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Two can play at this game, Karen. Coming home from church I was listening to Ani Difranco. She had a lyric that was something to the affect of "And what about all those letters that I wrote to myself I never sent because I didn't have the address."
I think God has been leading me into three places with regard to my sexual desires and singleness. I'll try, like my dad, to be concise. (Insert bored chuckle here).
First, here are the things we came up with at dinner that we don't think have worked well for various reasons:
1. Video Games.
2. Cheetos
3. Haagen-Daas.
4. Dancing.
5. Closing off all emotion.
6. Intellectualizing the process.
7. Sleeping.
These things can, perhaps, stave off our desires for a time. But I'm not sure that they are very healthy. Here are three new things I have been trying to step into.
1. Knowing myself-
I think this is kinda what Ani Difranco is talking about in her song. It is also what most of you are talking about. What address do we send our letter to if we are writing ourselves? Often, I think we get into relationships because we are too afraid to be alone. We have no concept of who we are outside of relationship. But it is easier to understand my longings when I begin to know who I am. For instance, who I am is very much insane. I've been coming to grips with this. I don't think the way other people do. I am, at my roots, creative in a way where I do not feel valued by the Church. Therefore, I go out of my way to be meaningful and wise in everything I do. It is the only way other people find me valuable. Yet, I am horribly abstract and sometimes without point. I feel worthless because of this. I can't contribute "nice" poetry or art. It will always be weird and outside of the norms. On the homepage on the website, Sue asks the question, what do we want? I want to find value in who I am because I have never truly felt that before. I realize I have tried to "take my question to the woman" as Eldridge says in Wild at Heart. I always hoped to find a woman who truly valued me as I am. So, knowing myself consists in finding worth and value in God instead of a white knight on a stead who makes everything better (or whatever the masculine equivalent of that would be. Not a princess in a tower because that requires me stepping out in my shame. I want to be rescued too. It's more convenient for my sin pattern.). So, if I understand relationship with God as the thing I am missing, I am left with less of a demand for fantasy or the need for a woman who can truly understand me. A woman cannot tell me who I am. Taken into relationship, this means I will no longer make an unfair and pointless demand on my future wife. That's a good thing.
2. Knowing my affect on others.
Our community has single people who wrestle with being single. Who knew? Two things were really awesome for me tonight. First, someone brought up this subject, and we began to talk. Everybody from the other side of the table stopped their conversation and started wandering slowly over to us to listen. Apparently, It isn't just me who wonders about these things. A blind leap of faith (being spurred by Benji) in posting my shame and fear about this area of life has brought us into discussion over it. I am not alone in my frustration. Other people exist. Second, during dinner, Karen thanked me for my prayer for her and told me about its affect on her. Really, after that, all I could do was to finish my salad (sorry, Karen). I was just blown away that my actions had affected her and that she found strength in my actions. I have no idea how to react to that. Is the correct response "You're welcome?" Knowing that my interaction with sexuality and singleness has an affect my community is an awesome thing. It means that walking into my strength has meaning outside of my own person moral health. Just talking through these things in community has helped me to understand where I am and that I am not simply insane and screwed up without hope.
3. Silence and meditation with God.
This goes back to point #1 as well. I am controlled by video games, television and radio. Over dinner we discussed the possibility that these things are "cowardly relationships." I need relationship to exist and with these forms I run no risk of being exposed. When am I ever truly alone and without distraction? My hikes and my prayer times are where I am currently trying to walk into this. Just being alone in those moments. I am fairly contemplative by nature, yet I still am scared to death of silence. Usually when I am in my room, I am playing a video game, listening to my stereo and watching television all at once. I need distractions. It's an ADD thing. I am easily distracted no matter what the situation, so I plan out my distractions well. I will bounce from video game over to TV over to radio and back in random sequences. Yet there is no silence in my life, only constant movement. Taking time away for prayer, meditation, and silence before God helps me to redefine myself as his child. It forces me away from false and cowardly relationships into true communion with God and knowledge of my identity in him. Therefore, I can separate myself from the rest of the world and understand myself outside of the constant desire for relationship.
These are the basics of my thoughts, with a few examples of how it plays out in my life. I'm not going any longer than this (though believe me, I could) because I've already got about seven pages of my own thoughts already, and I'm overpowering the discussion and don't want to. So, what are everyone else's experiences with these things? How does it play out in practice? What are other ways to understand sexual desires and singleness in a healthy manner? Tell me your own stories. |
