Prayer request for woman pregnant with spina bifida child — update

Sister Marie Regina writes with an updated prayer request for the woman I wrote about two weeks ago (see original post below). I believe the request is urgent because, the last I heard, the abortion is scheduled for tomorrow:

Just wanted to thank you for your beautiful responses to the abortion-vulnerable young woman in Canada who is pregnant with twins, one of whom has been diagnosed in utero with spina bifida.

Apparently, the CPC working with her has been literally overwhelmed with hundreds of responses ~ many families willing and desiring to adopt the child, multiple letters written from those who have special needs children themselves, offers of every kind of support imaginable...truly, the Church's faithful at their best.

To date, however, the young woman is still determined in her decision to abort the child. The CPC is beseeching all for prayers at this point ~ all practical, hands-on help has been offered; only our Lord can reach this precious soul and her little ones now...May her heart be opened by the tangible love of God she and her children have been shown by the Body of Christ, to love through all her fears and doubt...

The CPC has also requested that we update all whom we have forwarded the original request for help to, and that we refrain from any more outreach/calls now and simply pray (they don't have the manpower to respond to any more practical offers for help! Praise God!).

Here is an edited version of my original post:

Aid To Women, a crisis pregnancy center in Toronto, has been assisting a mom who is expecting twins next month.

Recently she found out, that one of the babies (a boy) has spina bifida. This is a birth defect in which the spinal cord has not developed properly. According to the doctors, this unborn child's condition is severe. He is probably paralyzed from the waist down and will need a shunt because of hydrocephaly (water on the brain).

According to the Spina Bifida Association, "Thanks to new medical treatments and technology, most people born with Spina Bifida can expect to live a normal life. People with Spina Bifida have many special challenges because of their birth defect, but their condition does not define who they are. People with Spina Bifida have careers, get married and have children just like people who don’t have Spina Bifida."

The mother cannot face this challenge and has booked to have a selective abortion of the spina bifida boy on February 2. If she goes through with it, the child will be aborted at 31½ weeks by Caesarean.

Yes, you read correctly. 31½ weeks. Abortion is legal and unrestricted in Canada until birth.

Aid to Women feels that if they can offer this mom a promise that a family will adopt the handicapped boy, she will carry him to term. They put out a call, including a mass e-mail, and have received interest from two families so far.

I received the e-mail and phoned the center to ask if they wanted me to put the request with on my blog. Center director Ann Wilson asked that I ask readers to pray for the mother. While the mother is Christian and opposes abortion, she is very distressed at the thought of giving birth to a severely handicapped child, and she is thinking that perhaps it would be better for both the boy and her if he were killed before birth.

Please pray for the mother and her unborn child.

Note: Because I have moved this post from its original spot, the first comments below are from when the request originally ran.

Changing 'Sheets'

I'm happy to report that my National Post article, "Between my sheets, a lonely world," has found a magisterial home on the Catholic Educators' Resource Center. It's in excellent company there on catholiceducation.org, alongside hundreds of articles by the likes of Peter Kreeft, George Weigel, and Peggy Noonan, among others. Among the site's highlights:

• "Love," by Peter Kreeft, helped me when I was writing my book. I quoted one of his statements from the article: "We fall in love but we do not fall in agape. We rise in agape."
• "Catholic and Feminist: Can One Be Both?" shows the brilliant mind of Elizabeth Fox-Genovese. I don't agree with her that those upholding the Church's beliefs in the dignity of women should retain the word "feminism" to describe their efforts, but her conclusions are powerful.

I'll be discussing my book today at 3:15 3 p.m. Eastern on "Charles Adler Online," syndicated throughout Canada by Corus Radio. You can hear it by clicking the "Listen Now" button atop the show's homepage.

Prayer request from the Sisters of Life

The Sisters of Life wrote today asking that I post the following prayer request:

I am writing to ask for prayers for a very heroic woman. She has chosen life for her unborn child after attempting to seek an abortion several times, each time moved by the rightness of giving life. Now we have been able to set up a wonderful living arrangement for her and her disabled mother within a community who can offer an apartment for half its worth. She is doing well supporting her growing family but is having trouble making this month's rent due to the fact that she is in a high risk pregnancy and has been hospitalized several times. Please keep her in your prayers.

If in addition to praying, you would like to give material help, please write me at dawn -at- dawneden.com (replacing "-at-" with an at-sign) and I will forward your e-mail to the Sisters of Life. I volunteer for them and have met several women who have been helped by them. They are truly doing God's work.

Take that, Mick Jagger

"Satisfaction in chastity" is how the National Post headlines the one letter it's published so far in response to the op-ed I wrote for the paper:

Re: Between My Sheets, A Lonely World, Dawn Eden, Jan. 27

Ms. Eden aims the beam of truth at the tenets of the sexual revolution and reveals them for what they are: ugly lies. The genuinely liberated woman knows that marvellous freedom and satisfaction are found in chastity before marriage and faithfulness to her husband after. What benefits the world would reap if women everywhere embraced this precious truth and acted on it.

Caroline Van Dyken, St. Catharines, Ont.

Why I don't do 'windows'

One reason why I wrote The Thrill of the Chaste was to give single women a break from stories like this tabloid tale of missed "Relationship Windows."

It paints a Bosch-like hell of women in their 30s in "mounting despair" who "can't hide [their] screaming ovaries." If they miss their window for marriage, their next chance is when they're in their mid-40s, fretting because they're "competing with much younger, fresher women."

The reporter attempts to end on a note of hope, quoting a matchmaker who — though she charges nearly $12,000 for her services — insists that meeting one's mate isn't the be-all and end-all: "To be happy, you have to fulfill yourself."

If what the matchmaker is saying is that one's happiness should not depend upon outward circumstances or personal relationships, I can accept that. But she seems to go further than that by using the language of "fulfillment." In the context of her Cassandra-like pronouncements of middle-aged "singletons"' impending doom, the obvious question to me is, how can such a woman become "fulfilled"? Certainly not by reading newspaper articles painting unmarried life as a never-ending meat market where all the carrion stinks at the end of the day.

At any rate, how, pray tell, does one fulfill oneself? There's not a blessed thing I can do to fulfill myself; I'm lucky if I can manage to dress myself. I can, however, make a sincere attempt to help those around me enjoy more fulfilling lives, by trying with all my heart to say and do the most loving thing at every moment.

If I succeed even a small part of the time, I'm that much closer to being fulfilled. But I wouldn't call it fulfilling myself, because that would ignore the economy of grace — which magnifies every good thing I give into something far beyond what my own resources could provide.

According to the article, a "Relationship Window" opens only twice in one's life. Thankfully, the heart is capable of opening much more often. But one has to listen in order to hear it over the din of those screaming ovaries or what have you.

O Canada!

Good morning! Any substantial post will have to wait 'til tonight or tomorrow, as I've been up writing an article for a U.K. paper (will link to it when it's published). In the meantime, many thanks to the readers of my National Post article and other Canadians who enabled The Thrill of the Chaste to reach its highest-ever ranking on Amazon Canada — #183!

I second that devotion

I've updated Gaits of Eden (click "Proceed to Gaits" on that page) and included another new publicity shot by Tony Carnes, in which I inadvertently display one more devotion than usual — a result of all the hair-tossing I had to do for the shoot.

Tony appears to have done a bit of retouching; the dark circles under my eyes have vanished, and my pearly whites are, well, pearly white. But the images are still a reasonable facsimile; compare with  the video footage of me at the chastity debate. Far be it from me to pull the wool over anyone's eyes — except my own, of course.

National Post gets The Thrill

"Between my sheets, a lonely world" is how the headline of my story in today's National Post of Canada puts it — referring to my pre-chastity life, as you can see from the illustration. I think the Chagall-like artwork is loosely based on this new publicity shot I sent the paper.

The article is a reworked version of my Sunday Times piece and is actually much closer to what I originally sent the London paper before their editor put it through the Brit-o-rizer. I'm especially happy they kept the quote from "my Baby Boomer priest."

Photo by Tony Carnes.

Buy The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On at Amazon.com.

Musique 'Concrete'

A Friday treat: one of my favorite mid-Sixties video clips, of one of my favorite pop hits — the Unit 4+2's "Concrete and Clay":


Is it just me, or are they performing on the future site of "The Office"? Also, dig the painted-on f-hole.

Get your clicks

Good morning! A few random notes:

• Check out the review of my Theology on Tap talk (with pics) on For God, for Country, and for Yale,
  
• Check below for the winning entry in the Yale song contest, to be announced later this morning,
  
• And check out Canada's National Post tomorrow for a familiar-but-different op-ed — watch this blog for a link to the piece.

Yale 'Roe vs. Wade Week' teaches non-medical students how to make a baby go (Whiffen)poof

Good morning! I'm exhausted after taking two trains and a cab back from New Haven, so I'll leave it to Stephen of For God, for Country, and for Yale to offer details (and, I hope, photos) of my Theology on Tap talk about my book, The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On. I can tell you that it was the best experience I've had yet at a speaking engagement. I know I'm in the right kind of bar event when I walk in and see a sign on the bannister of the staircase that reads, "Confession" — and next to it a priest in flowing white Dominican garb. (Yes, he did hear confessions after my talk as well as before — though I didn't get a chance to make one myself.) The location, in the back room of the Playwright pub, was stunning — a plank-by-plank recreation of an Irish church — and there were about 100 people there.

Meanwhile, on the other side of New Haven, student groups at Yale were gearing up for Roe vs. Wade Week. According to the Yale Daily News, the event, presumably subsidized by student activity funds, does more than just promote abortion. The organizers plan to teach attendees — not just medical students, but anyone who shows up — how to perform the "simple procedure":

On Thursday, the Yale Medical Students for Choice will host workshop on manual vacuum aspiration for medical students, using a papaya as a uterine model. Manual vacuum aspiration is a surgical abortion method that uses a syringe to remove the fetus from a woman’s uterus. Merritt Evans MED ’09 said she thought it was important to have the workshop because the procedure can be used for a variety of different purposes — including miscarriage management and the treatment of a failed medical abortion or ectopic pregnancy — and is inconsistently taught in medical school.

While the workshop is targeted towards medical students, undergraduates are also invited to attend.

“The reason I wanted to include other people is that it is such a simple procedure, but the media attention around it … makes this an emotionally traumatic and a complicated thing,” Evans said. “It’s just to be like, ‘Here is what actually happens, here is what the medical procedure is like, this is what an aborted yolk sac looks like.’ It looks like a piece of cotton.”

It strikes me that Yale's traditional school songs are horribly outdated in light of the school's new mission. A $25 Amazon gift certificate to the commenter who composes the best rewrite of one of the school's anthems. Deadline is midnight tonight. Remember, do it for God, for country, for Yale, and for all those liberal arts students at one of the country's finest Ivy League universities who are about to learn how to suction a live baby out of the womb.

For further inspiration, see Yale alumnus Clinton W. Taylor's Yale songs for Talibanis and his column about his alma mater's coed bathroom policy, "Boola Loo Blues.

UPDATE, 1/27/07: Thanks to everyone who entered the contest. It was hard to judge it with so many good entries. But in the end, one entry stood out on multiple levels, with its parody, wordplay, and topicality: Leif's "Bright Sharp-edged Curette," an update of "Bright College Years":

Easy college credit; all I need's a knife.
That little papaya yolk sac will see no years of life.
How swiftly are ye kicking.
O why does my blade so quickly fly?
Thanks to Blackmun (see Wade v. Roe)
The baby's red and dead; let's go.
It's fitful strains did not avail
To keep its limbs from the trash pail.

In after years should trouble rise
I'll just blurt out that old reprise
A woman's got a right to choose
Papaya yolk sacs ain't much t'loose
O let us strive that ever we
May let these words our watch cry be
What e'er's left in that trash pail:
"For Choice, for country, and for Yale!"

Haven a wonderful time, wish you were here

Just a reminder that I'll be in New Haven tonight, speaking at the Theology on Tap series: 7:30-8:30 p.m. at the Playwright, 144 Temple Street. Come early for free appetizers, courtesy of the Knights of Columbus. The event is free, but a suggested offering of $5 is requested.

I'm very excited about this event, as the organizers foresee a good crowd. Expect a chastity Woodstock!

From bed to verse

My using the Shirelles' "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" in The Thrill of the Chaste to illustrate common misconceptions about premarital sex has caused a minor kerfuffle in the feminist blog world. Amanda Marcotte's post at Pandagon (which puts the f-word right upfront, as is Marcotte's wont) states erroneously that I got the song's title wrong, then appears to imply that Carole King was responsible for the song's subject matter. "King does have a history of writing love songs where the unfairness of male power is a recurring theme," the blogger writes.

I'm sure Gerry Goffin would be surprised to learn he's exposed "the unfairness of male power." Goffin, King's husband and co-writer, was the lyricist of the duo, and "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" was his idea, as chronicled in Ken Emerson's Always Magic in the Air and elsewhere.

"Will You Love Me Tomorrow" is an undeniable classic. Its lyrics' power comes from the fact that the situation they relate resonates with many listeners' experience.

Yet the driving emotion of the words is not love. It's pathos.

"Tonight with words unspoken/You say that I'm the only one ..." The protagonist is giving her body and her heart away to a man who hasn't even verbalized a commitment to her. Indeed, it's not even clear that he's said he loves her.

A man having sex with a woman he really loves — especially a woman like the song's protagonist, who is clearly hoping for "a lasting treasure" — would never allow her to doubt for one minute that he loved her. That's part of the nature of love: It is empathetic. A loving man wants nothing more than to let his beloved know he does love her and is not going away.

As I write in The Thrill of the Chaste, if you have to ask if he'll love you tomorrow, he doesn't love you tonight.

Buy The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On at Amazon.com.

Jill Fil takes chill pill

Feministe's Jill Filipovic yesterday dove into the lively discussion (currently at 181 comments and counting) of my "Absolute Feministe" post.

In one of her responses, Jill wrote in part:

I'm arguing that there exists a fundamentalist, patriarchal mentality which is premised on the sexual control of women. "Chastity," in the sense that women who don't toe a particular sexual line are "soiled," is part of that.

I responded,

"Chastity," in the sense that women who don't toe a particular sexual line are "soiled," is part of that.

I don't believe that, Jill. I believe you're creating a straw-man argument because knowing the truth about what chastity is would force you to reexamine the prejudices through which you define Christians and other so-called "fundies." Try following the link I provide in this post to Deus Caritas Est to find out what Christians really believe about chastity.

Since then, as of this writing, Jill has responded only with silence, so I don't know if she'll have anything more to add to the discussion. Regardless, if you would like to add your comment to "Absolute Feministe," methinks she'll read it.

I'd like to keep all the responses to "Absolute Feministe" together, so please leave yours there. Thank you.

First Things gets The Thrill

"Particularly insightful is the connection Eden draws between her struggles with food and sexual temptation. These physical hungers point to deeper spiritual hunger. Acknowledging our own vulnerability is essential in a feminist culture of self-sufficiency precisely because this opens us up to praying to God with our struggles; living a single or married life of control and self-sacrifice cannot be done in our own strength. Eden encourages readers to develop through prayer and service 'inner qualities — like empathy, patience, humility, and faith in spite of hardship.' She devotes an entire chapter to promoting ways to meet like-minded people. Her stories of people she has encountered in being chaste are deeply moving. This is not a lesson in postmodern self-actualization and finding one's self. It is about finding the treasure of self in God's eyes and uncovering joy in a chastity that, as the Catechism insists, 'lets us love with upright and undivided heart.'"

— Erin M. Palazzolo, reviewing The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On in the February 2007 issue of First Things (review is available online to subscribers only)

Buy The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On at Amazon.com.

Quote of the day

"The affair was like a race between a lumbering sailing vessel and a modern steamer."

— Joseph J. Reilly, describing "modern steamer" G.K. Chesterton's debate against Clarence Darrow on evolution. Read the story at chesterton.org.

Speaking of debates, if you missed the great chastity debate between me and Virginia Vitzthum, the entire exchange is on YouTube. I don't think either of us is a lumbering sailing vessel, though there might be one brief point where I get a bit dinghy.

Sorry for the light posting; it's a busy weekend. More tomorrow.

Quote of the day

"Many who would willingly let themselves be nailed to a Cross before the astonished gaze of a thousand onlookers cannot bear with a Christian spirit the pinpricks of each day! Think, then, which is the more heroic."

— St. Josemaria Escriva, The Way

Absolute 'Feministe'

[Be aware that the Feministe article linked below contains profanity.]

Jill Filipovic at Feministe  uses the word "wonderful" to describe my Sunday Times piece.

Really, she does. She writes that I do "a wonderful job explaining why the pro-'chastity,' anti-choice crowd is so thoroughly misogynist, seeing men as actors and women as passive objects."

She makes a number of points based on her understanding of traditional Christian sexual morality (which is also traditional Jewish sexual morality), which she believes boils down to "keep girls nice and ignorant about sex, marry them off as soon as they can get pregnant, have their husbands rape them on their wedding nights," etc. There's no use responding to these points, because unless she ever sits down with the Gospels, the Catechism, Deus Caritas Est, or a tradition-minded priest or Orthodox rabbi, she's going to go through life unaware that The Handmaid's Tale is fiction.

What I do find interesting is her claim of moral superiority over chastity proponents. She asserts that she and her fellow sexual revolutionaries are better than the "pro-'chastity,' anti-choice crowd" because they make no claim to universal truth:

I suppose I’m one of those tin-hearted sexually liberated gals, but I’m not sure I’ve ever heard casual sex promoted as a universal good in the same way that abstinence before marriage is. That seems to be the fundamental difference — sexually active, unmarried women may say “My sex life is great” or “I feel no need to wait for marriage” or “Have you heard about this new form of birth control?” or “This is what I like sexually — if you’re sexually active, maybe you’d like it to,” but I’ve never heard a woman claim that sex before marriage is the best thing for all women, or that because they like having sex before they’re married that all women must secretly desire it. They don’t make blanket statements about what does and does not make women happy when it comes to our sexual lives.

Yet, earlier in the same post, Jill lays out her moral justification for opposing chastity proponents:

That said, there are plenty of women who do feel that sex is best when we’re loved. That’s a perfectly respectable belief. But why a wedding ring is the only thing that proves “love” is beyond me. I honestly question if a man can truly love a woman — as an equal and as a partner — if he believes that sex is dirty and soils her, unless he’s the one doing it, and only after he’s paid for it. I honestly question if a woman can truly love a man, or enjoy sex, if she believes that her own body is inherently sinful, and that men are selfish beasts who have to be roped into marriage, otherwise they’ll leave you — and that sex is a gift she bestows upon him, for his pleasure, in exchange for money, security and social status.

I don't know a single chastity proponent who believes any of those things. Whatever one might call the philosophy Jill describes, it's not chastity — certainly not as defined by Christian or Jewish moral authorities. Yet, Jill needs to believe that chastity proponents hate sex and hate the human body — because if they didn't, they might be reasonable human beings and therefore might have serious justification for their views.

Instead, Jill argues that she is above those who would morally justify chastity, because she believes there is no absolute truth.

As a New York University law student, she should know better.

The assertion that there is no absolute truth is an inherent contradiction. If there is no absolute truth, that statement would itself have to be an absolute truth.

Moreover, the mere fact that Jill is morally justifying herself reflects that she does in fact believe universal truth exists. Moral justification requires universal truth, because without universal truth, there is no morality and therefore no justification.

That said, there is one point on which Jill and I are in agreement: "Love and partnership shouldn’t be about an exchange of commodoties [sic] — her body for his commitment and support."

I would go even further than that. Sex shouldn't be about a mere exchange of commodities: her physical pleasure for his. Sadly, the so-called "sex-positive" culture defines feminism as the right to reduce sex to a solely physical interaction if one wishes; it claims women are not truly liberated unless they are free from the need to tie sex to love and commitment. Certainly, free will includes the right to view one's activities within any moral context, but I believe that commodity-exchange sex — essentially mutual prostitution without money involved — shouldn't be held up as some sort of female-liberationist ideal. Rather, it should be seen as what it is: pathetic and sad.


Buy The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On at Amazon.com.

Showing divine love to the unmarried on Valentine's Day

Pastors.com, part of Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Ministries, asked me to write an article on what clergy can do to bring a divine perspective to Valentine's Day — especially for unmarried churchgoers. An anecdote left by a Dawn Patrol commenter (whose name I'm sorry to say has slipped my mind) helped get the article going:

If there's one place where unmarried people should feel most welcome, you would think it would be where they come to worship God. After all, we are all equal before the Lord.

All too often, however, single people in church are reminded that they are lacking a partner. A friend of mine recalls visiting a church for the first time where a married female congregant came up to her afterward to welcome her. After some pleasantries, the woman asked, "Are you married?"

"No," my friend responded.

"Oh," the woman replied. "Are you dating someone?"

"No," my friend said again.

"Oh," the woman said awkwardly. "I'm sorry."

The congregant had ascertained and identified my friend's single status before even getting a feel for who she was and why she was in the church. What could have been an opportunity for my friend to feel welcomed and learn more about the church community instead only made her feel more isolated.

Valentine's Day offers a special opportunity not only to show your church's singles how valuable they are to God and to your congregation, but also to foster fellowship between them and married couples.

Your sermon on Sunday, Feb. 11, can put Valentine's Day in a godly perspective. It's important to note that, while couples will already have Valentine's Day romance on their minds, singles who will be dateless on the 14th will already be looking to that night with disillusionment, bitterness, or even dread. There are few things more depressing for a lonely single person, than to have to walk past the hearts-and-chocolates aisle of the drugstore for weeks on end, and then, on Valentine's Day, stay home rather than be surrounded by canoodling couples. The way you frame your sermon can help couples take their attraction to a more sanctified plane, while at the same time reminding singles that they too are conduits of divine love.

One text that illustrates the universal nature of God's love is 1 John 3:19: "We love him, because he first loved us." (KJV) The original Greek is actually, "We love, because he first loved us." Every kind of love that binds us together – from love of neighbor to love of family and love of one's spouse – is an expression of God's divine love. He gives it to us so that we may give it to one another and back to him.

Moreover, one of the ways that we can show our love for God is through loving one another. For couples, this means that the love they show one another should not stop at mere romantic love (eros). To grow closer to one another, they need to grow in faith as well, cultivating the kind of divine agape love that Jesus asked of Peter (John 21:15). Only with God's help can we attain this divine love, which is universal, extending to those close to us as well as strangers, enabling us to love people as the unique individuals that they are.

For singles, the message that "we love, because he loves us" should bring hope. It means that God has a plan for each of us to share in his love. If unmarried congregants wish to share divine love with a spouse, they can start to grow their ability to love right now – through opening their hearts to those around them. The more one learns divine love before one marries, the better prepared one will be to share that love in a lasting and fruitful marriage.

With your congregation's hearts and minds prepared to share divine love on Valentine's Day, you can engage them in activities that will both acknowledge the day's romantic import and encourage other expressions of divine love, particularly charity and fellowship. Here are two possibilities:

To find out what those possibilities are, read the full article on Pastors.com.

Buy The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On at Amazon.com.

Chicago Sun-Times gets The Thrill

Chicago Sun-Times staff reporter Leslie Baldacci has the best article I've seen in a while on single adults choosing to abstain from sex: "No sex, thanks." It's noteworthy in that it treats abstinence as a lifestyle choice, rather than erroneously reducing it, as some commentators do, to a decision based on religion or on conservative ideology. It also refrains from criticizing or belittling those who make that choice.

And she mentions my book! Yay!

FURTHERMORE: One thing Baldacci doesn't mention is that there is a difference between abstinence, or celibacy, and chastity. I offer a definition of chastity in my National Review Online interview.

Tale of the tap

If you're in the New Haven area, come see me speak next Wednesday, January 24, at Theology on Tap. It'll be from 7:30-8:30 p.m. at the Playwright, 144 Temple Street, but show up early for free appetizers provided by the Knights of Columbus. The event is free, but a suggested offering of $5 is requested. I'm hoping some chaste Yalies come out of hiding from the university that's home to "Sex Week."

Not that I'm encouraging this, y'understand ...

... but if you Google the word "sex," the number one result is:

Dawn Eden, author of a new memoir about chastity, gets frank about why she thinks forsaking sex has made her a better Christian, a better lover and a better ...

FURTHERMORE: Gawker has scruples.

Basement japes, final installment

Here are the final minutes of my January 3 debate vs. Virginia Vitzthum on "Is Chastity a Good Idea for Singles," as seen in the Observer (U.K.):

About 30 seconds of the first clip is taken up with my stammering. I was trying to articulate a difficult point. What I wanted to say finally comes to me at the very end.

One thing I find interesting is how the anti-chastity folks in the crowd applauded when someone attributed my dissatisfaction with premarital sex to low self-esteem. They seemed to assume that if one had premarital sex for the "right" motivations, one would not feel dissatisfied. I argue more effectively against that canard in my book and my Sunday Times piece.



More questions:



And the final statements:



To learn how the debate ended, see the Observer article.

PREVIOUS INSTALLMENT: Basement japes, part 8

Buy The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On at Amazon.com.

'Calling all Catholics ...'

Mike, 15, wants to hear from Catholics, especially converts from Protestantism. I hope you'll send out prayers for him as well as leaving a comment for him on YouTube. I don't know him beyond having seen this video, but it is beautiful to witness how grace is working in his life.

Found at Boudreaux's Blurbs

Sunday will never be the same

It's been quiet these past few days on the Dawn Patrol, for good reason: When I haven't been at work, I've been writing. I've been blessed with a flood of freelance writing assignments, all related to The Thrill of the Chaste, and the biggest one is going to be ... wait for it ... the cover story for the News Review section of this coming Sunday Times of London. The editor had read Paul Harris's profile of me in the Observer and wanted me to write a 2,200-word piece on my journey to chastity and The Thrill of the Chaste.

I would be jumping up and down with joy and excitement right now if I were not so exhausted.

After I submitted the article, it went through the Brit-o-rizer machine at the Times and came out with a splashier style — amplifying the juicier elements of my story and moving them up several grafs. However, if anything in the story shocks readers who are unfamiliar with my book, I have no doubt that it will be what I have to say about chastity. I'm tempted to share more, but since it should be online soon enough (perhaps tonight), I'll just say that I'm very, very happy and thankful to have the opportunity to share the message of my book in this way.

Thanks very much to those readers who have given me encouragement and support as I promote The Thrill of the Chaste — you know who you are.

UPDATE: For those in the U.S. who would like to see a print edition of the Sunday Times, there is a U.S. edition that is on sale at New York City newsstands. Turns out the News in Review section isn't available in the U.S. edition, sorry to say.

'The truth will set you free'Basement japes, part 8

More questions from the audience at my January 3 chastity debate vs. Virginia Vitzthum at Lolita Bar on the Lower East Side. Inquiring minds want to know: What is freedom? Why do I feel that I have to evangelize about chastity?



PREVIOUS INSTALLMENT: Basement japes, part 7

Basement japes, part 7Questions from the audience

It gets tricky here, during the audience-questions section of my January 3 chastity debate in the basement of lower Manhattan's Lolita Bar with Virginia Vitzthum (she's "against"; the question is, "Is Chastity a Good Thing for Singles?"). I'm asked about how I define marriage, and I lose my cool with a woman who's visibly seething because she believes I claim that all Christians support chastity. (I don't — or, at least, I don't presume that those who disagree with me lack Christ's saving grace, as I explain.)

At one point, the camera sweeps around and there's a view of the rest of the room. The parts where I'm smiling and getting up for no apparent reason are when a friend of mine, among several people crowded onto the staircase, peers through the slats to take my drink request and later hands me my grapefruit seltzer through the slats.



PREVIOUS INSTALLMENT: Basement japes, part 6

'Whether I feel dirty is another question entirely':Basement japes, part 6

If you watch only one video from the chastity debate, watch this one. This is where I state my manifesto and am met with gapes and a few boos. As mentioned before, I'm looking out towards the bulk of the 100 or so people who are crowding the long basement room of Lower East Side bar Lolita. My gasp at the very end of the video, after the moderator calls for questions, is a reaction to the sight of about 30 people raising their hands at once.

If you watch closely, my voice breaks near the end of one of my speeches. I am expending a lot of energy trying to hide the fact that I am very, very nervous.



PREVIOUS INSTALLMENT: Basement japes, part 5

Culture club

The other night, I had the pleasure of speaking at the lecture series sponsored by the Forum, a group that brings together young adults, mostly Catholic, who share an interest in the arts, literature, and delicious homemade shortbread (though you're not required to eat the shortbread). The people at the gatherings tend to be on the erudite side and yet eminently approachable;. It's like a young-adult group for people who would normally run the other way from young-adult groups (those that, as my pastor puts it, are really neither young nor adult). If you're in the New York City area, I recommend signing up at their Web site (which currently bears a photo of me).

Thor's glamour

Thor Tolo of "Live from Seattle" has the most appealing radio voice I've heard in a while, and I'm looking forward to being on his show tonight at 8:15 p.m. Eastern; click one of the "Listen Live" buttons on KGNW's site to tune in.

Buy The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On at Amazon.com.

Basement japes, part 5

From last Wednesday's chastity debate (January 3, not December 4 as my YouTube-ing friend wrote in the clips' credits), a question from the moderator about honor killings:



Then it was time for the debaters to question one another. Virginia Vitzthum, author of an upcoming book about dating through the personals, asks me about sacrifice; I ask her if she'll admit that women who engage in serial casual sex get jaded. The clip doesn't show why I'm looking away from Virginia; it's because most of the 100 or so attendees are crowded on that side of the narrow basement room:



PREVIOUS INSTALLMENT: Basement japes, part 4

My favorite St. Patrick's Day parade headline ...

... was the year when feminists marched in protest, and Post copy editor Barb wrote, "Erin go braless."

Tune into The Last Word with Matt Cooper on Ireland's national radio station Today FM today, which starts at 11:30 a.m. EST, and at some point you should hear me speak for a few minutes on The Thrill of the Chaste. I also put in a plug for my favorite (one-half) Irish group of the Sixties, Nirvana.

Basement japes, part 4

Chastity debate moderator Michael Evanchik directs his first question of the evening to Virginia Vitzthum and then to me:



I start off a bit wishy-washy on this one — I would certainly stress the importance of reserving sex for marriage, not just because it's "my values" — but my point becomes clearer at the end.

PREVIOUS INSTALLMENT: Basement japes, part 3

Basement japes, part 3

Virginia Vitzthum gives her opening statement as my opponent at last week's chastity debate on the Lower East Side:



My rebuttal:



PREVIOUS INSTALLMENT: Basement japes, part 2

Basement japes, part 2

My opening statement from the chastity debate. A couple of people said afterwards that I should have explained marital chastity. It refers not to abstention from sex, but to the way that the principles of chastity require one to treat one's spouse with dignity.



MORE: Basement japes, part 1

Quote of the day

"[Elizabeth] Fox-Genovese's journey from Marxism to Catholic traditionalism -- shared by her husband, historian Eugene Genovese -- could be seen, from a classical liberal point of view, in starkly negative terms: as a full-circle transition from one anti-individualist, antiliberal philosophy to another. Yet when it comes to women's issues, her critique of individualism contains an important kernel of truth. Reconciling women's pursuit of their new roles, freedoms, and opportunities with the needs of families and children has often been a rocky road, as several generations of feminism's daughters have found out.

"As a feminist, I regret that the answer on which Fox-Genovese eventually settled was a return to a clear-cut division of male and female family roles. But the questions she confronted are ones feminists will continue to confront for a long time to come."

— Reason contributing editor Cathy Young, "The Evolution of an Antifeminist," Boston Globe. Fox-Genovese died last week at 65. For a look at her life from one who saw her in positive terms, see Robert P. George's tribute in National Review Online.

Awwwww ...

"I would like to say more to this, but I am an Ohio State football fan. I must go and stare at the wall today."

— Dave G., in Comments

Rocky Mountain Hi

Got a nice surprise this morning: it looks like I have a friend in Denver. Funny to see the word "decadent" in quotes to describe my former lifestyle; the word I use is "dissipated," though "dissolute" would work too.

More posts to come later today.

Family Mathers

Via YouTube, a look at marital fidelity circa 1957, after Eddie Haskell warns Beaver not to kiss the neighbor lady.



More Beaver at LITB.com.

NY1 TV cuts to the chaste

I became a talking head over the weekend when NY1, the New York City-based cable news station that's viewed throughout the Empire State, featured me and my book as the center of a trend story about chastity in the city. You can read the story and view it on NY1's Web site — click the link underneath the story's headline on that page to see it in RealVideo, or click the photo of me above.

Village Voice sex columnist Rachel Kramer Bussel, who gave my book a qualified endorsement, offers an alternate but not entirely contradictory view, while my friend Drusilla, below, of Heirs in Hope, also appeared in the story as another woman who lives chastely. She had the best quote of the whole piece:



"I can relax. I don't have to be a net to catch a man."

Buy The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On at Amazon.com.

Observer (U.K.) discovers Thrill

Reporter Paul Harris, New York correspondent for the Observer — Britain's oldest Sunday newspaper (circulation 460,490; average issue readership 1,445,000), published by the Guardian, today writes about my book and my performance at the debate on chastity in downtown Manhattan last Wednesday. It's more positive than anything I could have imagined from a major newspaper, especially one with such a liberal heritage as the Guardian.

Here is the article, minus a few juicy parts, in the hope that you'll read the whole thing on the Observer's site:

From a sex-loving rock 'n' roll writer to a disciple of celibacy
Paul Harris in New York

The setting was typically Manhattan - a crowded basement filled with attractive single men and women beneath a bar called Lolita boasting murals of topless women.

Dawn Eden was taking part in a debate about dating in New York. As a former rock journalist who once bedded some of her famous subjects, it would seem she was suitably qualified. But her message was unexpected: don't have sex outside marriage. It is bad for you. 'My values now tell me that sex should be reserved only for marriage,' she told the surprised crowd.

Eden's conversion from free-living, free-loving music journalist to leading apostle of chastity has seen her rise to fame in America. She is a regular on radio shows and has been featured in magazines such as lifestyle bible Radar, after recently publishing a book titled The Thrill of the Chaste.

She is at the cutting edge of a movement that has swept America, advocating not just safe sex for teenagers and young adults, but no sex at all. ...

... At first glance Eden, 38, seems an unlikely advocate of celibacy. She still hangs out with musicians and is not shy about admitting her past enjoyment of the rock'n'roll lifestyle. Though she won't name names, she admits she had a particular passion for drummers during the decade she spent writing on the rock music industry. 'I took full advantage of the fact that I was in a very libertine world,' she said. But no longer.

Eden's book is a heartfelt attack on the carefree, Sex and the City-style image of modern American dating. It describes her conversion to Catholicism and chastity. She now frankly condemns her previous sexual antics. 'I feel like I am some sort of heroin addict warning people about this. Some might say that the difference is that heroin is objectively bad and sex is objectively good. But I believe sex outside marriage is objectively bad because it is psychologically and spiritually damaging,' she said.

Eden said the culture of casual sex had demeaned the marriage bond, and that it damaged self-esteem. 'I believe that it is better for everybody to be chaste outside marriage, whether they are religious or not.'...

... Eden's uncompromising Christian views have got her fired from the New York Post, though she has become a hero to many religious conservatives. Her book is a sort of self-help guide to anyone wanting to lead a chaste life, and she has spoken at book signings and addressed church groups on the issue, urging a sex-free America for singles. She has also won the grudging admiration of many liberals, who might disagree with her but who appreciate her bravery in advocating her message in a dating-mad city like New York.

Eden admitted that telling single New Yorkers to abstain from sex was selling a difficult message to a tough crowd. 'It is extremely tough to say these things in Manhattan. People sometimes see me as setting myself up as a moral arbiter, and I want to avoid that,' she said. But her message is undiluted, even though it is coming from someone who used to lead a sex life most people would have envied. 'I regret all the sex that I ever had in my life,' she said.

Even in the Lolita bar, Eden won over some fans. She was debating with Virginia Vitzthum, who is soon to publish a book on internet dating. A show of hands at the end of the evening revealed that Eden had lost on the debate's central question: 'Is chastity a good idea for singles?' But Vitzthum admitted Eden had acquitted herself well, saying: 'She was brave to speak to this crowd.'

Eden was the centre of a lot of attention at the debate's end, as well wishers lined up to congratulate her for putting forward her point of view. Then the evening's moderator declared: 'Let's all go and get a drink and some of us will get laid and some of us won't.' In Manhattan, celibacy is clearly still an uphill battle.

Buy The Thrill of the Chaste at Amazon.com.

UPDATE: Virginia Vitzthum objects.

Boettcher Booty

Curt Boettcher would have been 64 today. A good way to remember him is to listen to one of my all-time favorite recordings, his demo "Rest in Peace" (on the left-hand side of the linked page — click on "Download this" at the bottom of the entry).

RELATED: The Curt Boettcher page on Spectropop.

Drew confessions

"You may want to turn the radio off for the kiddies, folks; this is for adults only. ... Just how much of a skanky ho were you?"

Drew Marshall is not your garden-variety Christian talk radio host, as I discovered when he interviewed me last Saturday. I had a wild roller-coaster ride of an interview with him and enjoyed it all the way. Check it out (scroll down the page to Dec. 30 and my name; click the tiny megaphone or floppy-disk icon).

Heels' belles

Reader Corita wrote to enlighten me about the remarkable song "The Lottery" (downloadable for free from Spin.com), by Emily Haines. Some of the lyrics — especially the last part about stilettos — read eerily like The Thrill of the Chaste, minus the transition into healing:

I only wanted what everyone wanted
since bras started burning up ribs in the 60's.
Favors are flying, faces are falling,
all I desire is to never be waiting.
If that’s a crime let’s commit it.
There’s a new crime, sexual suicide* ...

... It’s a lottery baby, everybody roll the dice
It’s a lottery baby, everybody roll the dice

Will we always be like little kids
running group to group asking who loves me?
Don’t know who loves me!
It’s pathetic. It’s impossible.
Like girls in stilettos,
like girls in stilettos,
like girls in stilettos trying to run.

*George Gilder's book Sexual Suicide later came out in an updated edition retitled Men and Marriage.

Chastity as Spectator sport

Pia de Solenni, a moral theologian who was awarded the Pontifical Prize of the Academies by Pope John Paul II, today reviews The Thrill of the Chaste in the American Spectator online.

It's the kind of review that authors dream about. Although I don't know Dr. de Solenni, save for having met her briefly at my Catholic Information Center (D.C.) appearance last month, I feel in reading her review as though she knows me, as she so perfectly grasps why I wrote the book.

Following is the bulk of the review; I've left out some juicy bits in the hope that you'll read the whole thing on the Spectator's site:

SEX USED TO HAVE SOMETHING to do with marriage. That was then, this is now. Now, sex happens in more ways and places than perhaps ever before; but people don't seem much happier for it. Consider the fact that sex is everywhere, men and women claim to be looking for love and commitment, and the singles industry is booming; but the marriage rate doesn't appear to be keeping pace and people seem to spend much more of their lives being single. In such a light, the sexual revolution appears to have been more limiting than liberating. ...

... Extremely honest and forthright, Eden details her decision to pursue chastity as a way of ultimately being happy, whether or not she ever meets Mr. Right. Fortunately, her writing style lacks the saccharine drama commonly found in inspirational books. Rather than condemn a particular lifestyle for pages on end, she helps the reader to understand the lifestyle. Whether one is on the outside looking in or completely immersed, Eden provides a framework that helps explain the choices that so many people assume are "natural."

But it would be a mistake to think Eden simply attempts to make the case for a return to traditional sexual mores. She identifies a condition that generally has been reserved for discussion in the academic circles of philosophers and psychologists.

EXAMINING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN the lifestyle choices of sex (mostly casual) outside of marriage and the decision to wait until sex can be fully experienced within marriage, Eden identifies two types of women: single women and singular women. ...

... The single woman is excessively utilitarian, and auto-determining; she defines her relationships, her circumstances, and her future, according to her desires. The "other" only comes into the picture insofar as that person is useful to her. She spends her time resenting what she does not have, especially the lack of an intimate relationship, even though she bases her identity on that very lack. Her identity is about what she hasn't got (a boyfriend or a husband), not who she is.

A singular woman acts integrally. She chooses to do things because they are good in and of themselves, not because they will serve her immediate interests whether they involve dating and romance, getting a job, or any other desire. She allows herself to actually experience what a situation offers, even if she didn't foresee it. Unlike the single woman, she will go to a party simply to have fun and be with people she enjoys. If she meets someone at the party, it will be all the better. But whether or not she meets someone won't determine the success of the party.

Eden also identifies gratitude as the distinguishing factor between the singular woman and the single woman. In stark opposition to the single woman's focus on her lack of a partner or mate, the singular woman expresses gratitude not only for what she has and is given, but for what she can give. ...

... In addition to the well-placed Chesterton quotes in her book, Eden has some memorable lines of her own. Articulating the root of the problem, she writes, "Once you allow yourself to be defined by your loneliness, it's a small step to violating your most deeply held beliefs." Precisely this action determines whether an individual woman or man is single or singular. The single person defines the self with her loneliness, i.e. the lack of an intimate relationship in her life. The singular person has an intimate relationship first with God and subsequently with others. The various authentic friendships probably won't be as intimate as the healthy relationship between a husband and wife; but some of them certainly will be close and others still good even though they are more removed. More importantly, these real friendships will prepare the singular person for marriage. They'll learn to expect nothing but the best from people who are close to them, especially a spouse, and that will affect their decision in whom they choose as a spouse. ...

... In many ways, Eden's book is about loneliness and what we decide to do with it. As such, her book is not simply for unmarried women who are making a choice about their sexual behavior. All of us are faced with loneliness and we can choose to distract ourselves with sex, work, shopping, sports, and numerous other activities or any combination thereof.

Eden's decision to face the loneliness directly evidences its success in the fact that she no longer suffers from depression. Sex -- without a context -- played a very big role in obfuscating the real issues in her life. But the change in her life wasn't just about sex, it was about living the principle of gratitude, thinking of the other. This book represents Eden's gift to us, to her readers. And it looks like she's more prepared than most people not just for marriage, but for life.

Buy The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On at Amazon.com.

Many thanks to everyone who came to my debate with Virginia Vitzthum at Lolita Bar last night; I hope to publish photos (and perhaps even video) after work tonight.

Some audience members were skeptical when, following Vitzthum's assertion that abstinence education caused pregnancy rates to rise, I said that there was conflicting data on that account. Here is the most recent article I can find on the subject at this late-night hour; it cites studies published in peer-reviewed medical journals. If you have links to any more recent articles citing the effectiveness of abstinence-education programs, please feel free to post them in the comments section. Of course, you may also post studies that make the opposite claim; my point was simply that there does exist significant data in favor of abstinence education's effectiveness. Many of the arguments against the effectiveness of such education are based on Rep. Henry Waxman's report, but that has been found to be riddled with inaccuracies.

PFOX-y lady

This week, my book receives praise from an unexpected source: Parents & Friends of Ex-Gays. Thanks to their review, I now know that the word for my sexuality is "everstraight" (though there was a time when I wistfully pondered Woody Allen's observation that bisexuality doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night).

It touches me that the reviewer finds something of his (or her) own experience in my book. He grasps the subtext of my book: that, unlike what the wider culture claims, there is only one healthy way to embody adult sexuality — through chastity, which means being in control of one's sexuality rather than being controlled by it — and that it is possible for someone who embodies sexuality in an unhealthy way to find a place of healing.

The review, which may be read in full on PFOX's Web site, says in part:

Finally, a book on chastity not written for virgins! Dawn Eden, a New York City columnist turned author, has been there and done that. In the Thrill of the Chaste, Ms. Eden relates her past experience as a young single woman on the Manhattan sexual merry-go-round. She also explains why and how she became chaste.

After converting to Christianity, Eden determined that her sexual behavior did not conform to her new religion. She resolved to match her behavior with her religious beliefs and love for her new Savior. But chastity didn’t occur overnight. It took a while for her body to agree with her soul, there were times of resentment over perceived deprivation, and she fell back into her old sexual habits before achieving success in her behavior. Sound familiar? It’s the route many of us in the ex-gay community have traveled. Change didn’t occur for us overnight, and when it finally did occur, it was only after some false starts on a bumpy journey witnessed by incredulous friends who couldn’t understand our new religion or behavior. ...

... Eden writes well and thinks deep thoughts. But best of all, she’s witty, so you won’t fall asleep reading another “don’t do it” chastity book. This is an R-Rated book for X-Rated people striving for a G-Rated life in Christ, so it’s not your typical chastity book for teens.

For example, another excerpt from the book hits so close to home that it almost hurts:

“The other night I had dinner with a male friend, a charming English journalist I would date if he shared my faith (he doesn’t) and if he were interested in getting married (ditto). He peppered me with questions about chastity, even going so far as to suggest that maybe, given that I’d been looking for so long, I might not find the man I was looking for.
‘That’s not true,’ I responded. ‘My chances are better now than they’ve ever been, because before I was chaste, I was looking for love in all the wrong places. It’s only now that I’m truly ready for marriage and have a clear vision of the kind of man I want for my husband.’
’I may be thirty-seven,’ I concluded, ‘but in husband-seeking years, I’m only twenty-two.’”

Every ex-gay man and woman can relate to this experience. We didn’t start having interest in the opposite sex until we were in our 30’s or later. Dating someone whose genitals didn’t match our own was like experiencing puberty all over again at age 35. Marriage was not attainable for us until we finally achieved that clear vision Eden writes about, and that didn’t happen until much later in life. That an everstraight like Dawn Eden can perceive her situation and evaluate it so clearly is remarkable.

Buy The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On at Amazon.com.

Truth-telling is dangerous at the Times

Let me get this straight:

New York Times Public Editor Byron Calame discovers that the Times story about a woman in El Salvador imprisoned after aborting her child, which said the woman was falsely accused of murder, was itself false. The woman, Calame discovered, didn't abort her child; she murdered it  — and the Times' editors adamantly refuse to print a correction. The refusal comes despite the fact that reporter Jack Hitt had interviewed the woman via an interpreter who worked for a pro-choice organization, which proceeded to use the Times piece to fund-raise.

How does the Times reward Calame? By threatening to cut its Public Editor position altogether.

And how does the New York Observer report the story? By avoiding the word "abortion" altogether, mentioning only that Calame wrote an "attack on a story in The Times Magazine that mischaracterized a Central American court ruling."

There's more on the story, including action tips, at Michelle Malkin's blog (and check her most recent entries for updates.

Thanks to See-Dubya for the tip.

My conversion story — on radio

Spirit Morning Show hosts Bruce and Kris MacGregor's interview with me on Omaha's Spirit 88.9 FM aired this morning; you can hear it online. It was a great pleasure to be interviewed by Bruce and Kris. They were very knowledgeable about me and appreciative of my book, and as a result I shared a little more of my spiritual autobiography than I've shared in other radio interviews.

Buy The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On at Amazon.com.

Clothed with the sun

Last night, a friend and I discovered that my parish church, a beautiful old structure which has been long wreckovated and stripped of most statuary, keeps a pair of beautiful old statues — the Immaculata and St. Bernadette Joan  — in its parking lot.

Today I went back there to pray and took some cell phone snaps. My phone's no-frills camera couldn't take the sunlight — hence the black dot in the second photo — but there was something about these that I thought was worth sharing. I couldn't tell how they would come out when I was taking them, because the sun was so bright.

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

Prayer request

Please pray for Sister Geraldine, who, along with Sister Josephine, is one of the retired nuns who run the Morning Star House of Prayer. (She is the blind nun I quote in Chapter 19 of The Thrill of the Chaste; it was while at her and Sister Josephine's house, during the time I was in RCIA, when I first said the rosary.)

Sister Geraldine has cancer and is currently in the hospital, preparing to undergo surgery. Please pray for God to make her way clear, as she has big health decisions to make, and also pray for her healing, comfort, and peace. Please also pray for Sister Josephine, who is Sister Geraldine's main caretaker.

Sill life

Judee Sill performs one of my favorite songs on British TV in 1973 — her own composition "The Kiss":



Lyrics here.

Washington Post reporter Tim Page praised Sill in a feature story last week.

"The Kiss" is from Sill's second album, Heart Food, which, along with her self-titled debut, hardly ever left my CD changer while I wrote The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On.

Original Cass

This song has been going through my head on and off for the past couple of days ... it sounds so gorgeous performed by Miss Elliott:



One of the commenters on YouTube noted that if you look into her eyes, she is enveloping her audience with love.

Here are Gus Kahn's lyrics if you're not able to turn up the audio:

Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper "I love you"
Birds singin' in the sycamore tree
Dream a little dream of me

Say nighty-night and kiss me
Just hold me tight and tell me you'll miss me
While I'm alone and blue as can be
Dream a little dream of me

Stars fading but I linger on dear
Still craving your kiss
I'm longing to linger till dawn dear
Just saying this

Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you
Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you
But in your dreams whatever they be
Dream a little dream of me

Stars fading but I linger on dear
Still craving your kiss
I'm longing to linger till dawn dear
Just saying this

Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you
Sweet dreams that leave all worries far behind you
But in your dreams whatever they be
Dream a little dream of me