of ease but with a deep and simple desire for his presence.

[Melody Lyons @melodymlyons]

@FreeIrishman7 @CraigOnan Seems like you gave yourself permission to employ rash judgement using the argument that you are a highly sensitive person. Maybe x is not a good place for you.

[Melody Lyons @melodymlyons]

@Gxpx5 I hope so. Trying

[Melody Lyons @melodymlyons]

We didn’t plan our retirement. We may not see retirement at all. We are thirty years married with 8 kids and 3 grandkids, pivoting, loving, working as we go. We don’t “find” different paths; we work to make sure that our paths perpetually converge. Because it matters. I’m sorry you’re divorced. My own parents were. It would hurt a lot of people brutally if we wandered away now.

[Melody Lyons @melodymlyons]

@MaryCol81396498 ♥️

[Melody Lyons @melodymlyons]

@gertieok Beautiful

[Melody Lyons @melodymlyons]

If John Taylor Gatto were alive, I suspect that he would observe the Candace Effect and call it a successful and intended outcome of mass institutional schooling. Perhaps he would see consumers who think they are clever and rogue but who are, in fact, easily controllable.

[JD Flynn @jdflynn]

@ThxTom90228 Actually, in humanity there is no shame in being a burden.

We’re mortal. Our bodies get weak, our minds get weak. We will each die. And along we’ll depend on each other.

Love is bearing the burden willingly and generously.

[Sr. Theresa Aletheia @pursuedbytruth]

“A Eucharist without solidarity with others is a Eucharist abused.” — Benedict XVI

[Melody Lyons @melodymlyons]

@BrucesDee I got from your comment what you put into. Be well with whatever life you have chosen. But do move on from this convo. Your photo is a lie. Maybe your bio is, too. Either way, you don’t seem like a very kind person.

[Melody Lyons @melodymlyons]

When an adult child goes no-contact with an adult parent, I don’t think people should assume the child is awful or the parent is awful. Maybe just assume that life is messy. And surrender the right to know anything else.

There are a lot of parents who love their kids as best they can but really lack virtue and skill because they never learned it. Sometimes estrangement is just coping with a crud ton of generational harm.

And we can hope it works itself out. But it’s probably not our business one way or another.

[Melody Lyons @melodymlyons]

@BrucesDee Entitled parents think they can live however they want—detached from their children—and then demand attention from those children at will. Your words reflect that thinking. “I want what I want. It doesn’t matter what you wanted then. And it doesn’t matter now.” Cruel.

[Melody Lyons @melodymlyons]

This isn’t correct. Catholics were a very small percentage of American population at the start of mandatory schooling. Tiny minority that increased through immigration. The roots of public education were more about an ideological push toward industrialization which required disruption of agrarian life. It’s still anti-family which is fundamentally anti-Catholic. But the target wasn’t Catholicism specifically.

[Melody Lyons @melodymlyons]

Thank you. I don’t think we can control the pace of our healing, but I appreciate your intention. I don’t think most adults cling to grievances as much as they experience significant grief and pain and don’t know how to get out of it. A nervous system damaged in childhood does not repair by application of the will. It’s not all an intellectual process. Thankfully, this world is not the end point of healing.