Categories: uncategorized
Date: 28 February 2005 12:56:55
Things were really not going well. I had decided before lent that I was using sex for a number of not so good reasons. Without it, I felt that my day was without meaning and purpose. A day without sex was a wasted day. Not wanting to waste my day, I spent all day preparing. Clothes to wear, what to say, how to move, what to give, how to look, what time to go to bed, to increase my chance of getting sex. I was so hyped, it was a long way down if I got a rejection. I started asking God when to prepare, when to anticipate, when to ask, so I couldn't be disappointed. If there was to be no sex together, then I would turn to prayer together. I got the same feelings of connectedness through praying together that I got from making love together. But prayer was always the second option.
I was sick of the constant trying. So I decided to expect no sex, to not try, to not anticipate and to not seduce. Lent came and I voiced what I wanted to do. My dear one decided to support my decision.
After no sex for about four weeks, we'd stopped speaking to each other really, except for snapping at each other. We seemed to be cross all the time. We talked about our need for intimacy - and by that I don't mean sex - and how to go about meeting this need. But it just wasn't right. I was beginning to feel that what we were doing was not in the God created order of things. Sex forms a spiritual bond between two people. It makes them one. Abstinence was a giant wedge of tension being driven between us.
I love this quote from the movie the Bicentennial Man.
Rupert Burns: What do they say [about making love]?
Andrew Martin: That you can lose yourself. Everything. All boundaries. All time. That two bodies can become so mixed up, that you don't know who's who or what's what. And just when the sweet confusion is so intense you think you're gonna die... you kind of do. Leaving you alone in your separate body, but the one you love is still there. That's a miracle. You can go to heaven and come back alive. You can go back anytime you want with the one you love.
I love the insight of dying in making love. Totally giving yourself to one other special person to leave the old self behind. It's linking arms and saying, we stand together against anything that may come at us, because we are one.
I felt God was asking us to ask each other, 'Should we continue with our fast?' The answer was no. So I've moved the goal posts. I'm not going to be seeking out sex for the rest of lent. I've still got some lessons to learn, not to mention I'm enjoying the freedom that this brings. But I'm happy (more than happy!) to give my body to the other person to whom it belongs.
Here let me stop talking about me to give another plug to Lentus Whaticus who is continuing on with giving up alcohol for lent, and now considering that since he is not experiencing 'a wanting' that it might be time to fast from something else as well. The insights are as beautiful as they are earthy and irreverent. Reminds me a bit of The Curate. Really, scroll down to his first entry and check it out.