Sex: Of Love and Desire.

Ok – back to sex. Mostly because it gets me a lot of hits on my blog…

But to be serious – I made a discovery the other day.

We have a major confusion between desire and love.

I mix them up all the time. Orange juice is a good example of this.

I say something like: I LOVEEEEEEEEEE ORANGE JUICE! Very robust in my expression, but what I really mean is – I have a strong, abiding desire for orange juice. Do I have a strong abiding desire for my husband? And if I have that inkling – do I act on it, and go get myself a glass of Orange Juice, even if I have to drive to the grocery store, stand in line and purchase a new jug?

This might seem like semantics, but I think its an important distinction, because I think a lot of women LOVE their husbands, but very often do not DESIRE them – as in, have a strong, abiding want for sexual intimacy. But if you ask, of course they love them! I can count myself in this group sometimes – and it’s a hard place to be. Because, when love is so often convoluted, we’re confused as to what we are missing, what we ought to be seeking to cultivate, what we should be praying and asking God to give us.

And I believe, or at least what I’ve discovered, is that DESIRE is something that requires kindling. It requires prayer and thoughtfulness. See, if I forget the qualities that I like about Orange Juice, then I might at some point stop wanting it. (Not to compare sex to wanting Orange Juice.. but for benign example’s sake…) Desire is a cultivated good – that seeks to remind ourselves amidst everything tumultuous that one can feel, of the good and beautiful things, and that it is a stocked full of Calcium and Vitamin C!

Anyway –  love to hear some thoughts on this. Still treking through year one marriage!

Love,

Lora

Of Marriage and Women.

My mother said it was simple to keep a man, you must be a maid in the living room, a cook in the kitchen and a whore in the bedroom.  I said I’d hire the other two and take care of the bedroom bit.  ~Jerry Hall

Ever feel like you’re not a “real” woman?

There is a woman out there, at least a concept of a woman, whose center is so secure, whose confidence is so brilliant and yet whose humility in Christ is her sole allegiance, that the roles laid out for her to play by conventional society seem trite, silly and ridiculously undignified; and she has no problem requiring more of herself and her company, no problem denying the ego-centric momentary affections of man for the greater goal of dignity and a future-oriented covenantal relationship or a life of purpose-driven singleness. Either way – her goal is bigger than herself and grounded in submission to Christ.

Most of the time, I feel like I ride the fine line between hooker and biach – between strength and passivity, pleasing and contempt and play the various roles asserted to woman in movies like “The Ugly Truth” or “The Last Kiss” or “The Proposal” and really want to be Mandy Moore in “A Walk to Remember” or Rachel McAdams in “The Notebook” – but that requires too much effort – or even, Maria in “The Sound of Music”, Elisabeth in “Pride and Prejudice” or Anne from “Anne of Green Gables.”

There are many a heroine from which to choose, and their behaviors that we implement or view as excellent, affect how we see ourselves, relationships, God and the church.

So I want to look at how marriage is viewed and how this impacts our notions of feminity and masculinity – and therefore how we engage each other (both male and female), and how the church and God speak to all of these ideas.

 To give a grand understanding of the negativity of marriage, here are a few quotes I’ve found on the subject:

 

• Marriage is the only war in which you sleep with the enemy.  ~François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld
   
• Why do married men gain weight while bachelors don’t?  Bachelors go to the refrigerator, see nothing they want, then go to bed.  Married guys go to the bed, see nothing they want, then go to the refrigerator.  ~Author Unknown
   
• Why get married?  For human beings, marriage is such an unnatural state.  If you want monogamy, it has been said, you should marry a swan.  ~Quentin Crisp, “The Art of Celibacy”
   
• Marriage:  A word which should be pronounced “mirage.”  ~Herbert Spencer
   
• Originally marriage meant the sale of a woman by one man to another; now most women sell themselves though they have no intention of delivering the goods listed in the bill of sale.  ~Robert Graves
   
• People do not marry people, not real ones anyway; they marry what they think the person is; they marry illusions and images.  The exciting adventure of marriage is finding out who the partner really is.  ~James L. Framo, “Explorations in Marital & Family Therapy”
   
• The total amount of undesired sex endured by women is probably greater in marriage than in prostitution.  ~Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals
   
• Wedding rings:  the world’s smallest handcuffs.  ~Author Unknown
   
• God created sex.  Priests created marriage.  ~Voltaire
   
• Monogamy is over-rated. -  Seirra Miller
   
• I don’t believe in monogamy. Human beings are not monogamous creatures by nature. – Scarlett Johansson. 

 

These are just a few of the mentalities floating around. I’ve heard some of them before in plain conversation, felt some of them in my bones – the fear or the possible reality of such dysfunction. I hear it now in conversation with girlfriends, with wives, with various guys with whom I talk, on television, in magazines and in the movies.

I am beginning to think about what makes a woman beautiful, what makes a woman real, feminine, and Godly. There are so many enormous pressures to achieve certain righteous goals, as if we can be self-righteous in our womanhood, as if to say that, like salvation, true femininity is an act of the will rather than the Grace of God. And to move beyond that and to say, that marriage or singleness is an act of the will, rather than the grace of a Creator God.

Why Talk About Marriage and Women?

I think our conception of marriage and singlesness hinges A LOT (not totally) on our conception of who we are as woman, who we think are supposed to be, how we think we are supposed to behave, and how we think we ought to go about choosing a spouse and accepting a call to marriage, or choosing singleness and accepting that call, as well.

And, also, our conception of femininity is tied, in part, to how we view marriage, relationships, sex. So much of the identity of woman is in relation to men or other women. Our obsession with looks, behavior, clothes, mannerisms, sexuality is all directed toward the outside – what does this look like to other people? Am I prettier than her, how do I compare in the line-up with models or porn-stars? Will he find me attractive, weird, awkward? Am I lovable? Am I beautiful? Will I be cherished? Is my value determined by whether I’m in a relationship or not? 

There must be a goal to all of our striving as women to achieve and maintain a standard of “beauty”, to act flirtatious or conversely, to set men straight. 

So – I’m going to be looking at the verses in Ephesians 15 and at the Proverbs 31 section on “A Wife of Nobel Character”.

Also, using a few other sources that have peeked my interest, thanks to this awesome lady Rose.

For now – what is femininity to you? How have you seen marriage viewed in culture? What pressures do you feel as a woman, either single or married? 

Sex: Any Thoughts?

I’m a collector. I collect ideas, thoughts, roll them around, try to polish them, make connections and from there deduce new ideas. I love new insight. My favorite thing to do is to sit with someone and listen to them talk about their thoughts on subject A or B or something like that. 

So, I’m looking for thoughts on sex, sexuality, the culture, your experiences -

• how do you think about sexuality?
• What helps you understand sex and the gospel?
• What are your hang-ups? What books have helped you? 

Thoughts?

Lora

Contentment: the sneaky sin.

Proverbs 19:23
The fear of the LORD leads to life: Then one rests content , untouched by trouble.

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

I struggle.

There is a thick knot and a rope and someone holding on to the other end, and I am viciously and violently tugging on that rope.

Most of my time is spend pulling, jerking, wrestling before God – even if I feel like I’m wrestling in the privacy of my own heart – it is before God and his court and the great cloud of witnesses presented to me in Hebrews.

Usually I would say that my great sin is distrust. I think, in fact, that I do struggle to trust the Lord and people. I assume, because I know the evil of my own heart, that others are just as sneaky and malicious as I am. Anytime someone who is distrustful says so to me – I automatically question whether they can see deception in others because they are deceptive. Often the very struggles we see in others are the things we struggle with ourselves.

I have contentment radar.

I can almost always immediately tell if someone is content with where they are – if their great pleasure is at rest in God’s promises or whether its ravenous for something else.

It bugs me when Christians are not content. I think, of all we have in our repertoire to prove our God, this is one of the best reflections of Jesus in us; it at least is the most unnerving.

Ever been around a person who is not jostled by the brokenness of their own life? Not a fake off-putting smirk about life, but a true and serene peace about the Lord’s goodness to them. It takes decades of this to establish trust with other people that you actually are content because contentment is so rare and weird. Usually the assumption, if you look content, is this: you are lying to yourself or you are lying to everyone else. Why? Because life is hard. Because in order to really work in this culture, to fit in, we all need some measure of discontentment.

Think of consumerism all by itself:

• If we were content – J. Crew would go out of business – because, well… a NEW SPRING WARDROBE wouldn’t be that appealing… if we were content with what we have.
• The cell phone companies would probably have to create phones that actually didn’t break every 6th months – because, well… we wouldn’t be switching phones every time a new model came out.
• There would be no such thing as designer labels – because, well… we’d be just fine with Target jeans.
• Things might actually be created to work exactly as they ought – because the purchaser would all want to buy something solely on its merit.

Contentment isn’t a lack of desire, nor is it settling for something less. Contentment desires the highest good – GOD, and it settles for nothing less than Christ at the center. It is a deep knowledge of God’s faithfulness and a satisfaction with what God has given you this side of full redemption. It is also the trust that what has been given is for your good – even if this “good” is not the conventional word on good.

It can only, really, truly be given to us by the holy spirit.

This is probably one of my biggest struggles.  It doesn’t really matter what I am doing – I just feel cranky. My great pleasure is always destroyed by my pride, legalism, or general fear and distrust.

Today I went an entire day without Television. Here is my verse for the day on that:

Philippians 4:8-9

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

My Kingdom.

“A cup brimful of sweetness can spill no bitter water, no matter how seriously jarred.”

-Amy Carmichael, “If”

My kingdom was thwarted today, and like any deity/ruler, I threw a fit and huffed around for about an hour making vain threats – ultimately revealing that my cup is not brimming with sweetness but with bitter selfishness.

I suffer, like most people, from the human condition of  “My Kingdom” mentality. In my kingdom, I make the rules – which change erratically depending upon my mood or the time of the month, whether I’ve eaten or how much sleep I need.

In the Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster, he spends an entire chapter on fasting. Almost always, if you get around someone who hasn’t eaten, there is a sense of irritability – and everyone around this person is made uncomfortable. Richard Foster says that most of the time we blame lack of food on emotional unrest, when really all a lack of food does is show us how our kindness and sweetness is conditional and temperamental.*

All of these conditionally challenging things show us to whose kingdom we belong and whether we’ve really surrendered the throne to the true king, or if we are holding the scepter of judgment.

So many disagreements between spouses are “My Kingdom” arguments.

1. The toothpaste.
“I hate the way my husband rolls the toothpaste.” or “My wife uses the toothpaste from the middle!”

2. The toilet seat.
“He always leaves it up!” “She always puts it down!”

Clearly both people require the seat one way or another – if a husband were considerate he’d put it down after use, and if a woman were considerate she would put it up after use for the sake of her husband. (hmmmm…)

3. The fan.
“He likes the fan open.” “I like the windows open!”

Ok – you get it. I’m sure everyone can find things that annoy them about their spouse, or living partner, or friends, etc. These are things that are clearly not issues of morality or sin themselves, but bug the crap out of you and are worth losing respect and having significant fights over  – I mean you’ve told her 8 times you hate the way she rolls the tooth paste; or you’ve told him 9 time to unload the dishes in the morning.

All of this points to our own individual kingdoms – to their rules, their M.O. – and frankly to self-centeredness. Or to put it another way – being centered around how you would prefer it be done.

To go a step further, we also believe that when someone thwarts our kingdom’s rule – it is a personal slight against our rulership and thus trust, love, respect and hope is broken. All because she left the lid off the medicine and you knocked it over: she must not love you!

In Ephesians 5, Paul says, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Which is to say – defer your rights to one another because you are in awe of how Christ humbled himself for you. Which is to say – be selfless because you understand the Gospel.

So my question is – how do we practice a Christ’s Kingdom mentality – and to go a step further – make deliberate  moves to choose someone else’s preference over your own, to recognize that ALL of your needs are met in Christ, that if he doesn’t put down the toilet seat, your whole world isn’t crushed?

Really the question is – how do we make the Gospel real and impacting enough to change us?

____________

*This paragraph was inspired by a conversation with my friend Rose, in which she spoke of Foster’s book, and helped me see that sin is really the root of my irritability and not my lack of sleep or food, or of my monthly hormonal uprising.