Monthly Archives: February 2014

Avoid every appearance of evil?

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When it comes to the relational life of a celibate, LGBT Christian, many spiritual directors are quick to challenge a person to avoid every appearance of evil. It can be all too easy for a celibate, LGBT person to be perceived in such a way that suggests that person is living a life far removed from a traditional sexual ethic. We’ve observed that the exhortation to “avoid every appearance of evil” is often applied to cisgender, heterosexual people differently than to LGBT people.

We are not trying to suggest that this counsel is only given to LGBT Christians. Cisgender, heterosexual people are frequently exhorted to avoid every appearance of evil… or more specifically, the appearance of sexual immorality. Men and women are encouraged not to spend time together behind closed doors. Married people are cautioned against having exceedingly close “best friends” of the same gender as their spouses. In churches that practice prayer ministry, men often pair with men and women often pair with women because of perceived emotional connection and comfort. Male pastors are exhorted to avoid giving female members of their congregations rides home at odd hours. Youth workers and teachers receive counsel that an adult should never be alone with a child.

When the exhortation is given, it’s frequently used to help pastors and other adults working in the church avoid accusations of sexual immorality. Indeed, we consider it wise to hold pastors to a higher standard than the rest of their congregations in matters concerning sexual ethics. A sexual scandal is a surefire way to shut down a local church and discourage its members from ever participating in a church community again. Similarly, “avoid every appearance of evil” can be provided as sound advice when unmarried heterosexual couples are trying to navigate important boundaries. Thinking about perceived impropriety can help some people consider what their boundaries should be. The exhortation is writ large where an unmarried dating couple can ask themselves questions about whether their own conduct is likely to create potential for accusations and to conduct themselves appropriately. For example, it might look completely scandalous to drive one’s significant other home at 4 o’clock in the morning, so the couple might decide that they would like to end their time together by midnight instead. There’s flexibility for the unmarried, heterosexual couple to figure out how to negotiate those boundaries. However, when the exhortation is applied to LGBT people, it seems to suggest that every relationship the LGBT person has carries with it the risk of misconduct accusations capable of bringing scandal upon or even shutting down the local church.

When it comes to a spiritual director in a Christian tradition with a conservative sexual ethic advising an LGBT person interested in living into the fullness of that tradition’s teaching, we think “avoiding every appearance of evil” often enters into the conversation because many spiritual directors may associate particular behaviors with being LGBT. An LGBT Christian ought to avoid any hint of immoral behavior. For churches that are inclined to present LGBT Christians with a celibacy mandate, many other situations might be regarded as little more than a “near occasion of sin.” Sometimes it seems the mere mention of one’s LGBT status can trigger up the absolute worst associations for spiritual directors.

There is a point at which a spiritual director’s discomfort with the broader LGBT community can trigger certain auto-tapes. If you yourself are a spiritual director who defaults towards using specific scripts around LGBT Christians, we’d encourage you to read a bit more about why these scripts are not helpful. We think that “avoid every appearance of evil” comes into spiritual direction with LGBT people because it’s a convenient bumper-sticker kind of answer that does not offer a positive vision for how LGBT people can live. When LGBT Christians start asking questions about how to apply that counsel to their lives, they might get answers like 1) Avoid cultivating friendships with people of your same sex, 2) If you need help paying for housing expenses, always have at least two roommates, 3) Do not find yourself alone with a person of the same sex or of the opposite sex, and 4) Only develop a close relationship with a person of the opposite sex if you regard that person as a potential spouse. This sort of “practical” advice can easily be interpreted as “Don’t develop close relationships with anyone. It’s best for you if you figure out a life-sustaining way to be a hermit.” In the end, it’s not so practical at all, and it can lead to feelings of isolation and a sense that the Church has no empathy for the life situations faced by LGBT Christians.

Now what about us? We’re a celibate, LGBT, Christian couple who has lived together for quite a while now. Do we look like we’re up to no good? Maybe. But making that sort of assertion means zooming in on our relationship to think about what we’re doing behind closed doors. You might say that you wouldn’t ever find it appropriate for heterosexual people of opposite sexes to live together before marriage. But let’s think about that for a second: as a celibate, LGBT, Christian couple we are not interested in cultivating a vocation to marriage. We are very interested in cultivating a vocation to celibacy. So a more appropriate line of questions might begin with, “Do our lives show evidence that we are committed to a vocation of celibacy?” For this reason, we make earnest recommendations that Christians investigate what their traditions teach about celibacy in order to help spiritual directors recognize if and how a person is cultivating a celibate vocation. As we’ve mentioned time and time again, we do not think it’s appropriate to define celibacy merely as the absence of sexual relations, and instead we see celibacy as life marked by radical hospitality, vulnerability, shared spiritual life, and commitment.

(Concerning the scriptural verse often used as the basis for this exhortation, Sarah thinks it worth mentioning that the Greek word often translated as appearance in 1 Thessalonians 5:22 might be more appropriately rendered as form. If you’re a Greek geek, check out for yourself what others have written on that topic here, here, and here.)

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

Saturday Symposium: Labels, Identities, and Ideologies

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Hello, Readers! Thank you for another week of fun and challenging discussion. We love hearing your feedback. We have finally caught up on all the email we received two weeks ago, but we’re still playing catch-up this week, so please forgive us if we are slow in answering your queries.

Before asking this week’s question, we would like to share with you some of the most thought-provoking writing we’ve found in the blogosphere this week. We hope you will enjoy reading these as much as we have:

  • Our friend Julie Rodgers has written two insightful pieces for Spiritual Friendship this week. In “The Vulnerability of Hope,” she focuses on the theme of loneliness in the celibate life. Her complement piece, “Everyday Intimacy Played Out,” highlights the need for celibate people to live richly connected lives.
  • Preston Yancey’s blog hosted a guest post from an anonymous author this week. “What Women Want from the Church: To Have (and Enjoy) Sex” shares a personal experience of living in a sexless marriage and makes some important observations about the purity culture that is present in many Christian traditions.
  • Sarah Bessey’s blog hosted a guest post from Mary DeMuth titled, “In Which These 21 Things Shouldn’t Be Said to Sexual Abuse Victims.” Great advice from the perspective of a sexual abuse survivor. Be sure to check it out!
  • Finally, a totally random link that Sarah found while we were snowed in on Thursday: the true story of what happened to Stella Liebeck, the woman who sued McDonald’s after she was burned by hot coffee. Though a soundbite of the actual story has been part of American culture for several years, we had never heard all the facts of the case. We were drawn to this story because it is a great example of how things are not always as they seem.

Now, we would like to share with you our new “Saturday Symposium” question.

How this works: It’s very simple. We ask a multi-part question related to a topic we’ve blogged about during the past week or are considering blogging about in the near future, and you, our readers, share your responses in the comments section. Feel free to be open, reflective, and vulnerable…and to challenge us. But as always, be mindful of the comment policy that ends each of our posts. Usually, we respond fairly quickly to each comment, but in order to give you time to think, come back, add more later if you want, and discuss with other readers, we will wait until after Monday to respond to comments on Saturday Symposium questions.

This week’s Saturday Symposium question: This week, two of our posts dealt with issues of labels, identities, and ideologies. In “How to Talk with Others about A Queer Calling,” we discussed the language that has been used by others to describe our relationship and our writing project, and we clarified our preferences for labels with which we are comfortable. In “Seeking Color in a Black and White World,” Sarah reflected on how being quick to label a person in terms of politics or ideology can cause one to miss the nuances and complexities of that person’s experience. This week, we would like to know: how do you feel about categories and labels for ideologies and life experiences? Are there certain labels you find helpful in describing your identity, experience, and worldview to others? Are there labels that you feel are thrust upon you without your consent? Is it possible to move beyond the use of certain labels, or are labels a necessary part of communication?

We look forward to reading your responses. If you’re concerned about having your comment publicly associated with your name, please consider using the Contact Us page to submit your comment. We can post it under a pseudonym (i.e. John says, “your comment”) or summarize your comment in our own words (i.e. One person observed…). Participating in this kind of public dialogue can be risky, and we want to do what we can to protect you even if that means we preserve your anonymity. Have a wonderful weekend!

Blessings,

Sarah and Lindsey

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

Seeking Color in a Black and White World

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A reflection by Sarah

A few days ago while I was on my way home from work, I received a phone call from a friend (I’ll call her Gianna) who has been reading our blog. Gianna and I have known each other for approximately six years, but haven’t spoken much since the last women’s studies certificate course we took together. We had a great conversation that included lots of laughter and a lengthy discussion of our favorite Virginia Woolf novels. But near the end of our chat when Gianna started inquiring more about the blog, she asked me a question I hadn’t quite anticipated: “Sarah, I don’t understand this whole celibacy thing. When did you become a conservative?” I wasn’t sure of how to react to the question. Because the word conservative has such a variety of meanings, I wasn’t even clear on what she had meant until she continued, “What happened to the Sarah I used to know, who challenged the status quo, advocated for social justice, and believed in equal rights for all people?” Eventually, this led to a conversation about American political labels and ideologies, complete with questions about who I plan on voting for in 2016 (does anybody know how to answer that question two years in advance?). I began to feel pinned into a corner. Since when does embracing a particular vocation make one a Democrat or a Republican?

One of the many lessons that has kept repeating itself since my starting this blog with Lindsey is that we live in a highly polarized society in which black-and-white thinking prevails, and almost any action, idea, or way of life will be associated with one extreme of the American political spectrum or the other. If you’re a woman who carried an unwanted pregnancy to term and gave the child for adoption rather than getting an abortion, you’re a conservative. If you’re gay, you’re a liberal. If you grew up poor, pulled yourself up by your bootstraps, and now have more income than you ever could have imagined, you’re a conservative. If you hit your lifetime maximum on health insurance years ago and your life was saved by the implementation of universal health care, you’re a liberal. Every time we own a life experience publicly, it seems there is someone ready to ascribe to us a prepackaged set of ideologies.

Let me be frank: I loathe discussing politics. Truly, I do. I dislike the subject so much that it even makes me wince when Lindsey and I are writing and, for the sake of clarity, we feel forced to use the adjectives “liberal” and “conservative” when describing the viewpoints of some Christian denominations and the varieties of Christian ethical perspectives. But that doesn’t mean I have no views at all, or that the convictions I hold aren’t firm. For example, I hail from a region where the coal industry, which provides an enormous amount of jobs, has also ravaged the natural environment and health of thousands of people, including my grandfather. My opinions about the ethics of the coal industry are rock-solid (no pun intended), and aren’t likely to change. Still, I don’t enjoy debating the topic, and when I share my personal experience associated with the coal industry, I’m not necessarily doing so in an attempt to change someone else’s views. I could say much the same regarding my beliefs on and experiences relative to many controversial political issues, including those that are LGBT-focused. Do I have an opinion? Most likely, yes. But should sharing my experience automatically be interpreted as an attempt at converting people to a specific ideology? No. And as you can read on our About page, changing the beliefs of others certainly isn’t the intention of this blog.

On some level, I can understand why a person might conceptualize celibacy as a “conservative” way of life and by extension, associate it with a particular political ideology. The word “celibacy” tends to evoke images of Catholic priests and Catholic and Orthodox monks and nuns—individuals who are seen by many as the faces of two faith traditions teaching that LGBT people are called to celibacy. A number of people would argue that these two Christian traditions are “conservative,” at least where sexual morality is concerned, so living celibacy as an LGBT person, especially within the context of Catholicism or Orthodoxy, might also be viewed by some as an act of conservatism. However, I find it difficult to understand how one would come to the conclusion that because I am celibate: 1) I necessarily embrace a particular set of political viewpoints that can be summarized properly by a label like “liberal” or “conservative”; 2) I would never support challenging society’s status quo, and 3) I do not “advocate for social justice” or “believe in equal rights for all people.”

Church history is filled with numerous examples of celibates whose worldviews and contributions to society cannot be fully understood using black-and-white categorizations. I’d like to share with you as examples three different women from the modern historical context—one Catholic, one Orthodox, and one Protestant. All three of these women were celibates, chose celibacy at different points in life, lived that calling in diverse ways, and would not fit into the stereotypical images of “liberal” and “conservative.”

Catherine de Hueck Doherty (1896-1985)

Born Ekaterina Fyodorovna Kolyschkine, Catherine de Hueck Doherty was a lay Catholic spiritual writer, activist, and foundress of two lay apostolates. Catherine was brought up a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church, but converted to Catholicism—becoming Byzantine Catholic—in England in 1919. Catherine established Friendship Houses in Toronto, New York, and Chicago during the 1930s in response to the needs of people suffering due to racism, xenophobia, and poverty. During her years at Friendship House, Catherine fought constantly against racial and ethnic discrimination, advocating for full acceptance of African American students into Catholic educational institutions that had previously been open to white students only. In 1947, Catherine and her second husband, Eddie Doherty, established the Madonna House Apostolate, which would eventually become a community of over 200 staff workers, committed to living the Gospel without compromise and loving each other as a celibate family. Catherine and Eddie themselves adopted a celibate lifestyle as Madonna House formally became a Public Association of the Christian Faithful within the Diocese of Pembroke, Ontario. Voluntary poverty, radical hospitality, and commitment to sharing daily work and spiritual life are key features that Catherine incorporated into Madonna House living. Catherine reposed on December 14, 1985.

Mother Maria of Paris (1891-1945)

Maria Skobtsova, who would become known to the world as Mother Maria, is recognized as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Prior to becoming a nun, Maria had been married twice. She was also a poet and a member of the French Resistance during World War II. She is well known for rescuing infants from Jewish ghettos during the Nazi regime. Mother Maria advanced a radically different view of Orthodox monastic life, choosing to engage directly with the world rather than focusing principally on observing the liturgical life of the Orthodox Church. After providing refuge to the poor and those displaced by political turmoil in her convent, a rented house in Paris, she was arrested by the Gestapo following the Fall of France in 1940. Mother Maria lived her last days at Ravensbrück concentration camp. Hagiography suggests that on the day she reposed, she took the place of a Jewish prisoner who was to be sent to the gas chamber on Holy Saturday, 1945.

Mother Basilea Schlink (1904-2001)

Mother Basilea Schlink, born Klara Schlink in Darmstadt, Germany, was a theologian who became a Protestant nun. In 1948, she became a co-founder of a Lutheran-based religious order called the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary. Before becoming a nun, Klara had studied psychology, philosophy, church history, and art history. At one point, she conducted a study on teenage girls’ awareness of sin. Following World War II, Klara felt compelled to repent for sins committed by Germany during the war. She was deeply convicted by the level of pain and suffering her home country had caused other countries and specific groups of people to endure. In particular, Klara believed it crucial to ask God’s forgiveness for harm done to European Jews. Singularly focused on leading a life of prayer, repentance, and mission, Klara decided to forgo marriage and begin the Sisterhood alongside her friend, Erika Madauss. Thereafter, she became known as Mother Basilea. During her lifetime, Mother Basilea authored many books on the spiritual life, repentance, and commitment to Christ. Her Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary would eventually become an international, ecumenical, Protestant order of over 200 professed sisters. Mother Basilea reposed on March 21, 2001 in Darmstadt.

Though they are rooted in diverse backgrounds in terms of culture and Christian tradition, the stories of Catherine Doherty, Mother Maria, and Mother Basilea have much in common. All of these women wanted to serve God and the world in different ways than people pursuing Christ’s call through other vocations. Often, I hear it suggested that celibacy is a “thing of the past” or “nobody really does that anymore.” If those were your thoughts before reading today, I hope that I have succeeded in demonstrating this isn’t the case. As Lindsey and I continue to blog, we would like to profile, periodically, modern and historical examples of people who have lived celibate vocations. In particular, I hope to share with you more stories of celibate individuals whose lives have defied the stereotypes many people in the modern world associate with celibacy. These people are not, as Lindsey and I have sometimes been called, “rare examples of a gray area in the human experience.” Instead, I believe they show us how abundantly colorful the vocation to celibacy can be.

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

The “Gift” of Celibacy

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The gift of celibacy is mysterious, alluring, and evasive. Sometimes it seems very easy to speak of the “gift of celibacy” while at other times, we find ourselves struggling for words to describe what we’re experiencing. We’ve never had a great reveal in which God has shown us everything that celibacy is, could be, or will be for us. We certainly have never experienced a sense that we were called to live a celibate life from the instant we were born. In the best moments, we catch glimpses of the Kingdom of God within our celibate vocation. In the worst moments, celibacy can seem like a bit of a fool’s errand. Vocations are like that, with moments of up, down, and everything in between. We’ve caught glimpses here and there, which reassure us that God cares about guiding and directing our way as the Good Shepherd.

The gift of celibacy is a divine mystery. The gift of marriage is equally a divine mystery. We’ve both benefited from seeing celibacy lived out in a range of contexts, yet no context can be exactly the same as our context. As much as we can learn from our favorite monastic communities, we still need to find our way in our lives. At times, Lindsey has been lead to specific Scriptures like Luke’s account of the sending of the seventy to find a vision for a celibate way of life. We’ve reflected deeply on core values that we think reflect the essence of living celibate lives. But we are also deeply aware, sometimes painfully aware, that while many Christian traditions have resources to help people navigate practical concerns associated with the gift of marriage, there’s not much out there for people trying to cultivate the gift of celibacy.

We have shared before that we feel God has called us to a celibate vocation together. We’ve often felt resourced by God as we’ve pursued this path. We might even say that we feel like God has given us the gift of celibacy. However, being given the gift of celibacy doesn’t mean that it’s easy to pursue this pathway in life. Both of us have had to discern how exactly God is calling us to live. On one level, we know that “celibacy” is a part of how we’re supposed to live. On another level, that direction creates more questions than it can possibly answer. Why do we feel so strongly that we’re partners, that we’re a team, and that we’re family? Why does language that communicates our life together seem impossible to find? What do we do when we realize that we know people, close friends even, who are waiting in the wings to hear us pronounce that our journey into celibacy proved unworkable for us? How do we create space to say, loudly and clearly, that living a celibate vocation is not about avoiding sex? And all this says nothing about the day-to-day stressors associated with taking air as human beings.

Together, we have been exploring the gift of celibacy together for over a year. We have a sense that there are certain key virtues that lay at the heart of a celibate vocation. We have tried different experiments to cultivate virtues like hospitality, spiritual maturity, and humility together. Some experiments have proved more fruitful than others. One great way to cultivate humility is to learn when to call an experiment a failure or even counter-productive! We’re not perfect, and we do not pretend to be for an instant. Our friend Stacey recently shared that her pastor signed off on his emails with “Stumbling toward Christ with you,” and collective bumbling about seems to definitely describe our assorted experiments. We can’t tell you why eating dinner together every night has stuck while trying to pray particular daily office prayers together has continually bounced. We don’t know why we’ve found it easy to converse non-stop while driving in the car together but find it next to impossible to select a movie we both enjoy. We’re amused that we’ve managed to host overnight guests more easily than having tea with local friends. Life is funny sometimes.

In our time together, we have connected deeply with Christ. We have shared here that we experience an unmistakable presence of joy. There is something about how God has placed the two of us together that just seems to work in our lives. But, our life together would fail to reflect the fullness of Christ’s life if we did not find ourselves joining in with Christ’s pain. We have been profoundly impacted by the reality of the broken world around us. We have hit our limits in being able to bind up the wounds of the other, learning that frequently the only option we have is to listen to each other share our individual pain, cry together, and present that pain to Christ. We have watched close friends spiral into depression and isolation. We have tried to discern how best to pray, how best to be present, and how best to give counsel. We have experienced a sobering reality that people can sometimes take our words as the “answer” and wind up pursuing incredibly self-destructive paths. We’ve also experienced the pain of being misunderstood and misrepresented. We have had our story dismissed as meaningless, deceptive, destructive, and even dangerous. For every ounce of human encouragement that we’ve had to pursue this way of life together, we’ve had to navigate a pound of biting criticism. That can be incredibly difficult, especially when the criticism can rock us to our core. Yet, time and time again, as we enter that core, we find Christ willing to meet us again… and again… and again…

And perhaps that’s what the gift of celibacy is all about in the first place. The gift is given in such a way where Christ promises to be there in the absolute darkest moments, shining His divine light.

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

The Fragility of Vocation

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A reflection by Lindsey

When we start to speak of celibacy as a vocation, we give ourselves the task of defining vocation. Some people perceive of celibacy as a spiritual gift, where God supernaturally empowers a person to live a celibate life. Other people consider their own experiences of their sexualities and wonder how it is possible to live a life without sexual release and/or sexual connection to another person. There’s an idea that for a person gifted with the spiritual gift of celibacy, then the vocation of celibacy is reasonably easy and straightforward.

However, I’d like to posit that all vocations are inherently fragile. No vocational discernment period is without struggle. And, to be honest, there are a good number of vocations that just don’t make it until the end of a person’s earthly life. When we speak about celibacy as a vocation, it is illustrative to remember that marriage is a vocation and monasticism is a vocation. Our vocations pull us into relationships with other people in the world around us. All humans experience difficulties of learning to love in the context of relationships; this difficulty can increase the fragility of vocations.

I know of many people who seemed uniquely gifted towards marriage. They conceived of themselves first and foremost as family people. They devoted a considerable amount of energy towards building visions of what married life could look like. They spent time discerning how to work towards God-honoring marriages in broader faith communities and with the people they eventually married. Yet, despite their best efforts, their marriages failed.

I’ve also met some monastics who knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was calling them towards monastic life. They devoted considerable time discerning which monastic communities they should enter. They devoted themselves to prayer and spiritual counsel. After extensive searches, they found the monasteries they intended to call home for the rest of their lives. They did whatever they could to try to live in community with those particular brotherhoods or sisterhoods. Yet, in the end, they found themselves seemingly without a choice to leave the monastic communities.

As I’ve watched perceived “rock-solid” vocations fall apart around me, I’ve had to think deeply on what mechanisms wreak havoc on people I’ve come to respect, cherish, admire, and love. In the end, I’ve come to the conclusion that love is an entirely fragile force. Love has the potential to hold the universe together. Yet, something in our human hearts can turn us away from this life-giving force. Living into our vocations causes us to look this fragility dead on, and for many of us the odds do not appear to be in our favor when it comes to safeguarding vocation.

When Sarah and I first got together, I remember telling Sarah that I thought, “Please forgive me” were the three most important words in any relationship. Seeking forgiveness helps me remember to be humble. Trying to head off my mouth before it speaks words helps me learn to be kind. Offering assurances that there is nothing Sarah can do or fail to do that will influence my commitment to our relationship forges a channel in my own heart to support us when we go through rocky times together.

I tell Sarah regularly, “I’m opting in, 100%. I want to be here. I want to support you.” The more I say those words, the more I realize that love gives people the freedom to choose the opposite. Love does not mandate acceptance; love hinges on faith… faith that the other is in for the long-haul as well. Every time I tell Sarah that I’m opting in, I can’t help but think of people I know who existed in situations where there was no choice but for a mutual opting out.

When love takes its leave, it’s not long before manipulation and coercion overtake a person. Manipulation and coercion act to destroy trust, promulgate falsehoods, and leave a wake of destruction. I’m all too aware that people can choose manipulation and coercion in situations that demand a seemingly quick fix. Occasionally, I find myself doing everything possible to prevent manipulation and coercion from taking root in my heart. I’m trying to get better at monitoring the fault lines within my own heart, submitting myself to God in prayer, and begging for the Holy Spirit to guide me in the ways of love and affection.

All vocations seem to be inescapably fragile because vocations come as people learn to love as God loves. God’s love is mysterious. It’s all-powerful while being all-humble. It’s all-knowing while being all-listening. It’s all-present while respecting all boundaries. Sometimes, walking in the way of love feels like walking on a tightrope. Other times, walking in the way of love feels like a leisurely stroll through a field with a naturally defined path. May God impress on us both the difficulty of these tasks and the abundant grace available to us as we seek to live out our vocations… for the long haul.

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.