Author Archives: Sarah and Lindsey

Isn’t sex a good thing?

Posted on by

With some regularity, readers ask us if choosing celibacy means denying one’s sexuality and/or denying the existence of sexuality as a gift from God. About a month ago, one reader provided us with a great deal of information on the evolutionary aspects of sex and sexuality, following that information up with this set of questions: “I ask if [celibacy] is a denial of the gift God gives us in sex. I guess my question to you is, isn’t sex good? Isn’t it one of God’s greatest gifts to us? Aren’t we supposed to be sexual creatures?” After taking a few weeks to ponder how we would approach these questions, we have decided to address them directly today.

We’ll begin by giving the short, simple answer to the titular question of this post: yes. We do believe that sex is good. We believe it is a gift from God, and our Christian tradition influences our understanding of how God intends humans to use this gift. We also see a distinction between “sexual activity” and “sexuality,” and do not believe that absence of the first means avoidance of the second. We see celibacy as a means of living into the gift of sexuality rather than a denial of it. Our celibacy does not exclude us from existing as sexual creatures. We’ve both had enough experience in the past with attempting to deny or change our sexualities that we know how damaging suppression can be.

Concerning the idea that sex is, as our reader suggests, “one of God’s greatest gifts to us,” we would agree with that. Sexual activity enables humans to engage directly with God as co-creators, bringing new life into the world. It also enables couples to deepen their relationships with God by coming to know one another more intimately. That God has provided humans this means of connection with Him and with other humans is truly incredible. As such, we believe it would be foolish to deny that the capacity for sexual activity is one of God’s greatest gifts to humanity. That said, the decision to follow a vocational pathway that does not include sexual activity can provide means of engaging in other amazing gifts from God. One example of this is that celibacy offers the opportunity for connection to the world more generally, unlocking space for cultivating the gifts of intercession and mercy. When we are trying to relate to people who are not “family” connections, we find ourselves stretching to practice compassion. Directing compassion through Christ means prayerfully imaging him to the people we meet. We don’t always succeed in this, but working on it is one of the great challenges and joys of the celibate vocation. People who are married often feel called to take a more family-oriented approach to honing the gifts of intercession and mercy. Similarly, we feel called to engaging with God’s gift of sexuality in ways that do not involve sexual activity.

Another illustration that came to mind as we were discussing these questions is the various senses with which God has gifted humans. Generally, people are able to engage with the world using some combination of sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell, emotion, and so on. Not all humans are able to use all of these gifts, and we don’t have much choice concerning which of these we are and aren’t able to use. Even people who have the ability to communicate using all of the traditionally-named “five senses” tend to gravitate toward some more than others for communicating and making sense of the world. For example, Sarah has color-grapheme synesthesia—an involuntary phenomenon that causes her to see letters, numbers, and certain words in specific colors (i.e. “7” is green, “purpose” is red). Because of this, Sarah uses colors to understand most concepts when reading, writing, doing mathematics, translating from one written language to another, etc. However, this also complicates matters for Sarah’s engagement with the same concepts presented in oral format, so Sarah tends to rely more strongly on sight than any of the other senses. But engagement with one gift does not imply denial that others are good, or that others exist. Sarah’s understanding of things would differ significantly from that of a person who, for whatever reason, relies more consistently on the gift of touch to make sense of the world, but that doesn’t mean either has to deny the other’s experience.

The last question, “Aren’t we supposed to be sexual creatures?” is an important one. We want to be clear that we do see ourselves as sexual creatures even though we have chosen a way of life that does not involve sexual activity. We accept that both of us are attracted exclusively to women. Lindsey has been a strident advocate for celibates taking the approach of integrating rather than excising their sexualities. When one integrates one’s sexuality within the vocation of celibacy, one acknowledges that attraction is a gift from God and appreciates diverse kinds of beauty. Integrating one’s sexuality enables one to live within one’s body, becoming comfortable in one’s own skin. We have learned to celebrate our full humanity. We marvel at how being in relationship with each other has challenged us as individuals to grow in appreciation of our individual bodies while making space for another person to do the same.

We’ve come to believe that yes, sex is a good thing while considering sexuality as a whole to be even more profoundly meaningful. As celibates, we see sexuality as a gift given to people by God, so we can connect with their bodies. People’s sexualities affect how they experience the world. We appreciate many diverse aspects of people’s sexualities and do not seek to deny other people their own experiences.

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.

Adventures in Praying Together

Posted on by

A reflection by Sarah

“The poor shall eat and be satisfied and the hungry shall be filled with good things. O Master Christ our God, bless the food and drink of these, thy servants, for you are holy always, now, and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.”

That’s the blessing Lindsey says over every meal we share together. Since the first time Lindsey and I joined over Skype for dinner, I’ve known that I can count on hearing this prayer at least once a day. It has become a key element in our shared spiritual life, and during certain seasons it has been the only prayer we’ve consistently engaged in together.

Concerning spirituality, Lindsey and I have discovered that we take very different approaches. Our dissimilar preferences are likely rooted in the two distinctive contexts in which we came to faith. Sometimes, I find myself surprised that we both ended up in the Christian tradition we now share, traveling to it from pathways so unalike. I grew up in a Christian family and was exposed to a variety of Christian spiritualities from childhood through college. Though I lived in an area where the Freewill, United, and Southern Baptist denominations dominate the religious landscape, I knew early on that I felt God’s presence most profoundly in liturgical worship. I’ve always believed in God, but if I had to identify a specific “this is real and I accept it” moment in my faith journey, I’d say without hesitation that it was during a Eucharistic holy hour one autumn when I was 18. I knelt in silence before the tabernacle in a rural Kentucky Catholic church and felt Christ’s presence as I never had before. I was overcome with peace and relief from the anxiety I had been attempting to ward off earlier that day, and I knew without a doubt that I was kneeling before Christ himself.

In contrast to my experience, Lindsey grew up not going to church and first became part of a faith community by playing electric bass in a praise band. Lindsey made a personal commitment to Christ during Lindsey’s freshman year of high school at a youth event, and later became active in various evangelical ministries during college. Because Lindsey came to faith within a contemporary, evangelical context–a world which was almost totally foreign to me until college–there have been times when I’ve experienced difficulty understanding Lindsey’s spirituality. One example of this is that I’ve never been especially drawn to free-formed prayer. It doesn’t come naturally, and historically I’ve had some experiences with spiritually abusive free-formed prayer. Whether my intention is to praise God, to give thanks, to ask forgiveness, or to cry out for help, I’m more apt to search the traditional prayers of the Church for something appropriate than to begin with my own words. Typically, I’ve found greater comfort in the rosary or prayer rope devotion than in approaching God informally. Lindsey, on the other hand, can articulate any diversity of prayer intentions with eloquence, yet in a conversational manner. I remember once after we first met, I asked Lindsey to pray for me regarding a health issue, and a second later Lindsey was responding to that request on the fly with an evangelical-style free-formed prayer. It took me a moment to catch up with what was happening. I recall staring blankly at Lindsey afterward and asking, “How did you do that?”

As Lindsey and I have been developing a way of life together, we’ve had many conversations about how different our processes were for coming into our shared Christian tradition. Lindsey first felt compelled to explore this tradition after attending Liturgy and observing the centrality of the Gospel in worship, making connections between this and the emphasis evangelical Christianity places on spreading the Gospel and encountering Christ in a personal way. Having been part of a liturgical tradition previously, I was attracted initially to the level of reverence people within this tradition have for the Liturgy and sacraments, and the mystical (and in many ways, organic) approach to theological issues I had previously been exposed to in more legalistic terms. Lindsey and I enjoy praying together during Liturgy, and because of the differences in our backgrounds sharing the experience and talking about it afterward becomes even more fascinating. Often, we’ll spend the drive home on Sunday discussing our responses to and observations during worship that day, and frequently the conversation will lead me to further reflection on my own experience based on what I’ve learned from Lindsey’s.

We learn a great deal from observing each other’s personal devotional practices and experimenting with ways to draw connections between our individual spiritualities. Sometimes, I see a bit of Lindsey rubbing off on me. There are times when I can sense the Holy Spirit’s presence during one of Lindsey’s powerful free-formed prayers—sometimes so much that when I need Lindsey to pray for me I ask, “Could you channel your former evangelical self for a moment?” And while I’m sure I’ll always prefer Gregorian and Byzantine chant to contemporary Christian music, thanks to the influence of Lindsey’s former praise band experience I find myself asking Lindsey to turn the car radio to our local praise and worship station occasionally. At the same time, Lindsey has begun to take great joy in asking me historical questions about the Liturgy and occasionally praying one of my favorite litanies with me when I’m feeling the need to be surrounded by the entire communion of saints. Our personal quirks and their impact on each other make for a rather unique learning experience as we approach the question of how best to cultivate a shared spiritual life.

In some seasons, we’ve made a regular practice of praying parts of the Divine Office together. In others, we have gravitated more toward praying individually, but joining together in discussion of scripture and spiritual reading materials. Still in others, the only prayer rule we’ve been able to follow jointly is Lindsey’s blessing over our evening meal. Endeavoring to pray together consistently is a challenge, and I imagine it will be for the rest of our lives together. We’re still learning how to appreciate and honor each other’s spiritualities because we believe it important to respect the different ways we came to know God individually prior to meeting each other. We see all of this as yet another adventure, and are eager to see all the places it will lead us along our journey towards Christ.

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.

When Life Is Hard

Posted on by

We love doing life together. There’s something absolutely wonderful about sharing life with a person you know will always be there. We make a point to opt in 100%, committing ourselves to prayer for one another and seeking the grace to respond in love. Opting in 100% means opting in even when life is hard. Lately, life has been very hard indeed. Between Lindsey’s recent job loss and Sarah’s encountering bumps on the journey to recovery, we have had a lot on our plate.

When life gets hard, we like to remember that being human requires dealing with hard things. Illness, financial hardship, employment uncertainty, accidents, and debt can lurk behind many doors. One never knows when one will face these adversaries. As a couple, we’ve been trying to keep up a strong appearance through some exceptionally difficult times. Our friends who know us best have seen various cracks in the facade. We’ve both seen the other navigating so much stress that it’s hard to know what to say or do. But, we try to focus on responding with grace and compassion as a default. It works well for us; yet, we’d be grateful for a few less opportunities to practice these particular skills under stress.

In some ways, it doesn’t matter which specific adversary we’re facing. The skills learned for being present for each other in one crisis transfer easily when we find ourself facing another challenging situation. We’ve had to learn to listen, to ask questions, and to acknowledge our limitations. So many painfully difficult challenges cannot be wiped out with a silver bullet. Sometimes big problems have no real solutions except to pray for God to act with every gift of the Spirit. Growing together in love means clinging to the instructions in 1 Corinthians 13: “Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preserves.”

When life is hard, we remember that “love” is a verb. To love means to pray, to sit with, to hug, to be present for, and to stretch oneself towards Christ. The bigger the problem, the more we find ourselves reaching out to God asking for a miracle. Sometimes, we have a visible miracle. Other times, we have the intangible miracle of God reminding us that we are not alone. We are so grateful when God sends us friends to encourage us. Over the past several months, we have been overwhelmed by the ways our friends have blessed us.

We certainly don’t always respond well. We’d be the first to tell you that we both get really cranky when we think we’re getting the shaft from the universe. No one likes to file 3 police reports in a month. No one likes to problem-solve complex medical concerns with extremely limited resources. No one likes to have a steady schedule of illnesses, weather-related work closures when you don’t get paid for the snow day, and traffic back-ups that prevent you from getting to where you need to be. It’s hard for us not to blame ourselves for our individual struggles. Yet, our “normal” as a couple frequently involves navigating some seriously hard things, and we have had to discern how God would have us grow towards Christ in all our circumstances.

The hard times are better because we’ve made a commitment to be there for each other. It’s not that “Lindsey is having a hard time” or “Sarah is having a hard time.” It’s that “We’re having a hard time, and we’re doing what we can to steward hope while we wait.” We’ve noticed that it’s easier to have hope when Lindsey has a full calendar of job interviews or when everything seems to be clicking in Sarah’s process. But, it’s the hard times that have shown us more about how Christ loves his Church.

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: Friendships and Emotional Intimacy

Posted on by

Good morning, and happy weekend! We hope you’ve enjoyed reading this week. We’ve certainly enjoyed our interactions with readers. This week, we’re particularly backlogged with email from the past 3 weeks, so please bear with us as we try to respond to everyone. If you’ve contacted us, we will get back to you…it may just take some time.

Recently, Sarah was asked to write a short guest post on body positivity for Nate Craddock’s blog, In the Optative. Nate published that on Monday. You can check it out here: “It’s Not Just ‘I’m Beautiful.'”

And with that, we’re ready for a 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, we published a post on how we’ve seen positive spiritual and personal growth as a result of being in relationship with one another. Lindsey also reflected on ways to cultivate a celibate vocation actively, and that post included discussion of close, emotionally intimate relationships with people other than Sarah. This week, we ask: have you ever had a close, emotionally intimate (but not necessarily romantic) relationship with another person where “friend” didn’t quite seem the most accurate label? How did this relationship teach you about meaningful relationships? What made it so meaningful?

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.

Unlocking the Feast within the Fast

Posted on by

A reflection by Lindsey

I received a phone call recently from a dear friend. She thought of me because it’s Lent and she doesn’t know anyone who loves Lent more than I do. Every time a friend mentions the Lenten season, I can’t help but smile.

My love of Lent began almost immediately as I started exploring Christianity. I was attending a Lutheran church that had regular Wednesday night soup suppers before a Lenten service series. The theme of the first Lenten series I attended was “Can you drink of this cup?” During the first week we received a small clay cup, and we received items to put into our cup during subsequent weeks. My cup is still on the bookcase in “my” room at my parents’ house. I immediately associated Lent with more communal gatherings and a focused effort to grow closer to Christ.

In college, I attended an Evangelical Protestant church that didn’t make a big deal about the liturgical calendar. Nonetheless, the community believed that God did awesome things when we took time to fast and pray. We started taking a 40 day period before Easter to pray for God to pour His blessings out on us as individuals, on our friends, and on our church. The pastoral team prepared various guides to encourage us to read through a chosen set of Scriptures and to suggest different faith experiments related to prayer and fasting.

Since that time, I’ve become aware of an ancient fasting tradition during the Lenten season that still lives in Eastern rite churches (Orthodox, Eastern Catholic, and some Protestant groups seeking to discover the early Church). The tradition exhorts people to abstain from meat, dairy, eggs, fish with a backbone, wine, and olive oil during penitential seasons and twice a week outside penitential seasons. Like many fasting traditions, it suggests a certain discipline around eating with the expressed intention of helping a person grow spiritually. The ancient wisdom has 2 other teachers: prayer and almsgiving. To be clear: I don’t consider myself to be a good student of any of these teachers. Yet I find that approaching the Lenten season with joy unlocks the feast within the fast.

I’ve found myself gradually shifting towards the Eastern rite fasting disciplines because my local church communities try to keep the Eastern rite guidelines around food. It’s been important to do so gradually because I had to learn to cook first. During the ordinary times of the church year, I rely on easy-to-prepare staple foods that use roughly the same ingredients. Each fast paradoxically presents a new invitation to deepen my appreciation of food. The year I was most observant in the dietary rules was the year I decided to avoid eating out at restaurants during the Lenten period. Having to go to the grocery store regularly caused me to experiment with different combinations of new grains, various vegetables, and beans. Last year, I discovered that avocados have a similar texture to cheese in a lot of dishes. Who knew? Sarah’s higher protein needs have spurred me onward to exploring previously uncharted protein categories of lentils, shrimp, and crab. I haven’t arrived fully yet, but I do enjoy trying. In “fasting” for a season, I actually haven’t lost any foods that I love: I’ve grown in my love for diverse foods, eating a fuller array.

Taking on a certain discipline as a community has a way of bringing people together as a family. You will always have the person who think it’s impossible to eat any foods that follow the guidelines, the person scouring the labels to determine if a particular item has any “forbidden” ingredients, the family quietly inviting lost newcomers to come over for dinner, the person who reminds you that the guidelines emerged during a different place and time, people sick of eating peanut butter and/or lentils, and folks eagerly swapping recipes. Sometimes the same individual falls into multiple categories.

The communal nature of the fasting discipline creates a lot of space for conversations. Looking at my own experiences as a guide, the feast of the Lenten fast can be found in community. No matter what Christian tradition I’ve been a part of, people have made time to come together, pray, and eat during Lent. I find it amusing that churches have more meals together during “fasting” periods than they do in “ordinary” time. Care to pass the guacamole?

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.