Category Archives: Hospitality

Cultivating Emotional Intimacy

Posted on by

When someone you know is going through a hard time, it’s natural to ask that person whether he or she has adequate support. As our regular readers know, the last several months have thrown many challenges our way. We are continuing to stand firm because we’re able to support one another. Many people have asked us what our intimacy looks like, and today we’d like to address a question we’ve received: “How do you cultivate emotional intimacy in a celibate relationship?” In most ways, our response is no different from what we would expect to hear from a healthy, non-celibate couple.

Upon coming into relationship with one another, we fell almost immediately into a natural pattern of cultivating deep emotional intimacy, and we’ve seen that continuing as our relationship has grown. There’s something about our personalities that has allowed each of us to “get” the other, even though we’ve both experienced being profoundly misunderstood by many people in our lives. Sometimes, two people can just click.

Our friendship blossomed because we were willing to be vulnerable with each other. As we’ve shared before, we believe that vulnerability opens the door to intimacy. When we were just beginning getting to know each other, we shared random facts about ourselves and our lives. Lindsey learned that Sarah used to wear mismatched socks to express Sarah’s individuality in elementary school. Sarah learned that as a kid, Lindsey worked to save money so Lindsey could attend Space Camp three times. These micro-stories gave us opportunities to share an incredible number of life experiences and the various emotions associated with these experiences. We each saw bits and pieces of the other’s personality, and came to appreciate some similarities while acknowledging some real differences in our pasts. Our selections were truly random, spanning from the deeply significant to the absolutely trivial. In addition to helping us get to know one another as people, sharing these stories laid a foundation for our coming to trust one another.

Early on in our friendship, we made a commitment to being completely honest with one another. Honesty is one of the highest values for both of us, and we’ve both experienced past relationships in which we or our significant others have had difficulty with being forthright. Because of this, we’ve challenged each other to be radically open about our thoughts, feelings, and mistakes when there’s a problem. Within the first month of our friendship, we had already started to see this pattern emerging between us. Though at first Lindsey considered the topic embarrassing, Lindsey shared openly with Sarah about Lindsey’s writing anxiety and the kind of support needed in order to manage it. Since we’re both writing doctoral dissertations, that type of information has been vital to ensure that we’re accomplishing our goals without sacrificing our emotional needs. Since the time Lindsey first opened up to Sarah about writing anxiety, Sarah has been able to check in with Lindsey about it and provide comfort and encouragement when Lindsey needs it most. Equally humiliating was the first time Sarah told Lindsey about Sarah’s eating disorder history. Because many people assume that these conditions are merely attention-seeking devices for wealthy, white, teenage girls and not legitimate medical conditions that could affect someone Sarah’s age, it has been a struggle for Sarah to be authentic about the need for support. But when Sarah did open up to Lindsey about this for the first time, Lindsey was unimaginably supportive and impressed by Sarah’s commitment to living a recovery-focused lifestyle even during the hard times. Examples like these have built upon our foundation for trust in one another.

Over the first few months that we knew each other, we learned a great deal of information, including the most painful and hidden parts of one another’s lives. A crucial piece of our emotional intimacy has been accepting each other’s emotional pasts for what they are and being able to appreciate that, by virtue of our humanity, we both carry deeply-rooted wounds. Whether it’s related to an issue that occurred during one of our childhoods, ways we’ve experienced hurt within the Church, Sarah’s trauma and the resulting PTSD, negative messages Lindsey received in ex-gay ministry, or something else entirely, we know that there will be space for conversation and respect for that experience’s symbolic meaning when we’re ready to talk about it together. Cultivating empathy for each other’s brokenness–that which we share in common and that which varies individually–has helped both of us to feel safe in being completely genuine with one another, regardless of how ugly that might look sometimes.

While emotional lives are built over the entire lifespan, all people experience their emotions moment by moment. We tend to regard in-the-moment emotional experiences as slightly unpredictable because emotions can vary, especially when people are under a good deal of stress. We have made a practice of affirming one another’s right to feel in the moment, even if the other doesn’t understand exactly why that particular mix of emotion is present at a given time. Our commitment to opting in 100% as we do life together has helped us develop a strong emotional intuition. When Lindsey experiences a panic attack, Sarah can usually tell whether Lindsey would benefit most from reassurance and empathy, some clear direction to start problem-solving processes, or a mixture of approaches. This emotional intelligence goes both ways in our relationship. One day recently, Lindsey just held Sarah as Sarah started crying hysterically after a conflict with Sarah’s nutritionist. Given that Sarah had been in a car accident the day before and Sarah rarely gets upset to the point of tears, Lindsey knew something was up. Nevertheless, Lindsey sat in that space with Sarah until Sarah was ready to share the specifics of what had happened. We’re profoundly grateful God has opened up to us a space of grace to be able to discern what emotional response would best draw us into a deeper relationship with one another, even though we’re still learning.

While some aspects of emotional intimacy have come naturally, other aspects of emotional intimacy are more difficult. We’ve struggled with and will continue to determine the best pathway through the difficulties associated with being open about our spiritual lives and places where our spiritualities differ. On some levels, our spiritualities are incredibly compatible: we both value intellectual honesty, placing life in the Church in its historic contexts, cultivating a prayer life, and being shaped within our specific Christian tradition. On other levels, we’re continually surprised at just how hard it’s been to honor our natural spiritual inclinations when developing our own sense of tradition. Lindsey’s faith journey has been profoundly influenced by mainstays of the Evangelical tradition, as Lindsey’s faith began to blossom in college while Lindsey was participating in Intervarsity and playing on the worship team of a nondenominational congregation. Sarah’s personal spirituality and formation has been tied to more liturgical traditions, as Sarah has naturally grown in faith through partaking of the sacraments and engaging in robust intellectual reflection. Even though our spiritualities may look very similar at first glance, we’ve learned that we value incredibly different facets of the spiritual experiences we share. We have welcomed the opportunity to learn more about each other even though we’re still learning the best way to have these conversations. That said, we should also note that we have high expectations and hopes that we will find our way.

The emotional intimacy that we’ve been able to cultivate within our partnership has also manifested in spillovers into other relationships. We find it easier to be compassionate when others are going through hard times. We can affirm other people’s emotions and create space for whatever feeling happens to be in the room. We’ve learned that matching appropriate responses with how a specific individual experiences emotion can be hard, so we try to respond first with empathy. Cultivating emotional intimacy in all one’s relationships is a lifelong process, and we’re glad to take in whatever wisdom the journey may bring.

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.

Growing Together in Virtue

Posted on by

Several readers have asked us questions about how we find benefit from being together in a partnership rather than living as celibate singles. We’re not ones to sound our own trumpets, and we know that we’re very much works in progress. Over the time we’ve been together, we’ve learned a lot about ourselves as individuals, each other, and us as a couple. We think being able to make a commitment to be there 100% whatever life throws our way does help us grow together and individually. By attempting to cultivate virtues in our vocation together, we’re able to be more present, open, and respectful. We hope that in time we continue to grow towards holiness. Today, because we’ve been asked specifically about growing together in virtue, we want to present some ways we’ve seen virtues manifesting in our lives together thus far in our partnership.

We give each other space to process difficult questions and life issues, but we’re also learning how to support each other effectively during these times. As we grow in our capacity to love one another and God, we experience moments of compassion that were not as present earlier in our relationship. We notice each other being able to extend empathy in new ways when one of us is faced with a challenging situation. When Lindsey suddenly lost a job in December 2013, we began managing a great deal of additional stress and uncertainty. Job loss is hard for any number of reasons: there’s a blow to a person’s confidence, financial stresses go without saying, a job seeker needs to put significant energy into the search even before getting the first email reply back, a family has new questions about what kinds of job searches are honestly in bounds, people ask for lots of support from extended family and friends, etc. It would be all too easy for Lindsey’s frustration to bubble up into anger and for Sarah’s full schedule to produce exasperation. However, being together has helped us stay the course. Sarah can help Lindsey decide when it’s best to put more letters out there and when it’s best to wait and see if a solid lead is going to produce a favorable outcome. Lindsey can help Sarah manage affairs of the house even amid completing job applications. We can remind one another that God is at work even when we seem lost. Sarah gives Lindsey a listening ear to process what is happening. Lindsey can always remember to greet Sarah with a hug. Together, we can offer one another a kind of emotional stability that makes trusting God easier. Sarah can read Lindsey and discern when advice would be welcome or when it’s best to practice compassion.

We have made a commitment to cultivate charitable speech toward one another, even when it doesn’t come naturally. That includes when one of us is having a bad day, when we’re arguing, and when we’re feeling impatient with each other. In all our friendships and other relationships, there are times when it seems easier and even more cathartic to express thoughts and feelings forcefully and indignantly. We think most people probably experience moments when it feels better to sound off like a bullhorn than to communicate difficult emotions with kindness, and we know this is true at times in our interactions with each other. Sarah often becomes irritated at Lindsey’s tendency to leave empty soda cans and bottles lying around the apartment, and it doesn’t help that Sarah considers Lindsey’s soda habit annoying in and of itself. Therefore, it takes little effort for Sarah to announce snarkily, “I’d like to see one evening when I can come home and not have to pick up a soda bottle in the living room!” In the same way, Lindsey finds it frustrating how frequently Sarah forgets that it’s her job to clean the cats’ litter box. It can be tempting for Lindsey to remark, “You can’t ever seem to be responsible with this.” It’s much more of a struggle for both of us to challenge ourselves toward kind, loving communication that addresses problems while also extending grace and empathy, but we make a daily commitment to doing so anyway. We don’t always get it right, but the more we practice saying, “I know you’ve had a busy day, but could you please take a few minutes to clean the litter box/tidy the living room?” the more natural it becomes for us to use charitable language in our relationship and also in our interactions with other human beings.

We encourage one another to say “yes” and “no” in healthy ways. Like many other people, we both oscillate between thinking that we can conquer the world and wanting never to get out of bed ever again. Learning how to say “yes” and “no” in healthy ways involves cultivating humility. When Lindsey lost a job, it was easy for Sarah to spring into action and look for extra work everywhere possible. Lindsey nudged Sarah to consider that the only real solution was both of us earning an income. We consistently urge each other to attend to our mental health, acknowledging whatever limits we may encounter. Like many couples, we have times where one of us is very excited about doing something when the other has serious misgivings. We have learned to balance when it’s time to compromise and when it’s time to advocate for our own needs. Frequently, extroverted Sarah wants to stay out far longer than introverted Lindsey can handle. We’ve learned to communicate about our different needs. Sometimes Sarah will take a moment to people-watch, sitting on a quiet bench to give Lindsey a few minutes to recharge. Other times, Lindsey will see that Sarah has a significant energy need that can only be met by getting around a lot of people. We have learned a lot about each other’s complexities that affect our preferences for social activities and activities together. Just as Lindsey needs to sit on a quiet bench to re-energize, Sarah also needs to sit calmly for a bit with her inhaler before venturing outside in cold weather to ward off any asthma attacks. In both circumstances, we need to be able to say and hear “yes” and “no,” and talk about disagreements that may arise. Learning to say “yes” and “no” in healthy ways has shown us quite a bit about cultivating patience.

We are learning to offer correction to each other lovingly. Caring about another person means helping him or her grow. Open and honest communication means acknowledging when you’ve said something hurtful. We’re quick to apologize when we have offended one another and try to observe a general rule of not going to bed when we are still in conflict. We choose to continue communicating in love even when we’re exhausted, frustrated, and overwhelmed. When Sarah gets overwhelmed, Sarah can be very terse and critical. Lindsey has learned how to highlight these communication patterns in a respectful way that enables Sarah to make appropriate changes. Since Lindsey is an engineer, Sarah knows to watch out for when Lindsey slips into “engineer mode,” trying to fix all the problems. Sarah is able to nudge Lindsey from a space of “fix-it” to a space of listening. We’ve learned when it’s best to encourage the other to sit down, stay still, and talk more openly about what is going on with us. Regularly practicing empathy for one another helps us grow in charity, a growth that affects the wide array of our relationships with others.

We encourage each other to enjoy life. Faith, hope, and charity are three often-named theological virtues. We’re both predisposed to taking life rather seriously. We have a lot of responsibilities on our plate. Lindsey knows Sarah is an extrovert and benefits from having fun around a lot of different people. Therefore, Lindsey is constantly on the lookout for different social activities to share with Sarah. Similarly, Sarah knows that Lindsey finds a great deal of enjoyment during special times at home. Lindsey enjoys the occasional excursion to one of our favorite nearby markets where we can find an interesting culinary experiment in the making. We’ve learned that enjoying life together produces hope, even when things look very dark.

In closing, we are not trying to present ourselves as models of sanctity and faithful living. We wanted to share some of the positive fruits we’ve seen in our relationship thus far, noting how these fruits help us live more fully into our first calling of putting on Christ and imaging Him to the rest of the world through our lives. We pray that God continues to help us grow closer to Him through the relationship we have with each other.

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.

Children, Connectedness, and the Vocation to Celibacy

Posted on by

A reflection by Sarah

Four afternoons a week, I have the pleasure of watching a delightful little girl whom I’ll call Ksenia. Each afternoon, like now, I’lI sit in the same spot beside her crib with my laptop and ear buds as I try to steal some writing time while watching her nap peacefully. I feel as though I’ve known her since before she was born: over a year before she came into this world, I was giving her mother English lessons in preparation for entry to an American law school. I began watching now-seventeen-month-old Ksenia during her eighth month of life, and our first moment of real bonding came when she laughed at my pathetic rendition of “Rainbow Connection” during an attempt at rocking her to sleep. Since then, I’ve come to know her as a tiny human with a vibrant personality. Far more active than any child her age I’ve ever known, Ksenia has taught me not to turn my head for more than a second lest I find her standing atop the dresser or scaling the nearest bookcase. Preferring borscht and hotdogs over most other foods, she seems oddly aware of her parents’ wish that she grow up proudly Russian, yet undeniably American. Each afternoon I spend with her, I find myself entering a world where old boxes transform into caves, happiness is plunging both hands into a container of homemade finger paint, and a walk outside brings pure enchantment. And though it may sound unusual, because of the time I spend with Ksenia, I return home in the evenings feeling strengthened in my vocation to celibacy.

Like many gay and lesbian young people, I was terrified upon realizing my sexual orientation. However, I remember clearly that my first fearful question was not, “How will I tell my parents?” or “What will my church community think?” It was, “How can I make it through life without having children?” For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a strong maternal instinct. I recall that as early as age five, I had imagined becoming a mother. Since the 8th grade, I’ve known that if I ever have a son or daughter, his or her name will be Patrick or Catherine. And from high school forward, I began keeping in mind the possibility that someday I might take a break from my future career to fill the role of homeschool mom. As a young woman coming to full acceptance of myself as a lesbian in the midst of a life stage when my biological clock was ticking loudly, I found the prospect of never giving birth to children especially difficult to swallow. This didn’t become any easier after discovering my vocation to celibacy. Instead, it became significantly harder.

For years, I’ve gone around in circles with questions regarding how best to welcome children into my life. Certain as I am that God has called me to celibacy, I’m equally confident that my vocation involves loving and caring for children in some capacity. I’ve spent a great deal of time over the past decade exploring ways that I can extend hospitality to kids at a variety of ages. I’ve taught Sunday school—every class from toddler to teen. I’ve volunteered with camps and summer education programs for elementary school children, and participated in social justice projects focused on improving early literacy and parent-child bonding. For three years, I provided homework help in inner city public school classrooms. Currently, in addition to watching Ksenia, I’m tutoring Jacob, a high school senior, in calculus and Sam, his eight-year-old brother, in reading skills. Sam and I have just begun reading Charlotte’s Web, one of my favorite children’s novels, and he’s trying every trick in the book to get me to reveal Charlotte’s plan for saving Wilbur before we arrive at that chapter. Over time, I’m discovering that in witnessing Sam’s eagerness to devour a story, Jacob’s smile when he finally succeeds at calculating an integral, and Ksenia’s excitement about spotting a dog on our afternoon walk, I experience the rich connectedness that makes my vocation a joyous one.

As we’ve mentioned on more than one occasion, Lindsey and I spend a lot of time praying about how to extend hospitality to others. That necessarily includes children despite the fact that our society often treats them as lesser humans who can be ridiculed without consequence, and many churches treat them as nuisances who ought not to be welcomed fully in worship as members of the Body of Christ. If I were to make a guess at where God might be leading us on this question, I’d say that a substantial part of our extending hospitality to children means being there for future nieces and nephews in ways that aren’t part of their parents’ roles. There are advantages to being the cool aunt with a history of crazy life experiences: sometimes, I think I’d rather be the adult who can offer nonjudgmental advice to an adolescent on the tough stuff than the adult charged with enforcing proper discipline when that same young rebel breaks curfew. Truth be told, I’m not well suited to the latter. I have no idea what God’s plans are for us with regard to welcoming children into our lives in the future, but I savor every moment of time we get with Lindsey’s nephew, and I look forward to the day when my sister will tell me that she and my brother-in-law have decided to become parents. And for now, I cherish each moment I get with my favorite Russian toddler and her magical cardboard box.

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 vocation doesn’t come naturally

Posted on by

A reflection by Lindsey

One of the hazards I encounter is that Christians talking about celibacy frequently speak of the gift of celibacy. The gift of celibacy is treated on a level much like the gift of teaching or the gift of administration. If someone says he or she has a spiritual gift of teaching, then we often assume that means he or she is good at teaching. It stands to reason then that people might assume I’m good at celibacy, it comes naturally to me, and I don’t have to work especially hard to cultivate a celibate vocation because I feel called to celibacy. In many people’s eyes, I must have the gift of celibacy coupled with an odd human constitution that allows me to experience a great deal of joy even if I’m not having sex.

We’ve reflected elsewhere on our blog about how we regard the “gift” of celibacy, but what I’d like to do today is to reflect on what happens when one’s vocation doesn’t come naturally. We regard radical hospitality as the first defining virtue of a celibate vocation. But honestly, practicing out that virtue is a tremendous struggle for me. Practicing hospitality can be exceptionally draining the vast majority of the time; and, practicing radical hospitality only ratchets up the demand.

A continual commitment to hospitality is hard for me because I’m an introvert. To make matters even more difficult, social skills are definitely not my forte. Everything I know about relating to other people has been learned through hard fought lessons. So many things that people take for granted in social situations, I’ve had to learn. I have my fair share of embarrassing moments with one crowning example being when our couples therapist asked me in front of Sarah how I might start to get to know someone I’m just meeting. I was beyond clueless, struggling to get past my first tentative reply of, “You ask them their name?” knowing full well that our therapist had slightly more advanced social skills in mind. I have to work hard to muster anything remotely like confidence in social situations, and truth be told, I’d rather curl up and hide in my room most of the time than meet new people. If my friends were to think about the first words they associate with me, hospitality would be virtually absent from the list.

Yet, I regard radical hospitality as a core virtue of my God-given vocation. As such, I’ve made an active choice to try and cultivate hospitality even when it does not come naturally to me in the slightest. I find some refuge in trying to practice a radical hospitality centered on Christ, His Incarnation, and His example, but I certainly am not pretending for an instant that I have it all sorted.

When I’m practicing radical hospitality, I try to leverage my personality as an introvert as much as possible. I’d rather focus on building rich, meaningful, and deep relationships with a few people as opposed to perfecting the gentility associated with being an ideal host, a social butterfly, and a person who can attend to the most minute aspects of social cues. If radical hospitality necessarily had to involve the latter, I might as well be trying to sail a ship from a completely landlocked country. Instead, I work with what I have: my natural tendency towards generosity, my complete appreciation for the realness of human experiences, and my almost canine sense of loyalty. I live as simply as possible to try and always have a little bit more I can give to another (even if that gift is as immaterial as a smile and a kind word to the person collecting my toll money). I’ve worked through a lot of my own issues associated with trying to be human in this fallen world, so I can appreciate the authentic spiritual journeys of others. And I’m always looking at building my list of friends rather than transitioning away from friends after a season of closeness. The more vulnerable a person has chosen to be with me, the much more likely I am going to be his or her friend in a decade’s time.

I do not have a gift for small talk, and equally, I have zero interest in seeing how small talk could ever be a gift that I should work towards cultivating. Instead I spend a lot of time asking God to show me which people I should try to get to know better. I look for opportunities to be around the same group of people over time to give myself time (and space) to figuring out how to practice hospitality as best as I know how. I’ve been incredibly surprised that God keeps putting people in my path in a meaningful way, but I know that it’s not for an instant a relational network of my own building.

There’s a certain gift in not being interested in small talk. I look for places to hang out where it’s much more likely that people are engaging in deep talk. As such, I’ve seen that virtually every human being is staring bravely into the face of some very hard battles. Being present as people share what assails or ails them, I find myself frequently moved into prayer and encouragement. Encouragement unlocks my own excitabilities in such a way that some people don’t even realize I’m an introvert because I could play an extrovert so convincingly on television. But more to the point, in trying to get to know people in their hidden-away spaces, I increasingly feel the spark of prayer rise up in my heart as I try to present their concerns to Christ.

I don’t know where I’d be without trying to cultivate a celibate vocation. It’s the demand my vocation places on me to be radically hospitable that has pulled me out of my own shell and into a rich network of relationships with others. It’s been my natural cluelessness about how other people establish friendships that has led me to ask God for help. It’s been my desire for guidance that has spurred me to seek out men and women living celibate lives to ask them how they pray for the needs of the entire world even if they live intentionally detached from the world. It’s been my own battles with social anxiety and depression that have shown me that none of us have life as figured out as we think… and that many people are open to receiving an authentic dose of encouragement from a generous heart along the way.

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 Language Police

Posted on by

A reflection by Lindsey

When a person is trying to figure out whether he or she fits somewhere along the LGBT spectrum, many other people are quick to suggest language. If a boy realizes that he likes boys, some would encourage him to call himself “gay” and wear that label with pride. Others would demand that he resist the urge to “identify with his sin” and discuss his realization in terms of “struggling with same-sex attraction.” Members of LGBT couples might be counseled to avoid using any kind of romantic indicator in favor of “friend” or “roommate”… Or they may be encouraged to adopt every form of spousal language, whether that language seems fitting to them or not. Personally, I find the linguistic directives from both conservative and liberal camps drive me nuts. I see these directives as little more than people proudly displaying a “Language Police” badge on their sleeves.

Members of the Language Police overlook that a person on the LGBT spectrum can have a hard time finding appropriately descriptive language. A girl who likes girls might find that the “lesbian” label accurately describes her experience. However, the same girl who likes girls might find that she actually likes girls and boys (where the bisexual label offers a bit better description), or that she feels great solidarity with gay Christians, perceives her sexual attractions as leaning significantly more towards girls than boys, and deems it appropriate to use the word “gay” to describe her experience. A guy who grew up being socialized as a girl might find that “transgender” is the best word to describe his experience, or he might prefer using words like “genderqueer” or “agender.” Every label has a meaning. Moreover, every label is an approximation used to describe some aspect of a person’s experience. Individuals need space to decide what words work best for them.

Each individual adopting a certain label has an active role in determining what that label means. As soon as a person connects the word “gay” to some facet of his or her experience, that person actively communicates what it means to be gay. When other people make claims about the label, they should be reflect on whether their claims speak to the experience of every person wearing the label. If someone says “It’s impossible to be a gay Christian,” that person overlooks or denies the experiences of many gay people who are Christians. When a group gets larger, many labels get boiled down to one essence or another. Many people I know who use the word “gay” to describe themselves focus on the idea that gay people simply experience attraction to the same sex.

Members of the Language Police rarely want an individual to communicate what a label means to him or her. The Language Police assume that if you use a word like “transgender,” what you’re really saying is that you desire medical interventions to allow you reshape the sexed characteristics of your body to align with your gender. Members of the Language Police have a difficult, even impossible time understanding that labels are approximations used by people to describe a part of their reality. Furthermore, members of the Language Police assume that they know the meaning of the label and that the person resisting their interpretation has no appreciation for the English* language. (*Feel free to substitute the name of other languages as is relevant for your situation.) Engaging in linguistic policing requires that the enforcer assumes a position of power and is incredibly patronizing, dismissive, and rude.

I know that we’ve taken time to try and educate our readers on how to talk with others about A Queer Calling. This action differs from the action of the Language Police because we are trying to help other people accurately describe us. We’re trying to be clear about the language we use, why we use it, and what the language means to us. We assume that people actually care enough about us to try to respect our language and get to know us. We do not claim a monopoly on the experiences of all celibate, LGBT, Christian couples. One of the reasons our friends encouraged us to start our blog is that many of them had heard some stories from LGBT Christian couples not called to celibacy but wanted to hear more about how we understand our life together. We care about helping our allies understand our experience; and we do not offer linguistic corrections because we’re trying to deny other people their experiences. We offer linguistic corrections because we want the words people use to describe us to reflect our experience.

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.