That summer evening the air was just how I like it. Breezy, cool. It had just rained. It was evening and the sun was setting. On the side of the farm the sky was yellow, blue, pink…another summer sunset in Pennsylvania. “Not too many more of these” I thought to myself. I stood in the air and let it surround me. I closed my blue eyes and felt the breeze whisper over my pale skin. My skin bristled as it felt the chill of the damp evening air. It smelled like summer rain. It smelled like freshness. A fresh start. I opened my eyes and looked around, nostalgically. This is my home. This is where I had my first kiss, where I learned to drive, where I toiled in my “teen angst” and had my first heartbreak. This is where I went off to college, where I learned and matured. And this is where I am leaving. Leaving the air that I know so well. The people I have grown to love. Off on another adventure. I heard Him then like a bird miles off, song trailing in the wind. Inaudible but penetrating my heart. “You have yourself now. You have your independence. Fall into it”. I felt no confusion, no resistance. I knew what it meant. It meant this time was mine. To explore, to try life, to succeed or fail of my own accord. To cut my hair, dye my hair, get a tattoo, buy a car, and paint the walls of my (imaginary) house any color I wanted. This was the life I fought for as a teenager. And now, standing barefoot in the wet grass it took everything in me not to run away.
I just left Border’s Book Store in King of Prussia. I just left the ‘ love’ section of Borders. I left, also, with a feeling of how far off track our society, my generation, and myself have all become with our perceptions of love. Granted, I am not married so I only have so much insight into this crazy phenomena called love, but I have had enough broken hearts and made enough mistakes to feel at least remotely qualified to make a comment or two.
First of all, the love section at this Border’s Express was about a 6 foot wide section; there were many books. I was slightly taken aback to realize that 90% of these books focused entirely on positions, technique, and “The Top 1,000 Places in America to Have Sex”. Maybe 10% of the books had some mention of emotional connection, sharing intimacy without sex, or the actual process of “falling in love”. I had just read a New York Times article on what it means to be a man in a “hypersexualized culture”, an article written by a man with prostate cancer. It came to mind as I realized that there is very little recognition of “manhood” in America outside of the stereotypes. All Christian teaching aside, I couldn’t believe that only a few books had any remote recognition of emotions or feelings (other than pleasure) or even more importantly the feelings of your significant other.
I think intimacy, sex, love, partnership, and marriage are all extremely tricky subjects. I only have experience with a few of those, so I’m not sure how accurate my opinions are. But, in recently talking to someone about the potential benefits of taking sex out of an already established sexual relationship, I thought more and more about what true intimacy is. Sex runs ridiculously rampant in our culture; there is no need for cleavage in a dish-soap commercial (especially, let’s admit it, since women are usually the ones washing the dishes and using the dish-soap), yet it is everywhere we turn. I started thinking about how scary it is to be TRULY vulnerable with someone and that contrary to what church has been telling me since I was about 9, it is often times much easier to be sexually intimate with someone than it is to bear your soul to them and trust that they will be there in the end. For my generation in particular, the generation in which some 65% of girls have had sex by the time they are 17, I wonder what would happen if we slowed down right now and re-trained our brains. What if, regardless of any past “mistakes” we may have made (which, really…who gets to determine if it is a mistake or simply a foolish choice that will later greatly help someone who needs someone who has been in that exact situation) we all decided to focus on TRUE intimacy. And to be honest, I don’t even really know what that would look like. Maybe, instead of trying to placate or fix things with sex, we tried to open up and say with gentle words what is really on our minds. Or, what if instead of falling into bed, two unmarried people spent more time cooking together, or playing video games together, or trying to train a puppy together. It doesn’t seem to me that it has to always be drastic (not everyone has to substitute sex for volunteering at a soup kitchen), but I think starting somewhere would be awesome.
Again, all of this may be crazy or dumb or way off track…I can’t say; afterall, I have no rock on my left hand. But I do have engaged or married friends and I have parents. And I just think it seems like a good idea. Who knows.
New York Times article: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07E1DC133AF935A25751C0A9669D8B63
There are a few things in life that I think are underrated. Among these are: the power of an apology, Jolly Ranchers, waves on a beach, and those moments we have that are the proverbial “fork in the road”. I just got that fork in the form of a phone call. Well you see my friends, I have been offered really the chance of a lifetime…a trip to El Salvador to work in an orphanage with children of prostitutes. Did I mention I work at a crisis pregnancy center in Kennett Square and my sole responsibility is translating? Did I mention I have a well-known soft spot for women in abusive or difficult relationships? Did I mention I would be translating on this trip? God really has some crazy plans. So I stand at this cross-roads, nervously shifting my weight back and forth from foot to foot. Up until now the idea has seemed perfect; well it is perfect. But now reality hit: El Salvador isn’t the safest country, my Aryan nature probably won’t fit in very well, what if the women don’t accept me, it’s a costly trip, I need to find a job after graduation...well, you see the pattern. Not so coincidentally I have been reading Don Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. He talks about creating good stories with our lives- that to create good stories we have to do those things that scare us, and do the things that seem just a little crazy. If I give up this opportunity because I’m a little scared, I won’t be living a good story. I’ll be living a pretty darn wimpy story. And when my kids ask “Mommy, what did you after you graduated college?” I think they will think their Mom is “wicked awesome and cool” if I say “I hopped a plane to a not-so-safe country and hung out and chatted in Spanish with some awesome kids” rather than “I took the first safe job that came along to have health insurance and feed my weekly Starbucks addiction”. And let’s be honest, if my kids are anything like me, they won’t be afraid to tell their Mommy she was living a pretty boring story. So, here’s to adventure, a little fear, and celebrating an underrated life moment!
In the quiet of our rooms God hears us. He hears as we silently weep over mistakes made and innocence lost. He grieves as our hearts break for our own sin. It is my desperate belief that He sees us, pains with us, and somehow cradles us in His infinite mercy.
It is my newly discovered realization that we have absolutely no idea what those among us are going through. Each of us is already dealing with, maybe at the breaking point, of looking in the face our own shortcomings. Imagine this: a girl holding it all together, realizing her whole life has been a walk down the wrong road. Thousands of tears shed over the pain of her sin, hundreds of times wishing she could take it all back. Imagine now that in the midst of this she hears over and over the judgmental, narrow-minded responses etched in the minds of many holy others. She feels defeated, hopeless, like an utter failure and well beyond repair. Broken and needy she comes to the mirror every day, dealing with her own shame and guilt. No one needs guilt and shame piled on by others when they already have a mountain of their own.
It could be yours that is the judgment that makes her give up. It could be my insensitive comment that causes her to break down. Who are we to judge others when we have no idea what their deepest aches and regrets are? Why not be more like Him? Why not hear one another? Let our hearts grieve and not judge. Let us just be with others. Even cradle them in mercy. Why not hear the words they can’t say…the whispers and silent cries we utter in the quiet of our rooms.
