Conversations with Calliope

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. I've been waiting for you.
JOE: I don't always start at the crack of dawn. I have been up but my back is bothering me. I think I overdid my exercise or did something wrong.
CALLIOPE: Sorry to hear it. Hope it mends soon. What did you accomplish yesterday?
JOE: I sent out some more announcements as well as a news release to my local paper.
CALLIOPE: Any writing?
JOE: I was afraid I might not get to it, but I did manage to write another chapter of Marital Property.
CALLIOPE: What about?
JOE: This was a counseling session where my couple discusses their progress.
CALLIOPE: Are they making any?
JOE: As a matter of fact they are. They are starting to pay more attention to each other.
CALLIOPE: Any stumbling blocks?
JOE: I don't know if it is exactly a stumbling block, but their sex life is not what they would like it to be. It came up in the session and they were given some more assignments to spark things up a bit in the bedroom.
CALLIOPE: That sounds like an interesting sort of homework.
JOE: It is, but it can also be a bit scary to reveal parts of yourself you have been keeping secret.
CALLIOPE: Do you mean body parts?
JOE: No, I mean emotional parts. I guess I better see how they are doing.

Whence Natural Law?

I have wondered for a while about natural law. Wikipedia describes it as "the principle that some things are as they are because that is how they are." Well, that may be, but who gets to decide what the natural law is? Does one find it written on the side of a tree somewhere? The theologian Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century stated that the rational nature of human beings defines natural law. I don't remember everyone getting together to agree on what natural law consists of. In reality governments and religions have been the ones to proclaim natural law. The whole discussion seems rather academic until we get to particulars such as contraception being against the natural law since everyone knows that sex is for procreation and without the option of procreation, sex is "disordered." That has been a source of controversy for some time. The whole matter remains a puzzlement to me. Anybody have any ideas?