Category Archives: Sarah’s Reflections

Green Leaves, Red Flames, and Glimpses of Vocation

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A reflection by Sarah

One of the many lessons I keep repeating is that God often uses unpredictable means to get my attention. This was especially true during a season of my life when I was feeling strongly pulled towards a celibate vocation but knew I wasn’t going to be able to live it at that time. As I’ve written before, I’m glad I waited to commit fully to a celibate vocation because being ready for this way of life takes time. I wanted to be reasonably sure that God was in fact calling me to celibacy before completely embracing some form of celibate life as my vocation. At the time of this story, I thought I was crazy for even contemplating celibacy, as I was in a non-celibate relationship with a woman I’ve chosen to call Leah.

One summer while on retreat, I sat at the dinner table nearly every evening with a priest who seemed to understand my uncertainty intuitively. Frequently, I asked him questions about how he understood the role of celibacy in his vocation to the priesthood, if he experienced loneliness, and if he had any regrets about forgoing marriage. This priest could tell that I wasn’t casually exploring monastic life with no real intention of committing to a celibate vocation of some kind. Though I never shared anything with him about my sexual orientation or relationship, I believe that he could actually tell I had a sense of where God was leading me, and was trying to figure out how to get there despite doubts about meeting my need for human companionship along the way. One evening after our meal, he pulled me aside and drew something from his satchel: an icon of the Mother of God the Unburnt Bush, though I did not yet know this name for it. Then he said to me, “I’m leaving tomorrow to go back home to my parish, and I feel very strongly that the Mother of God would like you to have this icon.”

Icon of the Mother of God the Unburnt Bush

I was totally surprised, completely flattered, and taken aback. The icon was absolutely beautiful. What could have inspired this priest to leave me—adrift and pitifully clueless—with such an amazing gift? I’m not sure anything else in the world could have spoken to me in that moment as this icon did. Throughout my life, one of the ways I’ve felt God’s presence most strongly has been via my perceptions of color. The Mother of God the Unburnt Bush icon remains to this day one of the most colorful I’ve ever encountered. Even more captivating than most I’ve seen, it is packed full of action, containing a multiplicity of stories on a mere 9” by 12” wooden panel. Simultaneously blown away and honored, I asked if he could tell me more about the meaning behind different images within the icon. He responded by directing me to take the icon back to my bedroom and let the Mother of God teach me about it herself. In time, the icon would tell me the fullness of its own story. I received the gift with gratitude and carried it away.

As I sat on my bed staring down at the image, the first sight that caught my eye was the Mother of God, surrounded by green leaves and red flames. I realized that this icon was a representation of Moses and the Unburnt Bush from The Book of Exodus. I recalled that Exodus describes the bush as burning, yet unconsumed. Gears turned in my head, and it clicked that the Unburnt Bush was a prefiguring of the Mother of God in the paradox of her virgin motherhood. At that time, I found myself focused on the primary images of the icon rather than those in the background. I noticed Moses, removing his sandals, kneeling below the Mother of God as she holds her infant Son. As I contemplated the three central figures in this icon, I felt inspired and convicted that saying yes to God’s call would not always be easy. Sometimes doing what God asks is incredibly hard and involves saying, “I’m committed,” even when that means arduous tasks and frightening possibilities. I thought about how Moses stood before the Unburnt Bush in preparation for leading the Israelites out of Egypt. Perhaps I was beginning my own period of preparation for what God would have me do even if I wasn’t able to do it yet at that point. I also thought about how two celibates are central images in the icon: the Mother of God and Jesus himself. As I gazed into the eyes of the Mother of God and of Jesus in the icon, I caught the first glimmer of hope that perhaps a celibate life could be worthwhile and fulfilling even if those qualities seemed fleeting and out of reach at the time. Surprisingly, I also felt an overwhelming sense of peace even though life seemed uncertain and my questions of vocation were far from settled. In that moment, God reached into my heart and assured me that things were in process, and I was in process.

Over the past four years, that icon has been a source of strength for me almost daily. Within that span of time, I’ve experienced beginnings and endings of relationships, a move halfway across the country, a reevaluation of my own sexual ethic, and the beginning of my celibate partnership with Lindsey. The Mother of God the Unburnt Bush icon currently hangs in Lindsey’s and my living room, alongside many other images that are spiritually significant for both of us. Sometimes when I walk by this image, I catch the eyes of the Mother of God for a moment, and I get a reminder that she’s here praying for me and helping me to find strength at times when the demands of a lay celibate vocation are at their greatest.

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All Are Welcome! (Some Conditions May Apply)

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A reflection by Sarah

It’s not really a secret that many LGBT people struggle to feel welcome at church. However, as I think on my own experiences, I can’t help but conclude that we often misdiagnose exactly what makes people feel unwelcome in faith communities. When trying to find a community where I can come fully alive in Christ as an LGBT person with somewhat traditionalist sensibilities regarding theology and liturgical life, I’ve frequently felt like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. As I’ve gotten to know other people walking in similar spaces, I’ve noted that it is rare for a person to be free to discuss openly his or her sexual orientation or gender identity, preference for historic patterns of worship, and appreciation for traditional theology all within the same faith community. Thus, folks at this particular intersection can find themselves fitting in nowhere.

To help readers grasp what life in the midst of this tension feels like, I want to share my experience of searching for a church home once after I had moved to a new city. I encountered two parishes full of people who were passionately committed to Christ. The one I’ll refer to as “St. Andrew’s” had a visible desire to engage in social justice work, and parishioners were entirely committed to living life at the front lines of loving their neighbors as themselves. The one I’ll call “St. John’s” valued forming people of all ages in the faith, providing ample opportunities for parishioners to tap into traditional prayers and spiritual practices. However, as a person attracted to life at both parishes, I soon realized that parishioners saw these two communities as being a bit at the extremes. The communities were so distinct from one another that most people I got to know at one couldn’t see how a person might find value in the activities and pursuits of the other. My own sense of self – a lesbian seeking deep spiritual formation within traditional Christianity – prevented people at both parishes from recognizing me as “one of them” no matter how much I participated in parish life.

When I first moved to the city, I was in a spiritual and emotional space that left me with an acute need for love and acceptance. Because of this, I searched out parishes known for welcoming absolutely everyone. My search brought me very conveniently to St. Andrew’s, a parish less than two blocks away from my apartment. From the moment I set foot in a Sunday service, it was clear that St. Andrew’s welcomed every kind of human diversity present under the sun. As soon as people found out I was new, they peppered me with helpful tips for adapting to life in my new city. Immediately, I had recommendations for local grocery stores, fun free things to do, parish ministries in which I could become involved, and the best place to go for frozen custard. Over time, I realized that St. Andrew’s folks would do just about anything to love their neighbors. Parishioners visited families living in poverty to discern their needs, held regular fundraising events to help people rebuild homes and meet basic needs after disaster struck, delivered first-aid kits to homes that would otherwise lack band-aids and antiseptics, and constantly referred people to social services organizations if and when the parish wasn’t able to help more directly. St. Andrew’s proclaimed a loving acceptance for all people because, according to its members, St. Andrews “welcomed everyone, no matter what.” All signs pointed to a thriving parish.

I was quick to get involved even though I had concerns about how St. Andrew’s seemingly failed to promote the observance of disciplines I found essential to my spiritual growth and wellbeing. I thought that surely as I shared my life within the parish, I’d find at least some people who would resonate with how I valued traditional devotions and approaches to liturgical worship. Within the first month, I was able to disclose a good deal about my own life. The congregation accepted me completely as a lesbian, and I found many people willing to discuss certain practical theological topics with me. However, after I had been at the parish for about six months, I realized that the only theological topics people were very interested in talking about centered on social justice and concerns that there needed to be “updates” to teachings on women’s ordination and gay marriage. Mentioning that I was considering a non-monastic celibate vocation resulted in questions such as, “Don’t you accept yourself as you are?” and, “Why are you letting the Church get to you so much?” Though I found myself irked by these queries, especially because this Christian tradition recognizes celibacy as a vocational option, I could handle them. I had much more difficulty when I began to see that that every conversation I attempted to start about the Church fathers, liturgy, official Church documents, or traditional spiritual practices would fall on deaf ears. One person even went so far as to tell me, “God hears what you have to say from your heart so you don’t need any scripted prayer.” I found it exceptionally odd that a person within a liturgical Christian tradition would have such a disparaging attitude regarding the prayers that have shaped this tradition.

It didn’t help that I had these conversations when I felt like I was floundering spiritually. I had an incredibly full schedule, and I found it difficult in that season of life to connect with the still, small voice of God. St. Andrew’s seemingly expected people to connect with God through serving the poor. Yet, even though I was actively conducting home visits and sorting baby clothes for new mothers living in the city’s poorest neighborhoods, I perceived a real need for more contemplative spirituality. As I sought counsel from my priest, he told me that I just needed to get more involved in the parish’s ministries than I was already. I thought his prescription failed to address my main concerns. Not seeing any alternatives within the St. Andrew’s community, I began to look elsewhere in an effort to meet my spiritual needs.

I had heard about another parish, St. John’s, and decided to investigate further. I chose to try this parish for a number of reasons: it was geographically close to my apartment, I’d heard it had a beautiful liturgy that was much more traditional than contemporary, and I’d determined after a bit of research that it had several parish ministries aimed at fostering spiritual growth. As I met with the priest, he seemed excited to welcome me as a prospective parishioner. He showed me different events on the church calendar where people would gather to pray traditional prayers and support each other in a shared prayer life. When I mentioned the interest I’d expressed previously in starting a discussion group at St. Andrew’s on a Church document, he met me with enthusiasm and indicated that many people at St. John’s might also be interested. After that meeting, I rejoiced because I thought I had finally found a place where I could grow spiritually. When I went to Sunday liturgy, I felt a profound sense of connection to God and to my Christian tradition. This parish saw that adults were continuously learning about their faith; members of the parish placed a high value on scripture, tradition, and Church history. But because St. John’s had relatively few opportunities to do social justice ministry, I continued to volunteer with people from St. Andrew’s.

I experienced excellent formation in my time at St. John’s, but still did not gain a sense of feeling completely at home. Almost immediately, I caught on to the fact that St. John’s was not a safe place to be LGBT, as demonstrated through a number of clues. One Sunday in a homily, the priest emphasized how homosexuals would not inherit the kingdom of God. As I listened to him preach, I realized that I had not mentioned to him that I was a lesbian during our initial meeting. Another hint was that one long-time member of the parish was easier to identify by appearance as being a member of the LGBT community, and the lack of acceptance for this man was abundantly clear. Many parishioners talked about him behind his back, saying things like: I don’t know why Tom comes to church every Sunday if he’s not going to try to be normal, and Tom’s been here for years, but I would never let him around my children. The things those people do are abominable. I tried my best to foster conversations about any number of non-sexuality-related topics with other parishioners, and I perceived the people at St. John’s to be genuine folks who were doing their best to serve God. Though I discussed many diverse topics and built relationships with them, it seemed that no amount of relationship building could influence their perceptions of LGBT people. The moment that I took the plunge and revealed to one trusted person in that parish that I was a lesbian, I realized the gravity of my mistake. She responded immediately with, “Are you trying to get yourself healed so you can marry a man some day?” When I said, “No…” she cut me off before I could even mention my exploration of celibacy and asked, “Well then, why are you here? Why don’t you go to a denomination that’s more liberal and accepts people like you?”

I felt caught in an inescapable tension between these two parishes, electing to try and attend both for the next year and a half. I had never ended my involvement in the social justice ministries at St. Andrew’s. Most Sundays, I elected to go to St. John’s for worship and simply not stay to socialize with anyone afterward. Occasionally, I’d continue to pop in at different traditional prayer and study groups. Independent of my best efforts to do church with both communities, I realized I was constantly being forced to choose between being known and being loved. To be loved at St. Andrew’s, I couldn’t be known as a liturgical and theological traditionalist. To be loved at St. John’s, I couldn’t be known as a member of the LGBT community. As a result, neither parish afforded me a place to be me.

Summoning every bit of internal strength possible and giving one’s all to being church with others has an added level of challenge when you’re LGBT. I’d go so far as to say that sometimes, this feels impossible if you’re LGBT and at least somewhat of a traditionalist. Throughout my twenties, I continually experienced the St. Andrew’s and St. John’s scenarios playing out in my life every time I moved to a new place. They played out with greatest reliability when I was a part of my former Christian tradition. In my current Christian tradition, parishes are generally small, separated by long geographic distances, or both. Everyone who is a part of this tradition in a certain area organically ends up in the same church community, and that reality creates its own set of unique challenges. For my part as an LGBT person with traditionalist sensibilities, I experience a double-silencing. I feel as though I’m constantly being told to seek a church where “my kind of people” go. Depending on the context, “my kind of people” can have a host of different meanings. Generally, I don’t have trouble figuring out the implications of that phrase within a specific church community. Yet each time the issue arises, I find myself wondering: who are “my kind of people”? Folks within the LGBT community, or Christians with traditionalist sensibilities? I’m tired of being informed that my people fit neatly within any category narrower than “the Body of 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.

Of Celibacy, Sex, and Silver Bullets

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A reflection by Sarah

One of the arguments I hear most frequently against the idea of a celibate partnership is that in order to be healthy and “normal,” any committed, intimate relationship between consenting adults must involve a sexual union. I’ve heard it suggested that celibate partnerships like the one Lindsey and I share are, by their very nature, unsustainable because they involve denial of sexual expression. It’s understandable that most people would have this perception of celibate partnership, and I’ll be the first to admit that the way of life I’ve chosen is unconventional. Still, I find myself amazed at the frequency with which some non-celibate people will propose sex as the silver bullet solution for many difficulties that arise within celibate relationships. The past few months have been especially tough for Lindsey and me, bringing financial stress, a job search, two car accidents, one car breakdown, a street robbery, and the burglary of our home. In the midst of the chaos, I’ve been both surprised and disturbed by how often people in our lives have approached us lovingly-yet-seriously to ask, “Wouldn’t things be so much better if you just let yourselves have sex? Have you ever considered that might make your relationship stronger during this difficult time?” The most extreme example of this came yesterday in the form of a comment, positing that God is actually punishing us for being celibate and talking about celibacy, and said punishment might cease if only we would become sexually active. Not kidding here.

We spend a fair bit of time here discussing lessons we’ve learned from past celibate and sexually active relationships. Lindsey once shared the story of a failed celibate relationship in order to discuss the process of discerning a celibate vocation and developing the spiritual maturity and common vision that maintaining a celibate partnership requires. Today, I’m going to share with you the story of one of my own past relationships to illustrate that sexual activity does not automatically render a relationship normal, healthy, or good. Unlike the one described in Lindsey’s post, this relationship was not celibate and I had never envisioned that it could be. It was the most sexually charged relationship I’ve ever experienced — so much that this aspect of the relationship dominated.

For the purpose of this post, I will refer to my former girlfriend as Leah. At the time Leah and I began dating, I had already spent a few years considering the possibility of celibacy. But during this particular season of life, I saw celibacy as unrealistic and unsustainable despite my feeling a strong pull toward it from God. Due to my own fear of being ridiculed and considered peculiar, Leah and I never discussed celibacy or the possibility of exploring a celibate relationship. From the very beginning, Leah had made clear that sexual expression was one of her most significant needs. I conceded that if I was at all interested in pursuing a relationship with Leah long-term, I would have to honor that need. It never occurred to me that doing so would likely involve overlooking my own needs. We experienced a powerful attraction to each other based on some common interests and the positive energy we felt while in one another’s presence, so I came to believe that even discussing celibacy with Leah would be unreasonable and selfish.

I had told Leah upfront that although I had been in other sexual relationships before, I wasn’t comfortable with jumping into bed immediately. I asked if she would be willing to give me some time, and offered assurance that I would let her know when I felt ready for having sex. For the first three weeks, all was well. But then she began to tell me that she couldn’t understand why waiting for sex was so important to me. “This isn’t normal,” she would say. “Sexual intimacy is what makes a relationship worth pursuing. Without that, it’s dead.” I found myself feeling pressured into exploring sexual activity with Leah simply in an attempt to keep the relationship from falling apart. But within a few days after I had finally given in, I noticed a troubling change in the chemistry between us.

Almost immediately after our first time together, I felt a massive shift in our relationship dynamic. The decision to have sex with Leah was an opening of Pandora’s Box: every conversation we had became focused on sex and sexuality. Every time we had any sort of physical interaction, it became an occasion for sexual comments or actually dropping everything in the moment and taking a few minutes to engage in sex. This troubled me, and I brought the concern to Leah, who responded, “Would you rather we were experiencing lesbian bed death?” She expressed her belief that sex was the most vital of all dimensions of a romantic relationship, and that as long as sex was still occurring and was enjoyable to her, all our other needs would fall into place. It seemed that Leah understood only two possibilities for our relationship: a pattern of interactions that would always lead to the bedroom, or a pattern of interactions that would involve minimal physical contact in any way and would ultimately become impossible to continue. I considered the possibility that she might be right. Maybe sex was the most important aspect of a relationship and I just hadn’t caught up to speed on that yet.

Though I never felt comfortable emotionally or morally with what was happening in our sex life, I remained in relationship with Leah for quite a long while. As time went on, Leah’s expectations for my sexual performance increased to a level I could not possibly reach. She became critical of my body and my unwillingness to perform certain types of sexual activities. Doing something in bed that did not give her sufficient pleasure (or worse, ended up being unpleasant for her) carried significant consequences. Leah began to withdraw all affection from me after I had made “mistakes” while trying to give her what she wanted. At times when I would assert my own needs and wants, Leah would counter with a statement of her right to express her sexuality in any and every way that made her feel happy. This included attempts to convince me that my own physical boundaries were unreasonable. The relationship began to lose its meaning for me because everything was completely focused on our sexual experiences.

As this pattern continued, I noticed that Leah was losing interest in having any kind of intimacy with me that was not sexual. She began rejecting hugs and offers to cuddle on the couch. Any real conversations we were having ceased, and simply spending time together became a chore. Near the end of our relationship, even the sex stopped happening. Leah claimed that she didn’t feel close to me because I wasn’t giving her enough “good” sex, so she had lost interest in sharing any kind of intimacy with me. Though I attempted to raise these issues with Leah and was fully ready to accept responsibility for my part in them, Leah was unwilling to discuss any of this in a meaningful way. She placed all blame for the crumbling of our sex life and relationship as a whole on me for not giving her enough space and for having too high a need for non-sexual types of intimacy.

I tell this story not to condemn Leah or to suggest that this is normative pattern of all sexually active gay relationships. If you find yourself identifying with anything I mentioned above, please consider seeking help. I’m also not saying this to suggest that I am incapable of embracing my sexuality. Though I am now committed to lifelong celibacy in the context of my partnership with Lindsey, I’ve been involved in other sexually active relationships that were quite emotionally healthy. As I reflect on my past relationship with Leah, I can see that I learned many valuable lessons from its circumstances; but perhaps the most important is that sexual activity is not the magical ingredient to guarantee a relationship will be “normal” and “healthy.”

All too often, people who do not understand celibacy frame “sex within a committed relationship” as a panacea for struggles associated with celibacy. My own life experience tells me that this way of thinking is dangerous. And I’d argue it can be just as harmful as suggesting that celibacy mandates are the silver bullet for addressing all LGBT issues in the Church. In the end, Leah and I were incompatible on a number of levels, including our very different views on sexual ethics. I believe there is nothing that could have saved our relationship, and even without these serious issues with intimacy, eventually we would have seen that we were not a good match for each other. Nonetheless, I wonder if things might have ended differently had sexual activity not become the perceived cure-all for every problem that came between us.

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.

An Ungodly Identity

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A reflection by Sarah

Over time, I’ve grown accustomed to hearing the claim that no Christian should use words like “gay,” “lesbian,” or “bisexual” to describe himself or herself. I’ve heard just about every variety of this opinion. Some Christians holding a traditional sexual ethic argue that “same-sex attracted” is more appropriate as a descriptor because the other terms are necessarily linked to the “homosexual agenda.” Others, particularly straight people who would do not understand how LGB people define our terms, say that using words like these means identifying with sin. An extension of this idea is that adopting any label for one’s sexuality is a denial of one’s true identity as a man or woman made in God’s image, and of one’s identity as a Christian. These statements differ slightly, but they all posit that any identity label other than “man,” “woman,” and “Christian” (or perhaps specifically Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant) is ungodly and should be avoided at all costs.

My reaction to these claims? As my favorite high school English teacher Ms. Chafin would have said, “Horse feathers.” In all my years of trying to learn what it means to practice a Christian sexual ethic, I’ve never once come across any evidence that describing myself as “gay” or “lesbian” has caused me to forget the saving work Christ has done and continues to do in my life. Further, it seems flagrantly hypocritical that people who chastise LGB Christians for our preferred labels have no trouble describing their own identities as multifaceted (i.e. a Christian who is also a white, Republican, Kentuckian deer hunter). But at the same time, on some level I can understand the concern that theoretically, using identity descriptors of any kind could cause misplacement of priorities. I’ve experienced this myself, but in a manner irrelevant to my sexual orientation. Though I’ve been a Christian my entire life, for several years I did not see “follower of Christ” as the core of my identity.

Since before I started school as a young child, I’ve thrived on academic challenges. Nothing made me happier than to visit the home of my paternal grandmother, a retired elementary school teacher, and work my way through a reader three or four grade levels above mine. In eighth grade, I was a member of my middle school’s first-ever state championship academic team. In twelfth grade, I became the first student from my high school ever to bring home an individual title at the state academic championship. During my younger years, I was an intolerable know-it-all much like Hermione Granger. My number one goal in life was to achieve as much as possible academically . I knew that I didn’t fit well with the culture in which I was raised, and concentrating all my energies on earning straight A’s and exceptional test scores was the only means of individuating I knew. I could be “Sarah” by being “the achiever.” This pattern continued with me into college and graduate school, and eventually the new standard of achievement became presenting as many conference papers and publishing as many articles as possible.

Somewhere along the way, the desire to learn got lost and the compulsion to achieve took over completely. Though theology and other humanities subjects were my primary areas of academic work after high school, my spiritual life suffered because I struggled to remember the big picture reasons I had wanted to study these subjects in the first place. One might think devoting so much time to learning about theological developments would lead to a greater sense of connection with the Christian identity, but often this was not so for me. It was only about five years ago that I began to see how dependent my sense of self worth was on academic achievement. A therapist I was seeing at one point asked me a very simple question: “Who are you?” Immediately, I began to reply that I was a graduate student and a young teacher within my first few years of classroom experience. She cut me off mid-sentence. “That’s what you do,” she interjected. “I asked who you are.” It occurred to me then that I had no idea how to answer the question without focusing on my perceived accomplishments…and that terrified me.

Now, my priorities are different. It’s been a couple of years since my last conference presentation, and I don’t find myself obsessing over the achievement checkboxes very much anymore. I’ve made a decided effort to be more intentional in my work, and to remind myself frequently that studying (especially in theology) is not meant to be a self-serving pursuit. I’ve sought a lot of counsel from spiritual directors about how to direct my love of learning and my interests in theology toward the greater purpose of glorifying God. It became a bit easier to curb the achievement obsession when I entered my late twenties and realized that in life, there are no gold stars for super achievers. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not interested in becoming an underachiever. Hard work is necessary to achieve one’s goals, yet there’s a whole lot of life (most importantly, life in Christ) to be missed when trying so desperately to be the best at everything.

Currently, I live in a city where such a statement is considered anathema. Here, more so than many other places, one’s worth is determined by one’s highest recorded salary and level of social and political connectedness. When I first moved here, I was in a relationship with someone who considered me a pathetic failure for being unable to crank out my doctoral dissertation (which I’m still working on) within her preferred time frame. Even though I’ve come see life as more gratifying and purposeful when I focus on being Sarah instead of “Sarah the super achiever,” I’m still learning how to cope when others disagree with me on that.

Returning to my original point, I do understand in some ways why conservative Christians might feel compelled to warn LGB Christians about the dangers of becoming encapsulated by an identity marker not clearly tied to Christ. That said, I wonder why none of the people who have admonished me to stop identifying as a lesbian have ever seen a problem with the overachiever identity that actually did draw me farther away from Christ. In fact, many of them were my greatest encouragers to be the best, achieve the highest, and think little of the negative consequences. Some of my acquaintances who insist that identifying as a lesbian means identifying with sin have been equally quick to tell me, “Being a good person gets you nowhere in life. Having a long list of accomplishments is far more important than being virtuous. You’ll have time for virtue when you’re old.” There’s an obvious double standard here.

I do not mean to suggest that all conservative Christians have cultivated this attitude. If that were true, I would feel very worried for the future of the Church. However, I do believe the pressure straight Christians place on LGBT Christians to identify with certain terms rather than others is unnecessary, and is often counterproductive. It’s also disproportionate to reactions against other types of potentially problematic identity markers. Lindsey and I don’t like to do much advice-giving because we consider ourselves poorly suited to it in most circumstances, but I’ll close with these thoughts: working through the unhealthy parts of my own self-concept has helped me to show greater empathy to other people whose preferred descriptors don’t meet with my approval. Still, I’m far from perfect at subduing the entitlement I sometimes feel to question another person’s identity markers. Lately, I’ve been thinking that it might serve all of us to focus more internally on our own varieties of ungodly identity and less on presuming to know exactly what’s going on in another person’s mind and heart.

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.

Intimacy and Children’s Physical Boundaries

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A reflection by Sarah

About three weeks ago, I came across an article on children and bodily autonomy via my friend Jessica’s Facebook page. The article, “Respecting Every BODY,” discusses the importance of respecting children’s boundaries with physical affection and offers a couple of examples from the author’s own life. In one of these, Libby Anne tells readers about a time when her father-in-law failed to honor her daughter Sally’s boundaries:

“Over Christmas we were at Sean’s parents’ house. Sally’s grandpa was holding her on his lap when she asked to get down, and he said no. He said he wasn’t done holding her, and besides, didn’t she love him and like sitting on his lap? Sally struggled and Sean’s dad held her closer. At first I said nothing, because I was in a state of shock. I couldn’t believe this was really actually happening. Shaking myself out of my shock, I asked Sean’s dad to put Sally down, but he didn’t. He acted like it was some sort of joke. It wasn’t until I stood and moved forward to intervene that he set Sally down. She immediately ran from the room, crying.”

Upon reading this, I knew immediately that I had to write something of my own on the topic of children and physical boundaries, but I also knew that I needed to wait a bit before attempting to do so. I needed that time because my first reaction to the story about Sally and her grandfather was intense anger. This story left me shaking for several minutes because I could identify so strongly with Sally’s frustration and apparent sense of powerlessness.

About halfway through my first reading of the quoted paragraph, I noticed myself flashing back to several experiences from my childhood when different adults refused to honor the limits with which I was comfortable for my own body. One of the more prominent images that came to mind was of a family member who took disturbing delight in popping my toes. From the time I was a preschooler all the way through my adolescence, this family member would take every opportunity possible while I was relaxing on the floor, my bed, or a sofa to grab my feet and begin toe-popping and laughing while I kicked and screamed for him to stop. When I was very young, he would tease me about my disdain for this activity with a silly rhyme he’d ad-libbed, then laugh at me when I responded with even further disgust because my irritated facial expression was “cute.” At times when I accidentally kicked him in the face while trying to get my feet away, he would become angry with me and say sternly, “Stop that! I was just playing around with you!” As the subject has arisen again during my adulthood (usually within the context of this person’s reminiscing about my childhood), I still haven’t been able to convince him that popping my toes was not playful teasing, but instead a legitimate affront to my physical boundaries. Even now as I write this, I feel my blood pressure rising a bit.

The purpose of this post is not to submit my family member with a proclivity for toe-popping to a round of public shaming. God knows that in my own interactions with children as an adult, I have also made mistakes regarding respect for boundaries. When tutoring, it’s not always easy to remember that certain kids don’t welcome hugs as celebrations of skill mastery. After painstakingly preparing a meal for a child I’m babysitting, it can be tempting to insist that she eat all her meat, vegetables, and fruits before leaving the table even when she says she’s full. Regrettably, I’ve made many such errors in judgment in the past when it comes to children. I’ve since seen that my decisions in these situations were motivated by concern for my own needs and wants while I lacked awareness of another person’s needs and wants.

Herein lies the reason I felt so deeply compelled to spill some thoughts on this topic: our blog is about the experience of living a celibate vocation, and respect for bodies is just as important for celibates as it is for people who are sexually active. Children begin developing senses of appropriate boundaries early in life based on the models they see from adults. Children aren’t lesser beings. They are people, and their boundaries matter. I know very few adults who would disagree with this theoretically, but many of us need to do better about putting it into practice with the children in our lives. If we don’t respect children’s boundaries, we are sending the message that there is no such thing as choice in physical intimacy. This message can be incredibly damaging for tiny humans who will eventually grow up and be faced with all kinds of pressures regarding sex, whether they choose celibacy or another way of life.

One of the sharpest hurdles along my journey to a celibate partnership was an incorrect belief that all intimate, more-than-friendship relationships must necessarily include (or have the potential for future inclusion of) sexual activity. I spent several years thinking this, and as a result I ended up turning against my conscience and compromising my own physical boundaries on many occasions. Reflecting on this now, I see that my struggles with saying “No” came in part from my lack of understanding that my body was not made simply for the amusement of another human being.

As a teenager raised in a Christian home, I believed that because we weren’t married I had the right to say “No” if my boyfriend asked me to have sex. However, I can honestly say I had no idea that it was also my prerogative to state something like, “I don’t want you to hold my hand.” I thought these signs of physical affection were obligatory if we were more than friends and were potentially headed toward marriage. When I came into young adulthood and accepted my sexual orientation, any remote idea that I had rights concerning physical boundaries flew out the window. The question of how such things were supposed to work in the context of a lesbian relationship completely blew my mind. I was relatively innocent regarding sex and had experienced mixed messages about physical affection limits before my college years. I had remembered hearing, “No sex or touching of private parts until you’re married” and that rubbing my high school boyfriend’s shoulders was enough to upset my parents, but I don’t recall ever getting the message that I could make my own determinations about other things that felt wrong in my body simply because of my feelings on the matter. It has only been within the past few years that I’ve come to see how wrong I was about this.

Somewhere along the way to my early twenties, I came into the notion that sex was something I owed to another woman if we had decided to pursue a more-than-friends relationship. Not only did I think I would be obliged to her in this way, but I also believed that obligation would extend to whatever sexual actions she wanted to perform. Despite this, something just didn’t seem okay with giving another person unfettered control over my body. About three weeks into one of my first serious relationships and following two weeks of my girlfriend’s complaining that I was “leading her on,” I asked her, “What does having sex with another person mean to you?” I was anticipating responses like “intimacy,” “closeness,” and “connection.” Her response took me completely by surprise: “It means getting the pleasure I want, and maybe the other person will experience some pleasure too,” she replied cooly. She began to explain that sex was a means to an end, and that’s exactly how–less than a week later–she approached our first time together. When I requested that we stop a few minutes into the experience, she paid no attention and continued with what she had been doing. And I’ll always remember her response a couple of days later when I finally had the courage to confront her: “What’s the matter? I was just playing around with you.”

Speaking of boundaries, I think I’ve reached mine with this post. Writing even this much on such a sensitive topic has been a bit exhausting. I don’t mean to imply that one can trace all my sexual mistakes back to popped toes. I’m quite confident that it doesn’t work that way, and I’m responsible for my own actions as an adult. I’ve experienced a number of physical boundary violations in my life up to this point, and discussions of those might be material for future blog posts. But I cannot stress enough how vital it is to remind children that they can reject unwanted touch even if the toucher has innocent intentions. It’s our responsibility as adults to model respectful behavior toward all people’s bodies. If this doesn’t happen, we run the risk of teaching the wrong lesson: that expressions of sexuality, whether sexually active or celibate, are ultimately all about satisfying other people.

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