Saturday, March 28, 2009

Sex positive?

A few weeks ago, I linked to a post at Rod Dreher's blog describing a recent "Sex Positive" week at Georgetown.

I was struck by the verbal positioning of the entire affair--sex positivity?  Implying that more traditional ideas are sex negative?

If the Christian community has its theology right, shouldn't we be the ones who are the most "sex positive"?  If our words don't match this, where have we erred?  How can we celebrate this blessing?  

And, more pointedly, why do we usually not?  Much of this stems from regarding the entire topic as taboo, which means we are not effectively delineating sermonologically or culturally between good and bad.  Treating the whole topic in the hushed whispers of opprobrium does us no favors, either in terms of educating believers or reaching out to those who are not.  We need to recognize our own failings, and develop means of approaching this topic with much more openness, with the ability to argue what we are for, and nor merely what we are against.  Otherwise we confirm the caricatures others make of us.

On the other hand, this isn't to excuse those who make such caricatures.  It is difficult to have real discussions when the terms of the debate are arrayed against you, and your first step is almost to apologize for being so "sex negative."  

These silly ad hominem arguments don't help anybody, and they're certainly easy to fall into.   And the Christian community falls for it, too, which only breeds insularity and self-righteousness.

By the way, one thing I need to counter here is the whole "sexual repression" concept that's been floating around for the past 50 years at least.  If you're not clear what this is, then listen to one of its proponents, Hugh Hefner:
What causes all the sickness, the perversion, the rape, is a repressive society--a society that can't be open in a loving and positive way.
OK, I am hereby proposing ground rules for ad hominem lines of thought like this one.  One of three options.  If you're going to say your opponent has some sort of psychological malady, then, please, lets have some diagnostic criteria.  I want to see the page on the DSM you're reading from.  Otherwise, please, let's not go calling everybody who disagrees with you a nutjob.  It's not helpful.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Heavy Stumbling Feet

OK, so I've been slacking again. Sorry.

This week is test week, so I will be posting, but it will be other folks' writing.  But it's good.

This from Tony Woodlief:
I spent a good portion of my time in a small chapel, learning prayers that preceded the Roman Catholic Church. I came with a great weight on my bones, a weight that overwhelmed me in that tiny chapel. I fell to my knees there, and prayed with quivering shoulders and trembling hands, done in by grief over the past, fear of the future, the knowing that this present ground is sand, that my feet must soon move forward or backward. Each way bears a cost; one of the great lies of men is that the path can be traveled without suffering. Another great lie is that we can stand still and read books and let our paltry knowledge carry us into the arms of God. We have to walk, with heavy, stumbling feet.
Read the rest.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Courage in the face of death

About every week, I read to an older man in who has diabetic retinopathy (diabetes is hurting his eyes) so he can't read that well himself.  Lately we've been reading a history of Great Britain by Thomas Babington Macaulay, a 19th century Member of Parliament who, in his spare time, wrote prolifically.1  In any case, his histories are far more in depth
Within an hour of eternity, sleeping as sweetly as a man ever did
than anything I read in high school, bringing up all the backstories and personal elements of history that most texts gloss over or omit entirely.  Also, I think that Macaulay can often writes with more wit and style than today's texts, which are often written by committee and are editted to the point of not alleging anything forcefully or controversially.2

In any case, I was struck by this passage on the death of Argyle, a Scottish Presbyterian and nobleman captured during an insurrection against the Catholic King James II in 1685.  I don't know what to say regarding the interdenomiational warfare and political intrigue, but it is a tremendous account of courage, peace, and humility--things we don't hear often anymore, but certainly should.
And now commenced the brightest part of Argyle's career. His enterprise had hitherto brought on him nothing but reproach and derision. His great error was that he did not resolutely refuse to accept the name without the power of a general. Had he remained quietly at his retreat in Friesland, he would in a few years have been recalled with honour to his country, and would have been conspicuous among the ornaments and the props of constitutional monarchy. Had he conducted his expedition according to his own views, and carried with him no followers but such as were prepared implicitly to obey all his orders, he might possibly have effected something great. For what he wanted as a captain seems to have been, not courage, nor activity, nor skill, but simply authority. He should have known that of all wants this is the most fatal. Armies have triumphed under leaders who possessed no very eminent qualifications. But what army commanded by a debating club ever escaped discomfiture and disgrace?

The great calamity which had fallen on Argyle had this advantage, that it enabled him to show, by proofs not to be mistaken, what manner of man he was. From the day when he quitted. Friesland to the day when his followers separated at Kilpatrick, he had never been a free agent. He had borne the responsibility of a long series of measures which his judgment disapproved. Now at length he stood alone. Captivity had restored to him the noblest kind of liberty, the liberty of governing himself in all his words and actions according to his own sense of the right and of the becoming. From that moment he became as one inspired with new wisdom and virtue. His intellect seemed to be strengthened and concentrated, his moral character to be at once elevated and softened. The insolence of the conquerors spared nothing that could try the temper of a man proud of ancient nobility and of patriarchal dominion. The prisoner was dragged through Edinburgh in triumph. He walked on foot, bareheaded, up the whole length of that stately street which, overshadowed by dark and gigantic piles of stone, leads from Holyrood House to the Castle. Before him marched the hangman, bearing the ghastly instrument which was to be used at the quartering block. The victorious party had not forgotten that, thirty-five years before this time, the father of Argyle had been at the head of the faction which put Montrose to death. Before that event the houses of Graham and Campbell had borne no love to each other; and they had ever since been at deadly feud. Care was taken that the prisoner should pass through the same gate and the same streets through which Montrose had been led to the same doom. 349 When the Earl reached the Castle his legs were put in irons, and he was informed that he had but a few days to live. It had been determined not to bring him to trial for his recent offence, but to put him to death under the sentence pronounced against him several years before, a sentence so flagitiously unjust that the most servile and obdurate lawyers of that bad age could not speak of it without shame.

But neither the ignominious procession up the High Street, nor the near view of death, had power to disturb the gentle and majestic patience of Argyle. His fortitude was tried by a still more severe test. A paper of interrogatories was laid before him by order of the Privy Council. He replied to those questions to which he could reply without danger to any of his friends, and refused to say more. He was told that unless he returned fuller answers he should be put to the torture. James, who was doubtless sorry that he could not feast his own eyes with the sight of Argyle in the boots, sent down to Edinburgh positive orders that nothing should be omitted which could wring out of the traitor information against all who had been concerned in the treason. But menaces were vain. With torments and death in immediate prospect Mac Callum More thought far less of himself than of his poor clansmen. "I was busy this day," he wrote from his cell, "treating for them, and in some hopes. But this evening orders came that I must die upon Monday or Tuesday; and I am to be put to the torture if I answer not all questions upon oath. Yet I hope God shall support me."

The torture was not inflicted. Perhaps the magnanimity of the victim had moved the conquerors to unwonted compassion. He himself remarked that at first they had been very harsh to him, but that they soon began to treat him with respect and kindness. God, he said, had melted their hearts. It is certain that he did not, to save himself from the utmost cruelty of his enemies, betray any of his friends. On the last morning of his life he wrote these words: "I have named none to their disadvantage. I thank God he hath supported me wonderfully!"

He composed his own epitaph, a short poem, full of meaning and spirit, simple and forcible in style, and not contemptible in versification. In this little piece he complained that, though his enemies had repeatedly decreed his death, his friends had been still more cruel. A comment on these expressions is to be found in a letter which he addressed to a lady residing in Holland. She had furnished him with a large sum of money for his expedition, and he thought her entitled to a full explanation of the causes which had led to his failure. He acquitted his coadjutors of treachery, but described their folly, their ignorance, and their factious perverseness, in terms which their own testimony has since proved to have been richly deserved. He afterwards doubted whether he had not used language too severe to become a dying Christian, and, in a separate paper, begged his friend to suppress what he had said of these men "Only this I must acknowledge," he mildly added; "they were not governable."

Most of his few remaining hours were passed in devotion, and in affectionate intercourse with some members of his family. He professed no repentance on account of his last enterprise, but bewailed, with great emotion, his former compliance in spiritual things with the pleasure of the government He had, he said, been justly punished. One who had so long been guilty of cowardice and dissimulation was not worthy to be the instrument of salvation to the State and Church. Yet the cause, he frequently repeated, was the cause of God, and would assuredly triumph. "I do not," he said, "take on myself to be a prophet. But I have a strong impression on my spirit, that deliverance will come very suddenly." It is not strange that some zealous Presbyterians should have laid up his saying in their hearts, and should, at a later period, have attributed it to divine inspiration.

So effectually had religious faith and hope, co-operating with natural courage and equanimity, composed his spirits, that, on the very day on which he was to die, he dined with appetite, conversed with gaiety at table, and, after his last meal, lay down, as he was wont, to take a short slumber, in order that his body and mind might be in full vigour when he should mount the scaffold. At this time one of the Lords of the Council, who had probably been bred a Presbyterian, and had been seduced by interest to join in oppressing the Church of which he had once been a member, came to the Castle with a message from his brethren, and demanded admittance to the Earl. It was answered that the Earl was asleep. The Privy Councillor thought that this was a subterfuge, and insisted on entering. The door of the cell was softly opened; and there lay Argyle, on the bed, sleeping, in his irons, the placid sleep of infancy. The conscience of the renegade smote him. He turned away sick at heart, ran out of the Castle, and took refuge in the dwelling of a lady of his family who lived hard by. There he flung himself on a couch, and gave himself up to an agony of remorse and shame. His kinswoman, alarmed by his looks and groans, thought that he had been taken with sudden illness, and begged him to drink a cup of sack. "No, no," he said; "that will do me no good." She prayed him to tell her what had disturbed him. "I have been," he said, "in Argyle's prison. I have seen him within an hour of eternity, sleeping as sweetly as ever man did. But as for me ———"

And now the Earl had risen from his bed, and had prepared himself for what was yet to be endured. He was first brought down the High Street to the Council House, where he was to remain during the short interval which was still to elapse before the execution. During that interval he asked for pen and ink, and wrote to his wife: "Dear heart, God is unchangeable: He hath always been good and gracious to me: and no place alters it. Forgive me all my faults; and now comfort thyself in Him, in whom only true comfort is to be found. The Lord be with thee, bless and comfort thee, my dearest. Adieu."

It was now time to leave the Council House. The divines who attended the prisoner were not of his own persuasion; but he listened to them with civility, and exhorted them to caution their flocks against those doctrines which all Protestant churches unite in condemning. He mounted the scaffold, where the rude old guillotine of Scotland, called the Maiden, awaited him, and addressed the people in a speech, tinctured with the peculiar phraseology of his sect, but breathing the spirit of serene piety. His enemies, he said, he forgave, as he hoped to be forgiven. Only a single acrimonious expression escaped him. One of the episcopal clergymen who attended him went to the edge of the scaffold, and called out in a loud voice, "My Lord dies a Protestant." "Yes," said the Earl, stepping forward, "and not only a Protestant, but with a heart hatred of Popery, of Prelacy, and of all superstition." He then embraced his friends, put into their hands some tokens of remembrance for his wife and children, kneeled down, laid his head on the block, prayed during a few minutes, and gave the signal to the executioner. His head was fixed on the top of the Tolbooth, where the head of Montrose had formerly decayed.350

1. Macaulay was something of a inquisitive and desciptive genius, and his parents realized this when, as a toddler and looking at the smokestacks of nearby factories, and asked, "Does the smoke from those chimneys come from the fires of hell?" 
2. Macaulay has been criticized for being too pro-Whig in his historical outlook, as he claims that the Glorious Revolution of 1688 ushered in a Golden Age in English politics.  Maybe he's mistaken, but at least he's arguing for something.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Seconds...

As exhibit A of what happens when we give up on ideals, I'd like to share a recent, and somewhat saddening, article from CNN.  (My snarky readers may say this is me giving up on my  ideals of posting more encouraging things here.  I hear you...but this one connects to what I just wrote!!)

Anyway, the title says it all: "Don't Fall in Love."

I knew something was amiss when I read this:
But sometimes the bad outweighs the good, and every once in a while a lady needs to take a break and keep her heart safe from scoundrels looking to shatter it.

However, that doesn't mean you should hole up alone in beat-up pajamas with only your old pals Netflix and Jim Beam for company. Even when you're not in the market for love, it's good to keep one toe in the dating pool. You just need to date effectively. Here are some ways to keep your heart safe while the rest of you has fun.
Hmm.  I think someone just bought the one-way ticket to Splitsville, and is heading to the train station.  Here's some, uh, helpful pointers from our esteemed author.
1. Date only the wildly inappropriate.
As someone who has befriended with the wildly inappropriate...
2. Take up recreational complaining.
Because misery loves company?
3. Pair the b****ing with moaning and bragging.
Sure-fire winner there.
4. Develop an annoying catchphrase and use it constantly.

5. If, God forbid, you really start to fall for a guy, pick out his negative traits.
I know this article is a bit out of the mainstream, but it's so bizarre I just have to laugh. Is this person serious?  Is this supposed to be helpful advice?  Are we this desperate?  This sounds like a great premise for a reality show that I won't watch.  

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Guidelines

Folks, just want to clarify something here.

It's easy for folks of my persuasion to dwell on problems or get all mopey or complainy things.  So for every post about problems regarding our screwed-up culture and society, I will try to post something uplifting or encouraging.  Because I am called to a life of joy, and I know what a drag bitteness can be.

If you think I am not living up to this, you can call me on it.  Or come over to my house and punch me.  Just let me take my glasses off first--they are expensive.  (Noses are a dime a dozen).

OK, peace out, y'all.