Category Archives: Lindsey’s Reflections

On Tokenism

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A reflection by Lindsey

I’ve been meaning to write this reflection for months. The idea came into my head when Jake Dockter started tweeting various Christian conferences about the diversity of their speaking lineups. Jake’s questions focused on why so many conferences tend to headline older white fathers. If memory serves me correctly, one particular conference he pointed out had over 30 speakers where only 4 were women and not a single speaker was clearly non-white. Then a couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post discussing why it matters when white people don’t have black friends. I figured now is a good time to write down some thoughts on tokenism.

If you’ve ever been the minority in any context, chances are reasonably good that you been tokenized in one way or another. As one-half of a celibate LGBT Christian couple, I often feel like I’m a minority within a minority within a minority. I wonder why people value diversity, especially when it seems that “being diverse” seems more about filling a dance card with people who are different from one another than it is about being inclusive.

I think we hadn’t been blogging for more than a month before we received our first inquiry about whether we would consider a speaking engagement. We were thrilled at the possibility of speaking because that particular organization has a reputation of hosting a wide array of LGBT Christian speakers. We could appreciate how our being a celibate couple would offer a different perspective than other speakers who were invited. However, we’d hesitate before accepting an invitation to speak at an event for any organization wanted to promote our way of life as the “answer” for LGBT Christians. The first approach is about being inclusive while the second approach strikes me as checking the “diversity” box.

I don’t want to be anyone’s “LGBT Christian friend.” I can always tell when I’m in that role because I shift into having to educate other people more often than usual. It’s exhausting. I can respect the fact that because I’ve done a lot of thinking and writing about what celibate living might look like for a lay person, many people are interested in hearing my thoughts on celibacy. Yet I cringe every time I hear someone say, “This is my friend Lindsey, an LGBT person living celibacy.” Even other celibate LGBT people can weaponize Sarah’s and my stories to say that anyone is capable of living a celibate vocation.

I hope that more people can begin to see tokenism for what it is. Tokenism happens when we are interested in checking off a box. Once someone has a gay friend (or a black friend or a hispanic friend), then he/she can stop making efforts. I’d contend that being inclusive is remaining open to letting one’s friend circle grow and stretch through conscientious engagement with the world.

I don’t mind being someone’s first LGBT friend. I consider myself to be a worthwhile person to know, and if my new friend hangs out with me for any length of time, then he or she will likely realize I have other awesome friends. I didn’t consider any black people among my circle of real friends until I lived with my black roommate during my sophomore year of college. Chris and I had a habit of going out for chai tea and playing cribbage whenever we were stressed about anything, but getting to know Chris as my friend helped me respond better when other black students I knew tried to increase my awareness of social injustices facing black Americans. As Chris and I sipped chai tea, we had a natural place to share our lives, to ask questions, to listen to each other, and to grow as human beings. Getting to know each other helped me do the hard work of reflecting on my experience of whiteness and made it easier for me to build friendships with people that have very different experiences with regard to race and ethnicity. My friendship with Chris and working through my own experience of race and ethnicity helped me be more inclusive because I could see some social structures a bit more clearly. One reason why I feel so adamant that people not represent Sarah’s and my stories as absolutely representative of all LGBT people is I know for a fact that our stories are different from those of most other LGBT people.

Our friendships with people different from us cause us to think more deeply about our own experiences, enabling us to empathize with each other. When we learn this empathy, we can move beyond tokenism and into a more naturally inclusive way of living.

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.

Why It Matters When White People Don’t Have Black Friends

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A reflection by Lindsey

Over the past few weeks I’ve seen my Facebook feed full of reports about happenings in Ferguson, Missouri and other instances of aggressive policing and racial profiling. Even though I have limited time available to read many of the stories, I can’t help but see some of the comments. The lack of empathy I see has startled me. But when I stumbled across findings from the Public Religion Research Institute that reported three quarters of whites don’t have any non-white friends, the tenor of the conversation began to make more sense to me.

People are funny when it comes to how they respond to those who are different from them. I say “funny” because it’s a curious phenomenon. In many ways, we seem to be frozen into egocentric ways of relating to people. As an engineer, I am often amused by the joke, “The world does revolve around me! I choose the coordinate system!” However, I think the joke has more than a grain of truth when we consider our social spheres of interaction and influence. We often choose our friends from people who are most like us. We build our circles of friends from people near us who have things in common with us. The fact that so many white people are able to create such homogenous circles of friends should show us that we’ve somehow managed to create social structures where white people can avoid meaningful and equitable interactions with people of color.

I care about this stuff. I really do. When I was in college, I read Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America. This book stuck with me like oatmeal can stick to your ribs. I still have vivid memories of how, statistically speaking, white people have a much larger monetary asset base than black people. I think I remember that part so well because I was a college student at the time I read the book, and I was just starting to become independent of my parents financially. It’s a bit sobering to look at more recent statistics. Few things get under my skin like inequality does. While I’m certainly no expert on social justice, I do try to be exceptionally mindful of my expectations and assumptions about people having access to resources.

To be honest, I was surprised when I first saw the headline. I went to college in a university that draws an incredibly diverse population. I haven’t done any kind of formal analysis of my Facebook friends list, so I wouldn’t say that I have an especially diverse friends base. I do try to do my best to shut up and listen when a person who has a different life experience than mine wants to share some of his or her story with me. Some things I’ve learned, time and time again from virtually all my friends, are that context matters, stereotypes hide any number of important observations, and it’s not that hard to look at how society has structures that perpetuate inequalities. [Nicked and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America is another book that really drove home the latter point.]

When I think about the importance of knowing someone, I consider the stories told around increasing acceptance of LGBT people. Many straight people have had to stop and reflect on their views surrounding LGBT issues after finding out that a co-worker, friend, or child has come out as LGBT. It’s a lot harder to think without empathy about LGBT related topics when you start associating them with real people that you actually know.

Let me be extremely clear: I do not believe that we should equate the experiences of LGBT people with the experiences of people of color. Looking at the headline that 75% of white Americans do not have any non-white friends, I wondered about the effects of social organization. It’s a lot easier to make claims that like, “Racial profiling is simply police doing their job,” if you’ve never gone out shopping with a black friend. It’s a lot easier to doubt that virtually every black household briefs its children about what they need to do if they are stopped by the police if you’ve never sat around the dinner table with a black family. It’s a lot easier to suggest that jobs go to the highest qualified person if you’ve never known a person who has “white-washed” his or her resume. I decided to talk about the LGBT community because I know many white people who have discovered that they actually have a good number of LGBT friends unknowingly. When people have LGBT friends, they tend to reconsider their views about social problems affecting the LGBT population. However, I’m afraid that it’s much easier for those who are straight to find themselves in friendship with those who are LGBT than it is for white people to find themselves in friendship with people of color. Part of the reason why I think white people have comparatively homogenous circles of friends is that we tend to socialize in already segregated environments. Churches are often the worst place to try to diversify one’s friends base; Divided by Faith is so named because 11:00 AM on Sunday morning is often the most segregated hour of the week.

Relationships matter. Our relationships with one another make us human. When we have relationships with people who are different from us, we learn to see our commonalities as people as well as our salient differences that set us apart as individuals. We develop empathy skills that allow us to hear stories that challenge us to see the many faces of oppressive social structures. We tune our abilities to say, “That’s not fair!” and work for positive changes.

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.

Love, Languages, and Logic

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A reflection by Lindsey

As I have been discerning my celibate vocation over the past few years, I’ve heard a lot of objections on various grounds. Many people say that celibacy cannot possibly be life-giving because physical touch is one of five “love languages.” Gary Chapman championed the concept in his 1995 book, which has spawned all sorts of spin-offs. I know people who have spent considerable time discerning how words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, and physical touch affect how they experience love. Some believe that if they understand their own love languages and how their loved ones have different native tongues, then they will be able to love much better.

There are merits to Chapman’s ideas. Anyone who has ever received a Lindsey hug knows how much I value my ability to speak the language of physical touch. But recent experiences have me questioning if love’s languages are quite so logically discernible.

Sarah is adjusting to life with Ménière’s disease, and it’s progressing quickly. If you’re like me, this is probably the first time you’ve ever heard of this condition. It’s a degenerative inner ear disorder that impacts hearing and balance. It causes unpredictable attacks of vertigo accompanied by fullness and ringing in the ears and temporary hearing loss. Over time, the hearing loss becomes permanent, ranging from mild to profound in severity depending upon the specific patient. Treatment involves trying to slow the degeneration, and the options are none too appealing. Speaking candidly, some are outright terrifying. Sometimes in frustration and sadness I find myself asking, who wakes up in the morning wondering whether within a few weeks/months/years, he or she will be trying to decide whether to go with steroidal injections that accelerate hearing loss or with a surgery to cut nerves of the balance and motion sensors? This condition is life-altering in many ways.

While some might argue that it’s Sarah’s diagnosis and not my responsibility to manage, it affects my life also. Daily, I get to make all kinds of fun choices. Drastically limiting sodium intake is a first line defense. I oscillate between being shocked by the amount of sodium in everything and feeling triumphant when I’ve managed to prepare surprisingly creative meals where all the ingredients combined have less than 400 mg of sodium. (And, being the engineer that I am, I tend to press a bit harder to see if I can keep that total reliably below 300 mg.) I have tried to transition our kitchen into a low sodium kitchen because it’s easier to avoid eating particular items if you don’t have them in the house at all. Restaurants rarely have meals that are low enough in sodium, so we’re having to rethink what we want to do when we want to be out and about in the city.

Despite our best efforts, Sarah continues to experience periods of temporary profound hearing loss, and over the past few weeks we’ve witnessed the level of permanent hearing loss increasing. I didn’t really gain any empathy for what Sarah has been experiencing until I played around with a hearing loss simulator. And…wow. My mind was completely blown. I didn’t realize that it was possible for people to lose the ability to hear certain letters. If you’re a hearing person, could you imagine living your life in a constant game of Wheel of Fortune? Sarah has been working with a great ear, nose, and throat (ENT) doctor who specializes in inner ear disorders, but Sarah’s audiograms show continuing declines in nerve function. We’re bracing ourselves because we anticipate doing what we can to preserve balance in at least one ear, which likely means we’ll make choices that accelerate Sarah’s hearing loss.

When faced with complete helplessness, I’m generally okay with searching for a way to do something rather than nothing. Sarah has a good number of close friends in the Deaf community. I’ve been doing what I can to develop survival ASL skills. So far, most of my letters are recognizable (by Sarah) even though I’m still trying way too hard and cramping my hands. We’ve been practicing my alphabet with the School Song from Matilda the Musical. I also know the exceptionally important signs for “hamster” and “squirrel” and can sign some of my most frequently used phrases. I sometimes join in as Sarah studies for ASL class. In addition to Sarah’s course, we’re looking forward to attending ASL sessions offered for free at the public library so I can expand my basic vocabulary.

Periodically over the last several weeks, these realities have hit me hard. I reflect frequently on what it means to me to tell Sarah that I’m opting in, 100%. I’m still in, and I have no intention of going anywhere. The mindboggling “logic” of love continues to surprise me. I’m learning something about how Christ neither leaves nor forsakes us. I see a great deal of wisdom in doing what I can to adapt to changing situations rather than focusing all of my efforts into praying that Christ would magically restore Sarah’s hearing. To be sure, I pray about the situation constantly. Yet my mind constantly wanders towards how hearing people have a number of misconceptions about deaf and hard of hearing people. When I get into engineering mode, I think about designing something that has broad import and meets Sarah’s needs. I think about how having even basic conversation skills in ASL will enable me to connect to a whole new group of people.

As I’ve learned to live into my celibate vocation, the word “choice” has taken on new meaning for me. The easiest thing for me to control in this situation is my attitude. I have made different choices regarding my personal level of investment. It’s easier for me to zoom in my energies on mastering low sodium cooking than it is for me to learn ASL. Vocations tend to work best when people can build upon their natural strengths. Nonetheless, the cost of living one’s vocation is high. I really dislike the idea that Sarah and I need to figure out other ways to have fun. Restaurants offered such a perfect solution for my introversion and Sarah’s extroversion. A desire to empathize with Sarah has changed my understanding of what it means when a person is deaf or hard of hearing. I’ve been praying about how Christ wants this new understanding to impact my life, and I sense that I will have more and more opportunities to interact with people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

We’ve written a number of posts where commenters have asked us, “How is what you’re talking about different from a marriage?” I’d like to pre-empt that question a bit. Over the last several weeks, I’ve noticed some interesting trends in my thoughts:

  • I keep thinking about the people I haven’t met yet. I have at least four (five, if you count Sarah) friends who are deaf, hard of hearing, or in the process of losing hearing. But I find myself prayerfully musing on the people I will meet as Sarah develops greater confidence in conversing in ASL.
  • The engineer in me is pretty frustrated with the state of our technological solutions for people who lose their hearing after growing up in the hearing world. I’m keeping a notebook of ideas to see if I can work with people to develop the ideas further.
  • I reflect on people I’ve met while supporting Sarah with other health concerns.

We talk often about how the celibate vocation enables people to love and serve the world differently. While I certainly do not want to lose the ability to communicate effectively with Sarah, my thoughts turn quickly towards other people in similar situations. The fact that Sarah is hurting is a comparatively minimal part of my outrage at the state of things. I should note that my outrage is reasonably massive, but it’s clear that the situation developing within our community of two will spur action that extends far beyond our little family. Mother Maria of Paris frequently wrote on the need to serve people on the margins of society. I find myself asking for her intercession as I work to discern my next steps.

I am not the only person who has had to navigate receiving tough health news within his or her family. Many people give their all to caring for and advocating on behalf of their loved ones. I have been amazed to watch parents and children rallying together during health crises, and in no way do I want to belittle the selfless gifts of those who are not living celibate vocations. They give themselves to each other as a family. Monastics will frequently devote themselves to caring for one another, explaining their actions in terms of attending to their brothers or sisters. I’ve noticed that through this most recent health ordeal, God is challenging me to open my heart that much more towards people as he keeps reminding me over and over again that Sarah is human. I’m not quite sure what to make of that rather consistent nudge in my prayer life, but I’m seeing how it directs me towards loving and serving the world in a way that is unlike any I’ve ever known.

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.

Crossing the Chasm between Ex-Gay Ministry and Celibacy

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A reflection by Lindsey

Over the last few weeks, I’ve seen many bloggers asking the question, “Is celibacy the newest ex-gay ministry?” They note that some LGBT Christians, after spending years in ex-gay ministries, have decided to embrace celibacy. Exodus International closed down after conceding that sexual orientation change efforts rarely succeed and often do harm. We’ve shared previously about our own past experiences in ministries with ex-gay ideologies. As I’ve been reading all the recent articles and blog posts suggesting that LGBT celibacy is simply the new face of the ex-gay movement, I’ve found it striking how many commenters overlook the chasm between the sexual ethics of ex-gay ministries and the charisms of a celibate vocation.

On one level, I understand the confusion. I participated in ex-gay ministries for three years in college. These ministries had connections with churches and promised to help people with same-sex attractions lead holy lives. Slogans like “Change is possible,” and “The opposite of homosexuality isn’t heterosexuality, it’s holiness,” still ring through my ears when I think back to that time in my life.

However, ex-gay ministries have a particular kind of sexual ethic — one that I and many other celibate LGBT Christians consider colossally unhelpful. Ex-gay ministries focus on helping people avoid sexual sins. Sexual purity takes on a particular kind of theological importance. In the ex-gay ministry I was a part of, we spoke of lust, pornography, and masturbation as the “unholy trinity.” People did their best to reorient themselves towards Christ whenever they had lustful thoughts. We frequently reminded each other that we were commanded to “take every thought captive” so we could submit everything to Christ. We talked about the proper place of sex within marriage, the benefits of keeping ourselves pure for a future opposite-sex spouse, and the importance of confessing past transgressions in order to receive forgiveness. When it came to discussing sexual morality, these ministries stressed the importance of keeping the marriage bed holy. There was no discussion of celibacy, but there was significant conversation about marriage and abstinence.

Eventually, I wore out my welcome in ex-gay ministries. I started asking questions about how the ministry interpreted Scriptures. Many ex-gay ministries justify their existence by quoting from 1 Corinthians 6. According to these teachers, Paul clearly lists homosexuals among those who will not inherit the kingdom of God. Christians had hope to change because Paul tells those in Corinth, “such were some of you.” I got into trouble because I started asking questions about the implications of the passage as a whole:

Now therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated? No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do these things to your brethren! Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

Why was Paul talking about lawsuits? Given Christ’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, would it be possible for Christians to say rightly that there was no chance they were ever idolaters, thieves, covetous, or extortioners? When the ex-gay ministry I was a part of dismissed my inquiries as being little more than a distraction, I couldn’t help but question the ministry as a whole.

Eventually, I came to see ex-gay ministries as purveyors of spiritual abuse. They used any information they could think of to showcase the evils of the “gay lifestyle.” They taught people to fear most forms of human interaction lest they find themselves falling down the slippery slope to inappropriate sexual intimacy. I was watching people leave the ministry with their faith in tatters, noting how the pastors in charge of the ministry expected everyone to revere their every word.

Embracing my celibate vocation required that I distance myself from nearly everything ex-gay ministries taught about sexual ethics. Things began to crumble when I started asking questions like, “Why am I trying so hard to be straight when I have no desire for children?” and “How could a ministry teach people to be afraid of every peer relationship?”

When I made a choice to cultivate a celibate vocation, I had to look at relationships differently. It was far from a linear journey as I came to define celibacy. I’ve reflected more on my journey elsewhere on the blog. As I’ve read authors who equate celibacy with ex-gay ministry, I have to wonder where they got their information on celibacy. It does not seem like they have talked to anyone living celibate vocations. I recognize a lot of their talking points as coming straight from mischaracterizations of celibacy promoted by people who have had negative experiences with celibacy. I am puzzled as to why nearly all of these authors are implying that LGBT Christians are only just now pursuing celibacy because ex-gay ministries have closed their doors.

This might come as a surprise, but celibacy is not a new idea. Christians of all sexual orientations and gender identities have been choosing celibacy for well over 1500 years. As I’ve discerned my own celibate vocation, I have sought both historic and current examples of people who have lived and who are living celibacy. Embracing a celibate vocation required me to embrace my sexuality rather than repress my sexuality. Along my way, I read author after author who affirmed the absolute need for celibates to integrate their sexualities. Discerning a celibate vocation allowed me to affirm and celebrate my uniqueness as an LGBT person. I was able to move beyond the destructive navel-gazing that characterized so much of my experience in ex-gay ministries. I learned to see myself as Lindsey rather than as a liability who should be accepted in community as a charity case.

Finding my celibate vocation required adopting a more holistic view of Scripture. Indeed, even reading the chapters that contained the oft-quoted verses began to shift my thinking away from what the ex-gay ministry said a particular verse meant. I sought the Holy Spirit’s guidance for what passages of Scripture might be especially important for me to ponder as I developed my sense of vocation. I learned to listen to the Scriptures within a particular Christian tradition, seeing how men and women through the ages have allowed the Bible to shape their vocational journeys. If you want more specifics on that aspect of my journey, you can read about how I discerned my sexual ethic. I’m quite honestly baffled that anyone could read my writing and suggest that I’m somehow a hardcore biblical literalist or that I don’t accept queer sexual orientations. I can’t think of any celibate LGBT person I know who fits these stereotypes.

To be completely fair, I think most people don’t understand that there is a chasm between the sexual ethics of ex-gay ministries and the charisms of a celibate vocation. Researching celibacy is challenging. It can be far too tempting to dismiss celibate people as “those weirdos who don’t want to have sex.” If you throw a sense of religious obligation into the mix, then one might think of repression, angst, existential crises, and really all the makings of a great soap opera. The net effect is characterizing celibate LGBT people with a stereotype of pitiful souls who have no conception of God’s love, who cower in fear and spend their whole lives trying to entrap other members of the LGBT community. On a certain level, that incorrect characterization makes sense to me if a person conceives of celibacy as nothing more than doing one’s best to white-knuckle sexual abstinence. However, that notion of celibacy saddens me in the extreme because it completely denies how celibates are able to love and serve the world — especially other human beings — with joy.

I can relate to people who say that nothing could ever make them go back to ex-gay ministry. I agree with them whole-heartedly. The sexual ethics of ex-gay ministries are fear-based and spiritually abusive. Discerning and living into my celibate vocation has brought me immense joy where I have rich relationships with other people. Embracing celibacy has changed my approach to the Christian life, and I sit here amazed at how God has given me such a wonderful gift to challenge me to grow in love.

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.

On the Decline of Hugging

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A reflection by Lindsey

Everyone who knows me knows that I love hugging. I regard Lindsey hugs as a global public good. Hugging can tell you a lot about people, especially if you’re lucky enough to embrace another person who knows how to speak the language of Hug. Yes, I firmly believe that hugging is a language. And unfortunately, hugging is quickly on the decline.

I have some hypotheses as to why people have stopped hugging. However, I don’t find any of these possible reasons especially convincing. So I wonder, why are people so willing to send hugging to the margins of acceptable touch?

The word acceptable gives us some clues. Somehow, some way, an untold number of westerners have bought into a cultural myth that hugging belongs only in one’s family. You can hug your mom, dad, aunts, uncles, grandmas, cousins, siblings, grandpas, and anyone else who might receive regular invitations to your family reunions. Venture outside of these limits of acceptable hugging, and all of a sudden, you’re somehow indicating a romantic interest.

I’ve been in plenty of venues where I find myself asking, “What message is this hug sending?” But more so, I wonder what the other person is communicating to me. Is he/she nervous, confident, stressed, jubilant, comfortable, completely weirded out, or some other mash-up of various emotions? When one speaks Hug, one can learn an untold number of things about another person from a single embrace. Hug speakers expect that no two hugs are ever the same because no two people are ever exactly the same. It’s not enough to know that, “Bill likes to have every last bit of air squeezed out of his lungs,” and, “Sam would always prefer a high-five over a hug.” Huggers need to be adaptable, adjusting their hugs to meet people wherever they are.

Good hugging requires a high degree of emotional awareness. You need to know what’s going on in yourself, read what’s going on in another person, and make adjustments accordingly. Good hugging is hard. It allows the two people a level of connection they may not otherwise experience. And I think most people just aren’t comfortable with that much vulnerability. After all, if you’re going to hug someone properly, you have to share physical space for a bit. It can be easier to keep your distance from others.

I think the world is a better place when huggers can hug. I do understand that not everyone is a hugger and I wouldn’t want to pressure anyone to change his or her hugging style. However, I do think many Western cultural contexts frown mightily on hugging and put huggers in a proverbial straight jacket: keep those hugs to yourself! Many people would caution celibates to avoid hugging lest hugging lead down the slippery slope of sexual temptation.

From my perspective, freedom to hug is part of the wonder and joy of my celibate vocation. I see hugging as an overflow of radical hospitality. It’s a part of my vocation I’ve always been good at. I remember working at Scout camp and giving good night hugs. Some weeks, the campers literally lined up for my hugs. The trend has continued. It’s rare for me to visit friends and not spend a good chunk of my day giving hugs. I love it when people say, “Lindsey hugs are the best part of these gatherings.”

It’s never quite computed in my mind why people assert that a celibate vocation means cutting oneself off from all forms of intimacy with others. I believe that celibate vocations open us up to the possibility of deep human connection. For me, that connection frequently comes through hugging. Something about hugging helps me feel deeply connected to myself and to another person. I’m able to come alive in a different way than usual. Not everyone has the same appetite for hugging, but different people can meet the same need in other ways. For Sarah, that same sense of connection comes from long, energetic, enthusiastic conversations. I occasionally experience a desire to be incredibly excited for long stretches at a time. There are some select friends I’ll share those experiences with because I want to be accepted exactly as I am in those moments. But my intimacy needs aren’t the same as Sarah’s, so Sarah’s way of connecting with others doesn’t work quite as well for me as hugging.

I have to wonder if hugging is quickly on the decline because people would prefer to avoid being vulnerable with one another. It’s humbling to be asked for a hug. It can be even harder to ask for a hug yourself when you need one. No one wants to be the emotionally high-maintenance friend. We avoid conceiving of ourselves as interdependent on anyone, making occasional exceptions for our close family. However, when we draw firm and static lines around who we can be vulnerable with, we also find ourselves talking about “acceptable” people to hug. I think those lines do much more to hurt us than to help us. And so, one hug at a time, I hope to create more space for people to share their vulnerability with me and experience acceptance.

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.