Love. Period.
Oh, love is handsome, and love is fine. The old British ballad “The Water is Wide” manages, in a brief space, to etch finely all the phases of love. Love is handsome, fine, a jewel. Love grows old and cold and fades like morning dew. Love is the sturdy oak against which we rest our back, only to find the tree snaps.
And we cannot help what love does to us. In love, we know not when we sink or swim. We find ourselves “in” love, without our devising or without knowing how we have come to be there, its waves long since over our heads.
The words of this beautiful old ballad were ringing in my head as I woke this morning. I’m not sure why, except that they accompanied a tiny vignette from the evening before, the kind of revelatory little scenario that happens to us often in our daily lives, and to which we pay no attention until we’re in a state of rest or sleep.
The vignette: as we left the dinner table, my brother Philip complained, in a mock-angry way, that his wife Penny had picked up his cell phone. Turning to Steve, with whom he constantly commiserates about the life of those espoused to imperfect beings, he asked if I behave the same way, if I follow Steve around picking up his things and pocketing them.
Why did this nugget of the everyday lodge in my subconscious, along with those beautiful lines of a ballad about the many phases of one love? I think because the little scenario is a reminder of the various ways in which one human being loves another.
The love police are forever trying to make love flow in a single channel—their channel, one of their devising, set all about with scriptural admonitions and warnings of natural law, a natural law totally at the love patrol's beck and call.
And yet love is love is love: it flows where it will. It does what it will. It captures hearts heartlessly, whimsically, tragically, magnificently. Before we know it, we’re in so deep we know not if we sink or swim.
The problem, of course, is sustaining love over the long haul, when the cosmic tug of its tidal waves ebbs and we’re left on shore, with that very real and very flawed human being with whom we’ve cast our lot—or, more precisely, with whom we’ve been cast ashore after both of us succumbed to the tidal wave.
It’s then that we find the annoying habits like her picking up my cell phone, his going behind me to load the dishwasher “correctly,” his adding the right seasonings to food I’ve carefully prepared. Love bears a thousand burdens, and usually not gracefully at all.
One of the great surprises of my adult life was to find that my grandparents loved one another—helplessly, totally, I discovered, and was astounded to discover. Watching them when I grew up, I had come to the conclusion that they could barely abide each other.
From my grandmother’s standpoint, my grandfather could do nothing right, though he worked to the point of exhaustion every workday of his life. She would send him to the store after a hard day of work—his hard day of work—a precise grocery list scribbled in her palsied hand.
He’d return, having bought some trifle that was different from one on her list: a Betty Crocker cake mix, rather than the Pillsbury one she expressly wanted. Often, he did this because I would be with him and would note that the same chocolate cake mix cost 59 cents less in the Pillsbury brand than the Betty Crocker one.
We’d come home, she’d unsack the groceries with a sense of triumph, fish out the “wrong” cake mix, and shake it at him: “Dennie, I told you Betty Crocker. You go right back and return this.” And back he’d go . . . .
On days when they were home together, he’d simply sit, quietly, in a corner, never saying a word, while she stirred around the house. If my grandmother did try to talk to him, he’d suddenly develop hearing problems. Once, in exasperation, she took the cardboard cylinder from the middle of a roll of paper towels and hailed him: “Dennie. Can you hear me? Can you hear me, Dennie?”
His reply: “Take that fool thing out of your mouth, and I might.”
If I were a betting man, and had been asked to bet on the chances that this crusty old couple who never once showed any sign of affection for each other were “in love,” I’d have bet my fortune on their lack of love.
Until he died in February 1976. Within days of his death, my grandmother began to pine, to decline. I brought her a winter bulb in a pot to force. I returned a few weeks later and asked about it. She—who loved flowers passionately—had clean forgotten the pot, put it into a dark closet.
By summer, she was falling in her kitchen, and had to be taken to Texas to live first with my aunt Helen, then my uncle Carlton, and finally in a nursing home. She died on Christmas day 1976, having refused to eat anything for several weeks.
Obviously, my grandmother was very deeply in love with the silent, vexed, vexatious old man who could shine so bright and be so witty around any beautiful woman other than his wife. Obviously, he loved her just as deeply. After their death, I did recall my shock, late in their lives, when he remarked, as we passed the house in Louisiana in which she had grown up, "There once lived seven of the most beautiful girls I ever saw. And I married the prettiest of them all."
Her response, a typical one when she wanted to dismiss something said to her: "Aw, pshaw."
Love flows in its own channels. Like water, it seeks its various levels, and does what water does as it flows here and there, everywhere, unpredictably. People can love deeply even when the surface shows no movement of love at all, no indication of the depths of the currents flowing underneath.
People can love the person who takes their cellphone—madly and passionately so. People can (I hope; I try) love the one who re-orders the dishes stacked in the dishwasher, so that they are stacked “correctly.”
The couple with the ongoing cellphone battle are a man and a woman. The ones who wage war over dishes and dishwashers are a man and a man.
And yet, as my brother Philip once told my mother not many years before her death, “Bill and I have been very fortunate in our choice of spouses.” No distinction. No real marriage and bogus one. Marriage. Period. Love. Period.
And love should be celebrated, particularly by believers in a God who is such exceeding Love that God became love enfleshed to help us get the idea of love through our thick heads.
(This is a duplicate of a posting on my blog at www.bilgrimage.blogspot.com. I note this here because the original blog posting has pictures that illuminate the text.)
Wow, for a thread about
Wow, for a thread about love.perid, it's really taken some interesting turns. I guess as long as it involves Catholicism it's never about love.period. That's in spite of Jesus pretty specifically saying He was about love.period.
From rereading this thread it seems for Catholics it's supposed to be about when it's not love.period.
Please note this: http://enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com
Aha Colkoch! You have
Aha Colkoch! You have momentarily fallen into the trap:"From rereading this thread it seems for Catholics it's supposed to be about when it's not love.period". In this little slip you have done what we must avoid at all costs, that is concede that the 'truth merchants' the 'unbending crusaders of abject submission to dogmatism', the 'right wing fundamentalists', the 'unctuous inquisitors', the 'medieval rapturists and, in a kinder vein, the 'fervent pietists' are the real Catholics or all there is to Catholicism. If we do care about "being Catholic" (whatever that really means) we must unabashedly acknowledge our catholicism as integral to the substance of the Church and to its healing future along with, as well, the most well-founded, and devoted traditionalists.
One can frame a system of ethics without faith, without Christ. Look at what Aristotle accomplished and even more important the importance he put upon individual,social and political ethical life, love, order. More, the survival and reincarnation of these classical ethicists, poets and artists of love in every medium and the importance given to them over the centuries bespeaks of the human ability to find right order, good life, impulse and search for the good, the true and the beautiful whether personal, common as well as ultimate.
Christ did not start ethics, moral behaviour or community; He he didn't even bring the "I-thou-we" sense of empathy, love and recogniition of its power and beauty. Christ is the response, the answer to the best that is human, the best that all creation impels toward. He enters it, creationally right-ordered it and brought us into a divine dimension to which we, as sinful, deficient creatures could never aspire (and had failed to appreciate). In doing so He spoke of that which is the best we can be, identified Himself with it, compounded and impounded and expanded upon it and challenged us all to join Him, be Him, with Him and in Him. To paraphrase the song: He lights up our life, in a fundamental way.
Christ did it for creation, for us, for His Father. It would not surprise me that, inspite of our traditional belief, it was intended from the beginning as an element or dimension of the creative path. In spite of our traditional belief, I hold that all human beings who seek to good are embraced within this relationship in Christ. I also believe that Christ, in some mysterious way entrusted His presence and message in space and time to the Catholic Chruch. Like the mysterious "Foundation" of Issac Asimov, it is for us to find it and how to unlock it in our time.
So, call me 'cafeteria','heretic', 'lapsed' whatever; mock, exclude, hold me in disdain but "I am Catholic".
I'm very much with you,
I'm very much with you, Dennis. I would make one point though, and that is that religion puts faith in bad light by appropriating it ideologically and divorcing it from the wisdom deposit of evolutionary consciousness. Faith is in fact more important than we realize, I believe, and we all have it basically as an intuitional deposit of biological remembrance, genetic and memetic. Intuitional wisdom is deeply about "God", religion is about things other than God, e.g., political control.
Me Too. Dennis! I'm
Me Too. Dennis! I'm Catholic!
I am the change the Church needs. I am the answer to it’s most difficult questions. I shun the questions not because my Father, My Brother Jesus and the Holy Spirit, gird me for any difficulty I might find here on Earth. I Love ALL. And that's what I'm here for to DO JUST THAT. The Father has no need to change the denomination of his Child. Because he changes His Child within whatever denomination they are in. So by my God's Love I am Catholic and through His Love he makes me catholic. (small "c" intended.)
Loving your brothers and sisters as God loves you starts right where you are at. No need to change anything except making sure you LOVE ALL.
Peace be with you my brothers and sisters. Progressive and Traditional, ALL. God Bless You. :-)
The more we discover how much we are Loved by God, the more we want to do God's Will
Dennis, I want to let you
Dennis, I want to let you know that I will be serving 10 minutes for UnCatholic Conduct. I talked it down from a match penalty. :)
I think this may be the best most wonderful thing you have ever written.
A true Gordie Howe hat trick.
Please note this: http://enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com
Colkoch~ Aint confession
Colkoch~ Aint confession grand? I love Gordie but prefer to stay with the younger crowd, like a Crosby! Thank you.
Dennis, Crosby? CROSBY??!!!!
Dennis, Crosby? CROSBY??!!!! Didn't the NHL's latest Canadian savior just lose the cup to those rotten mean Euro Goliath's of the NHL? The same Goliath who just signed Crosby's right hand man right out from under him? Poor Sid, he needs to find another sling.
Sincerely yours, an historically connected and insane REDWINGNUT.
Please note this: http://enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com
Colleen, I was hoping
Colleen, I was hoping somebody would notice this really important point.
We like to talk about just about anything but love, when we discuss the church and its teaching today.
And yet, for Jesus (as for his predecessors among the Jewish prophets), it was all about love. Period.
William D. Lindsey
I know what you mean Bill.
I know what you mean Bill. It looks like we needed about 35 more generations of prophets setting the stage before we might even begin to recognize the real thing.
Please note this: http://enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com
Just in case, one has forgot
Just in case, one has forgot the verses in their entirety & sequence:
1 Cor 13
"I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast,* but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. IT DOES NOT INSIST ON ITS OWN WAY; it is not irritable or resentful; IT DOES NOT REJOICE IN WRONGDOING, but rejoices in the truth. It bears ALL THINGS, believes ALL THINGS, hopes ALL THINGS, endures ALL THINGS.
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; AS FOR KNOWLEDGE, IT WILL COME TO AN END. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I PUT AN END TO CHILDISH WAYS. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE."
The Rev. Dr. E. McCoy
"Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." (John 20:21)
Thank you Rev. Dr. E. McCoy!
Thank you Rev. Dr. E. McCoy! Welcome back dear friend of Christ.
Thanks you Butterfly! And
Thanks you Butterfly! And also to you, dear friend in Christ! I am currently in Paris ... (Ontario, Canada that is) ... at an ecumenical intentional interim ministry network week of training. It's wonderful to hear people' faith stories - very restorative. So please forgive my tardiness of response. I'm glad to see that your are posting!!
The Rev. Dr. E. McCoy
"Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." (John 20:21)
Dr.McCoy~ I have also posted
Dr.McCoy~ I have also posted ICor.13 from two if not three different versions of the NT in direct response to the 'truth' merchants. They have studiously ignored the shocking lesson of this essay on the hierarchy of values. Welcome back.
Hi Dennis. I'm late
Hi Dennis. I'm late responding because of travel. As I reflected on my own question, I felt embarrassed. It sounds churlish to say "Oh where are the good ole' days". On the other hand, I have had the opportunity to wonder why the discourse on this site disheartens me and I think it's this: human discourse is such a precious gem that when it is squandered one feels downhearted.
Lately I seem to be hearing a clanging bell (in so many places) instead of a language employed for the sake of discovery: discovery of God's continuing revelation, discernment of Jesus' message of the Good News of salvation; discovery of one's own voice of praise set to the tune of another's spiritual journey. Rather, it seems that lines have been drawn and sides taken and that wonderful speaking is being squandered on contests that pick at the same 'issues' with the same set of 'principals' over and over.
What I found so enlivening in our earlier discourse was the combination of spontaneity and personal narrative that constituted unrehearsed faith stories. Isn't it wonderful and amazing when we are able to hear what moves the heart of our brothers and sisters in Christ!
This week I've been listening to a very diverse set of clergy from a broad array of denominations struggle with the challenges of ministry in a world beset with confusion. And yet, because we are being encouraged to ground our reflections in scripture and grapple with the immediacy of God's touch in our lives and ministries we have not fallen into division. What a dead hand it is, eh (as the Canadians say...) The variety of genuine faith stories and the astounding colors of all that fabric of different interpretations and levels of encounter with The Spirit has blown me away.
There is, as always, plenty to DEBATE, but, thanks be to God, we have decided to seek discovery instead. More accurately, our debates are subsumed within a genuine seeking. And the language of our discourse and hymnody is very uplifting. The Evangelicals; the scriptural literalists; the unhinged spiritualists; the serious Anglicans and the even-more-serious Presbyterians; the sturdy Lutherans; and the wonderful Episcopalians; the Disciples and the Unitarians; and even the Mennonites have been talking without the codas and restrictions of denominational claims to righteousness. We are praying together and struggling together and laughing, crying, and blinking together. We are making Midrash!
I hope I can find time to contribute more to the site. I always keep an eye on the talk here, I pray that we can talk on-site the way this week has so far developed.
Let's make a pact, Dennis to share some heart stories and some faith narratives. I'll try if you will.
God's peace, my Brother.
Elaine+
The Rev. Dr. E. McCoy
"Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." (John 20:21)
Elaine this is really a
Elaine this is really a wonderful post, and has set me to thinking. I believe now that the reason I started my own blog was to return to some of that sharing that used to happen on this site. That dialogue which came from the heart, came from personal experience, rather than the head. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to write, "I KNOW THE CATECHISM, it's sitting on my desk and it's well USED. What is it about your life experience that motivates you to take it all as TRUTH?" I haven't though knowing full well it's pointless to seek personal testimony when folks aren't willing or ready to go there.
It's interesting that at the same time you were experiencing this kind of heartfelt sharing in Canada, I was engaged in a very similar process here in my own little town. In my case, it wasn't just a sharing of hearts, but an eye popping sharing of Navajo mystical experiences with white and native folk of different tribes and spiritual traditions. The similarities are most interesting, but I guess those are easier to find when you are looking for unity, for common ground, rather than disunity and differences.
Nice to have you back. You've been missed. By the way, I've sent many prayers Rowan William's way. Wouldn't want to be experiencing his faith journey at this point.
Please note this: http://enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com
Hi Colleen. I'm still post
Hi Colleen. I'm still post pseudo-traveling and so am behind in responding to mail, email, & communication in general. I did finally get to visit the blogspot you recommended. Thanks so much for that.
On unity: well, we have a strong Anglican tradition that, put most simply, has always foresworn sameness for the sake of genuine unity - i.e., the acceptance of God's continuing revelation in the wonderful diversity of experience. Hooker's famous 'three-legged stool': scripture/reason/tradition has provided the ground within which experience is admitted as a dynamic part of the formation of our unified community of faith. More recently and definitive of our international covenant is the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral of the twentieth century that articulates as basic dogma the foursquare belief in 1/ Holy Scripture as the word of God; 2/ the ancient creeds (Nicene most prominently)as a full and sufficient statement of faith; 3/ acceptance of the two sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist as our liturgical foundation; and 3/ acceptance of the apostolic episcopate.
Within these parameters and in the introduction of the Chicago-Lambeth Q great emphasis is placed on the LOCAL jurisdictional autonomy of judicatories in interpreting our creedal elements. So, for example, while the Episcopal church may find abhorrent the silence of the Nigerian Anglican church regarding child female genital mutilation practiced by some variants of Muslim sects in Nigeria, the American church would not chastise the fundamentalist Nigerian Bishops for their quiescence, but, rather, address the issue as a socio-political one and advocate for social justice in the secular arena. In other words, we would not mobilize an ecclesial movement against such quiescence despite clear scriptural warrants requiring actions not taken. Nor do we address the polygamy issue involving ordained clergy in Africa for similar reasons. LOCAL jurisdictions, we believe, are responsible for local faith dynamics as long as a basic creedal unity is maintained and the lines of authority within our universal polity are respected.
The "unity" issue now facing the Anglican Communion as a whole is about authority and the transfer of power to a neo-colonial episcopate in a post-colonial world.
Yet to break unity - our traditional unity-within-diversity now would be to fundamentally alter the theological as well as the creedal basis that has informed Anglican identity for the past half century. The holding of a creative tension within the "via media" has always been the genius of a pragmatic Anglicanism. A broad tent requires strong poles and the foursquare Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral has provided that structure during the tumult of the twentieth century. This is why FEWER THAN 1% OF EPISCOPALIANS HAVE DISSENTED FROM THE COMMUNION AND FLED TO ALTERNATIVE OVERSIGHT and why the fundamentalist side has had to resort to "fly in" bishops from Bolivia and Nigeria to "capture" and consecrate dissident American clergy.
I'm always surprised at how vexed people are about all this. As in all sacred times that call us to conversion, the present time is, of course, important for we Episcopalians. But, this is not so much for the salacious reason of sexual behavior nor the mundane reason of ecclesial bureaucratic reformation but, rather, for the opportunity to really examine what unity means in a world opening to God's mystery. I think this is a wonderful and holy time and yet ... God is good ALL the time!
The Rev. Dr. E. McCoy
"Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." (John 20:21)
Hi Dennis. Yes, I did see
Hi Dennis. Yes, I did see your posts and wondered if my enhanced capitalization might help (sorry for the redundancy and sorrier for the futility...); and thanks for the greeting. I'll try to be more substantive in future posts. It's always so wearying to attempt engagement around 'truth' dichotomies. What ever happened to the emerging Midrash of eighteen months ago one could find on this site, (not to mention the wit and humor)?
The Rev. Dr. E. McCoy
"Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." (John 20:21)
Rev.Dr~ That message is
Rev.Dr~ That message is never redundant; it merits more repeating. Maybe butterfly will put it to music. Interesting that there was a time when a catholic had to read the "Duay"(?) version of the bible. Seeing various texts, gives slight variations of meaning and texts hit you in a slightly different light. Long live difference.
Rev.Dr.~ "not to mention the
Rev.Dr.~ "not to mention the wit and humor?" ~ go to LittleBear's thread "Whose Liturgy is it anyway". It is great and don't miss butterfly's "Ode to Gone" in that same thread. The humour is not entirely gone!
"... who IS and who IS NOT
"... who IS and who IS NOT appropriately in the same category with Christ..."
John 13:35
Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. BY THIS EVERYONE WILL KNOW THAT YOU ARE MY DISCIPLES, IF YOU HAVE LOVE FOR ONE ANOTHER.’
The Rev. Dr. E. McCoy
"Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." (John 20:21)
Today is the day I read your
Today is the day I read your beautiful essay, Bill. Thank you for that.
I think it is a beautiful gift because you give us this glimpse of your life and your relationship. Like all of us, our relationships are sometimes the most beautiful in their ordinariness.
My nephew is gay. I hope and pray for him to find what you have found. A life partner, a life-long love.
Annedanielson wrote
Annedanielson wrote somewhere on page 2:
"Can you cite me Christ's Commandment that says we are to celebrate sex outside of Marriage? Christ reveals His intention for Marriage as a union between a Husband and Wife. Christ does not speak of homosexuality because homosexuality does not come from God. Homosexuality comes from the desire of some men and women to define Sexual Love the way they want to define it."
______________________________________________________________________
Let's see, there's plenty of OT references to polygamy, but Thomas has tried to soothe our confusion with this by spinning this to be God's way of accepting the fact He had to work with our deficiencies.
If one truly buys the Adam and Eve story, one has to assume all of us are products of incest, and since this Genesis story never mentions daughters, just Cain and Abel, we have to assume Eve was very busy, and not just with Adam. I guess that makes her the first polygamist, and maybe why Cain was so jealous of Abel.
"Homosexuality does not come from God." Then where do homosexual animals come from? My father was quite upset with the fact he wound up buying a homosexual bull. He, who didn't want to even believe such a thing existed, wound up having to face the fact it certainly existed in cattle. Did this innocent bull come from Satan?
Can you site me an example where Christ said all sexuality outside of marriage is sinful? He talked about fornication and adultery and both of those are exploitative or products of lust. He had some strong words about divorce too, which is why Catholicism calls divorce, annulment. Jesus never spoke about annulment. Smart hair splitting move coining that annulment thing, definining divorce the way we want to define it.
I guess that's not the same as Jesus never speaking about homosexuality, also a word and concept, like annulment, the New Testament authors wouldn't be familiar with. Interesting how we can invent things to circumvent Jesus's teachings for some things, but not others. Must be more of God's having to compensate for our human deficiencies.
Please note this: http://enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com
Dear colkoch, So many
Dear colkoch,
So many comments calling for response, so little time.....
1) YOU: "If one truly buys the Adam and Eve story, one has to assume all of us are products of incest, and since this Genesis story never mentions daughters, just Cain and Abel, we have to assume Eve was very busy, and not just with Adam. I guess that makes her the first polygamist, and maybe why Cain was so jealous of Abel."
MY RESPONSE: The fact that daughters are not mentioned does not prove that there were none. There were daughters, obviously, because the sons married. My question to you - does it please you to speak in such a condescending and irreverent way of Holy Scripture?
2) YOU: ""Homosexuality does not come from God." Then where do homosexual animals come from? My father was quite upset with the fact he wound up buying a homosexual bull. He, who didn't want to even believe such a thing existed, wound up having to face the fact it certainly existed in cattle. Did this innocent bull come from Satan?"
MY RESPONSE: No sin comes from God, but God has allowed consequences of sin to come upon mankind - consequences such as birth defects and abnormalities, physical as well as emotional/psychological. We are darkened in intellect and in will, as a consequence of sin. The origins of homosexuality are not completely understood - there may be environmental origins in some homosexuals, and some may have this as a congenital condition.
There are many innocent persons born with birth defects of one sort or another, and same-sex attraction may be one of them. Any birth defect calls forth courage, to overcome the difficulty with heroic struggle, with patience, with fortitude and perseverance. In any event, to act out homosexual attraction is wrong.
3) YOU: "Can you site me an example where Christ said all sexuality outside of marriage is sinful? He talked about fornication and adultery and both of those are exploitative or products of lust."
MY RESPONSE: Can you cite the pasage where Jesus says that fornication or adultery that are NOT exploitative or products of lust are then OK?
4) YOU: "He had some strong words about divorce too, which is why Catholicism calls divorce, annulment. Jesus never spoke about annulment. Smart hair splitting move coining that annulment thing, definining divorce the way we want to define it."
MY RESPONSE: You must not have a good understanding of either God's intention for marriage, or the meaning of a declaration of nullity. I recommend a study of the theology of marriage - such is a beautiful and rewarding exercise! That would also be very helpful in understanding the teaching on contraception, and in vitro fertilization, and surrogate motherhood, and other innovations.
Thomas
Thomas, please. This is
Thomas, please. This is really embarassing. What colkoch knows about family dynamics, marital dynamics, sexual orientation and how they play out in families and communities would blow you over. She is also a rather impressive student of the Bible and theology.
And I agree with someone long ago who wrote in NCR---most educated theologians, priests and others realize that the Bible is a beautiful and complex document and has much to say to us, but it is not regarded as all literal truth. Some of it is cultural story telling, songs, parables, a smattering of history, folklore. This is the secret that is quietly suppressed from the Catholic laity as if we could not take the truth. The patriarchy knows best. *wink*wink*
Even if Cain and Abel and
Even if Cain and Abel and Seth married their sisters, wouldn't that still be incest?
Frannie, there are billions
Frannie, there are billions of people that existed that have not been mentioned in the Bible.
I'm sure, you and I
I'm sure, you and I included. But if Adam and Eve are the sole parents of the human race, then even if they had a billion children, wouldn't they all be brothers and sisters?
Well, if Eve emerged from
Well, if Eve emerged from Adam's rib, isn't that like she was, sort of, born of Adam? Procreation in reverse maybe but Eve might be Adam's sister? Yuch. Maybe that is the real punishment for original sin: otherwise men would have born the travail's of pregnancy and the joys of whatever...
They would all be brothers
They would all be brothers and sisters but many, many, many times removed.
I understand "removed" as a
I understand "removed" as a generational degree of difference. But to whatever degree of "removedness" they must have begun with same generation sex in order to be produced somewhere down the line.
no, incest wasnt a sin until
no, incest wasnt a sin until the time of moses
Better still, if we take
Better still, if we take Genesis as our model (Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve), then incest is the moral paradigm.
Thomas I'm not usually that
Thomas I'm not usually that flippant with scripture, but I am getting a little tired of the Adam and Eve story. It's a story, and the one woman one man definition of marriage is continually contradicted by other stories in the Old Testament. Polygamy was perfectly acceptable to the Jews. The whole story of David has all kinds of different relationships implied with in it. In all honesty, there's quite a bit in the Old Testament I don't necessariy take very seriously. I take the New Testament very seriously.
For instance, all though my ex-husband managed to get our marriage annuled, I refused to cooperate with the annulment tribunal because I took Jesus's injunction against divorce seriously. I was perfectly prepared to accept the cross of not ever marrying again, and believe me, I could have used my knowledge of the sacrament of marriage as a club to prevent him from getting his annulment. I didn't because I knew there was nothing worse I could have done to him. He was not where I was at. On the other hand, my conscience would not let me participate in a process I felt was a sham and theological semantics. I guess on this topic this makes me more hardcore than you.
What I really feel is that once you have exchanged sexual energy you have connected yourself very profoundly to another human being, and neither divorce nor annulment severs that connection. That being the case, I see no reason for the process of annulment. People make mistakes or outgrow relationships. So be it. Who am I to judge? Let them remarry and get on with their lives, including their sacramental lives.
Fornication and adultery are by definition exploitive. Jesus spoke to them as being sinful. The reality is Jesus didn't have much to say about sex in any positive sense--just fornication and adultery and that in the negative.
Finally I find the whole comparison of homosexuality with birth defects kind of interesting. In that sense, my IQ is a birth defect, in that it is a statistical abnormality. I haven't found it to be a defect, but at times it has been a cross to bear. I've really had to develop some patience. Maybe I see the birth defect of homosexuality differently than you would, as not a defect in the classical physiological sense, but just another of the statistical diversities inherent in the human spectrum of genetics.
Here's another question for you. Down's syndrome is also a birth defect. Hypersexuality is very often part of the syndrome. Is expression of this sexuality sinful as well? Do we cut them some slack? Or do we not judge them because they are acting on their nature?
Please note this: http://enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com
Anne and Thomas, I
Anne and Thomas, I appreciate your interest in this thread.
I'm always intrigued by those who feel a passion to inform others that they are sinners in danger of damnation.
I wonder where that passion comes from. Would you be willing to share some of your thoughts about what drives you to want to inform gay people that we are sinners in danger of damnation--when many of us experience our lives and our relationship to God very differently than how you both see our lives and our relationship to God?
William D. Lindsey
Hello William, I do have a
Hello William,
I do have a passion to share the Good News with people - the Lord calls us to this:
Mt 28:18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Mt 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Mt 28:20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age."
Christian Truth IS good news, always, even when it is calling us personally to radical change. He always gives adequate - even abundant - grace for the journey we are called to walk, and for the cross we are entrusted to carry for His name's sake.
I hope you will be faithful, William. If all of us would be faithful, in the trials He allows to come to us, how strong the whole Church would become! What graces we would receive, showered upon us! I need you to be faithful, as you need me to be faithful, as we all need one another to be faithful - for we are all members of the One Body. When one stumbles, we are are injured; when one overcomes, we are all strengthened.
Thomas
P.S. "If you Love Me, you
P.S. "If you Love Me, you will keep My Commandments."-Christ
One of which is "Judge not
One of which is "Judge not lest ye be judged".
By their friends shall you
By their friends shall you know them
Yes, Jesus did say that, but
Yes, Jesus did say that, but what you left out were the two he gave us:
Love God above all else
Love others as self
What is interesting, is how many of the catechisms that you and
others so frequently admonish us to follow with unquestioning
obedience actually violate one or both of these commandments.
Col55, can you give us some
Col55, can you give us some examples of what you refer to as violations of these commandments?
Why is it, Anne, that when
Why is it, Anne, that when you ask Cpl, you get an answer, but when I ask you the same question over and over, you never answer me.?
My all time favorites are
My all time favorites are the pontifications to married couples on how they should conduct the intimate sexual aspects of their marital relationship.
William, my passion comes
William, my passion comes from my fidelity to Christ, The Word Made Flesh. Homosexuality is about relationship. Christ, The Light, The Truth, The Way to Love, Has revealed to us that we are to have Holy relationships and friendships in Communion with Him, God, The Blessed Trinity. Love requires that we desire Salvation for one another. ("Love one another as I Have Loved you.") Love requires that we always speak the Truth.
All "homosexual" relationships are not consistent with God's intention for Sexual Love. Some "heterosexual" relationships are not consistent with God's intention for Sexual Love. It is God's Truth and thus the teaching of the Catholic Church, that Sexual Love exists within the Sanctity of a Holy Marriage between Husband and Wife, in communion with God, The Blessed Trinity. Love is about relationship. We are ALL called to be Holy.
Anne, I appreciate your
Anne, I appreciate your responding to my posting.
I think it may come as no surprise to you that my own position is precisely the same as the one you state in your opening sentence: my passion about this issue also comes from my fidelity to Christ, the Word Made Flesh.
And yet, you and I have come to precisely opposite conclusions about this issue. Since I understand God's choice to take flesh in Christ as a uniting of God to humanity, I also see part of my obligation as a Christian to learn to live with and love the particular humanity God has given me (and others).
What you see as a sinful inclination to be repudiated, I have come to see and experience as a divine gift to be celebrated.
If God calls us to love, and if love is the very center of God's call to us, then it strikes me as exceptionally cruel for anyone who claims to listen carefully to Christ to try to impede or to attack and deny the love of others--if that love bears the fruits of the Spirit.
I am maintaining that, for those who care to see, the fruits of the Spirit are abundant in many loving committed relationships between people of the same sex. I recognize that you do not agree with this assessment.
That being the case, I propose that the church's wisest and most Christian pastoral response to gay people who continue to claim that we experience authentic love, the presence of the Spirit in our lives and relationships, and our natures as God-given, would be to stop, look, and listen--to engage in discernment of the Spirit, before hastily condemning gay people and gay love.
If the love gay people experience is legitimate and authentic, and if increasing numbers of human beings recognize this, the louder the church fulminates (and the more it resists treating gay testimonies to the spiritual life with respect), the more the church will appear foolish, venal, and extrinsic to the human rights concerns of our time.
William D. Lindsey
I was flipping through "Life
I was flipping through "Life is Worth Living" (Archbishop Fulton Sheen, santo subito!) last night and I saw the perfect answer to this question. In a chapter entitled "The Psychology of the Irish" The Archbishop addresses the primary traits of the Irish, including the "love of a fight".
>"It is sometimes said that people fight because they hate. It is just the contrary that is true. They fight because they love. The more a man loves, the more a man fights for what he loves. Loving God, they fight for their faith."
++++++
nightwalker on Catholic Answers
Beautiful reflections from
Beautiful reflections from Bishop Sheen, Here Today. Thank you for offering them.
And as I have just indicated in a reply to Anne's posting preceding yours, this is precisely what I am doing, along with many other gay believers today: fighting for my faith. We are fighting because we love, and in loving, we experience God.
Is that not what faith is all about?
William D. Lindsey
Something to think
Something to think about:
There is a song we used to sing at mass
--- Whatsoever you do, to the least of my brothers
--- That you do unto me ....
If we put these words into practice then we get:
When we condemn a person in a homosexual relationship
--- we are condemning Christ
When we condemn a person who doesnt argee with a doctrine
--- we are condemnig Christ
When communion is denied to a brother/sister
--- we are denying communion to Christ
When we condemn someone of a different faith
--- we are condemning Christ
When we condemn someone who is divorced
--- we are condemning Christ
When we do anything that harms another
--- we are harming Christ
If we truly believe in the "unity of the Holy Spirit"
Whenever we condemn another for anything
--- we are condemning ourselves
Condemnation of another in any form is hate, not love
Condemning another in the name of God, is blasphemy
Condemnation seperates us, from each other and from God
Is there anything that is worth even a brief moment of seperation from God?
To Love one another as
To Love one another as Christ Loves us, one must desire Salvation for that person. The only Way to Salvation is the Way of Christ. It is the Word that is the Truth of Love. Enabling one to sin by not speaking the Truth will seperate us from Christ.
"You can not be my disciples if you do not keep My Word."-Christ
"If you Love Me, you will keep My Commandments."-Christ
WillyD.! WoW!! How did I
WillyD.!
WoW!! How did I miss this I'm askin' m'self? I'd say prob'ly bein' that May 14, my "Baby Darlin'" was in the throes o takin care o himself and his bran' new right knee! All plastic an titanium an clickin like a pony driver! But ain't hurtin' none! She's makin plenty sure o that'n! 'Tis a lovely piece o yourself you'd been sharin' darlin' Willy, an what your gramma felt I think I'm knowin'. I been strugglin' a mite wi' a like issue an I'd be offerin' ya th only thing I got left t' me!
I love you, I didn't ask to feel this way,
But it happened , and I know this feelin's gonna stay!
'Cause I can't turn it off and on, Or hide until that feelin's gone away!
I sure nuff love you! And I hope you realize,
That this loving, is like the color of my eyes
And I ain't askin' you to change, Or rearrange the rest of your life!
You know, I've often thought before, I won't do this any more,
How can I love someone when love will not return?
It's so unwise of me to stay, but, I won't walk away,
I'll just hold this match, until my fingers burn!
But I'll still love you! There's nothin' else that I can do!
I'll always love you, though there won't be a me and you.
'Cause , when the Good Lord up above, gave me someone to love,
It just so happened it was you!
An' that's why I get crazy, that's why I get confused!
And that's why I get these "Baby Darlin' Blues"!
That'd be "Baby Darlin' Blues" from "The Works Of Enaud Semaj Vol. 1, An I wrote it for me Baby Darlin'
An I sing it for me Baby darlin'. Alla while, her contendin she'd not be lovin th likes o me! Could ya be seein' how she's cared for me Willy D., you'd be knowin' she's Gods own angel! An ain't just me sayin' neither!
An then they're comin to tellin himself, that should Th Good Lord what put her in me way, be seein' fittin an all, that we'd be conjoinin our bodies in love, out o love one for each. We'd be sinnin Willy D.!
Lovin' ain't sinnin Willy D. I know ye t' be listenin'! I' counsel not hearin'! T'ain't nothin but Scowlin Howlies! An Scowlin Howlies don' care 'bout nothin but Scowlin righteousness, an' howlin' damnation!
I'm prayin' your takin' from me song anywhere near what I got from your piece! Beauty!
Gods lovin ya Willy D.! And so am I!
James Edward