The Goal: Every Moment(.) On Purpose

I went to bed this afternoon because I was… uh, I didn’t want to do anything else. And Mauko was being cute on the bed so I also wanted to cuddle with her. And I had a dream:

I went cycling up a mountain. It was damp and snowy all around, and the dirt roads were muddy. Up, up, up I went. Then on the other side of the mountain, I was able to retire in a nice cabin facing a big river (like the Columbia). Lydia and I were hanging out in there when I peered out the window and saw the sunset was fantastic over the lake. So I grabbed my camera (the silver Sony DSLR), and a wide lens I have for it, and ran down to the vista that extended over the river.

On my left and behind me, part of the highway that ran parallel to the river extended over the river for a stretch (over a little bay of the river, I guess). Anyway, I tried to attach my wide angle lens to my camera (because I wanted to get the river and the clouds and the rainbow in the photo, but one side of the lens wouldn’t attach, so I had to manually hold it to the front of my camera while I took the photo. I looked through the viewfinder to take a photo (my view in the dream was looking through my own eyes (as opposed to a third person looking down at myself)). So I was looking through the viewfinder, and about to snap the photo, when a huge, long, boat (it resembled a train, really) sped out of control toward the part of the highway that went over the water. I followed it with my camera and pressed the shutter right when it hit the concrete. The auto focus took a second to auto focus (but it was a long boat-train, so it was colliding with the highway for a while), and then it clicked. I took the camera down away from my face, in order to see if there were any huge stones or slabs of concrete hurtling through the air toward me. There weren’t, so I looked down at the screen of my camera in time to see the one-second preview of the photo that comes up after you take a photo. It was perfect. I captured a huge catastrophe with my camera. It was an important photo.

I then started running toward the scene of the catastrophe, in case I could help anyone. Then I saw some people’s ground collapse from under them and plunge them into the water. It was a cold area, by the way, in a cold season. I wondered if the water was freezing. As a fellow emerged from the water I called out to him, “is it cold?” and he responded, “what do you think??” However, he was blue. Immediately the vista I was standing on felt the impact of the recent collision, and also collapsed into the water. In fact I noticed that guy was blue right when I was falling backwards into the water. “Uh oh. This water is going to be cold, because that guy was blue.” And I heard my camera plop into the lake before the rest of me hit the water. It was certainly cold. It shocked my body. But I was able to swim a short distance to where other people were wading in the water and I huddled with them, waiting for someone to save us. It wasn’t a feeling of doom. I knew we were going to be okay.

I woke up about then, and I had three thoughts immediately. First, “Man, I still never got a shot of that sunset.” Second, “Why don’t I ever put the camera strap around my neck like I’m supposed to?” Third, “I think my super photo is safe, even though submerged in the lake. Once one of my memory cards was in a snowy pool of water near a gutter in front of the Rickards’ house for days. Scott found it and gave it to me, and it still worked, and all the data on it was fine.”

Lydia and I have been playing Castle Crashers lately on the XBOX 360. When you gain a level, you can place points in your Strength, Magic, Defense, or Agility. So you can only build certain abilities at a time. Which means you are required to not build other abilities. So you can be a jack of all trades, or be especially good at one or two things. And when it goes to the screen where you have to allocate these points, I’m never very sure what I really want to do.

And that’s pretty much the story of my life.

But then there’s the subject of quests… many RPGs (not Castle Crashers) let you pursue quests, that may or may not have to do with “beating the game”. Many are strictly optional. This is how it works: you talk to a townsperson, or find a note, or get summoned by the princess, and you’re commissioned a quest. The quest description shows up in your log book, and when you complete the quest it deletes it from your log book.

So, my life has a log book, and the list of quests is really really long. Which quest should I pursue?

I think that Life has most often offered me this answer: There are a lot of good choices. So just hurry up and start one.

Unicorn Dream Attack - Bit3rsw33t

…as promised. Lydia came up with most of this stuff.

First of all: www.betterworldshopper.com. It rates products and companies based on how responsible they are. They have a $2 iPhone app, too (totally worth it!). This is probably the resource I use the most in daily routine.

I’m downsizing. These are CDs I’m giving away. Email me, comment on my blog, or FB message me if you want any. I will take whatever’s left to CD/Game Exchange at the end of June.  ┼ means there’s no case for the CD.

Boards of Canada - Happy Cycling

I love teaching. Teaching will always be a significant part of my life. I love observing other teachers and seeing how they teach.

This is not what I want to talk about in this post, but one of my favorite quotes goes, “[A good teacher creates environments for self-learning.]”

Anyway, I know I have some strengths in my teaching abilities. I can organize large amounts of information in my head for presentation, quickly, for instance.

However, there’s something I’m bad at.

I’m bad at isolating certain places of my own life journey. My life journey advances so quickly, that I end up taking for granted what I learned upon the way. And then I assume that others have learned the same things. And I’ll teach on a subject, but that subject requires prerequisite [information]. But I won’t know what the prerequisites are, because I can’t isolate them. They’re already too integrated into me.

Journaling more frequently would help me identify my growth steps. Do you have any other tips?

Minotaur Shock - My Burr

When Everyone Else is “Doing It…”

I had suggested to Josh that he submit a post on the misconception that everyone in their teens/early twenties is already “doing it,” so therefore, you (as a teenager/young adult) should, too. He kindly suggested that I should be a guest blogger and write this post. First of all, not everybody else is doing it. You may hear classmates talk about it, but believe it or not – they are most likely exaggerating what really happens. Not to mention if they are having sex, most likely it’s not good/meaningful sex. I have invited my husband to share some insight as a high school teacher who is privy to overhearing lots of teenage conversations. When he’s finished, I am going to share some more reasons to consider waiting until you’re older to have sex.

Paul writing: husband that is, somehow. To say that I have the privilege of overhearing the kids talk about sex is an understatement. Not only do kids feel it necessary to share, but because I have no qualms or boundaries about anything, I will openly discuss sex—or anything—with my kids, and they talk openly to me because they know two things about me: First, I am willing to answer their questions without judging them; and second, my answers will be genuine without the contrite bullshit that their parents/friends/pastors/random strangers might spew forth.

Now that I have established my credibility, or lack there of, I had several experiences recently that relate to what my wifey is talking about. This kinda shows how kids really do want to talk about sex but have no one they can talk about it with. IS and KS were a couple for three years, from sophomore through senior year. They graduated in June of 08. They never had sex in high school. She was more than ready; he was not. After they graduated, but before heading off to college, they finally did have sex, disaster ensues. IS came to visit me shortly thereafter and was telling me about the disaster (inability and uncertainty of the participants) when LG, (currently a senior) walked into my room. LG and IS have known each other for years, they were both in my debate program, so we are all close. IS continues his story, and when he is done LG says she is so glad that her and her boyfriend have waited. My jaw dropped. I had assumed that LG and her boyfriend DP were very sexually active, just by the things they say to each other and they way they behave. Turns out, they aren’t. So, LG and I got to talking about it later on…and my discovery, which was later confirmed by talking to KS when she came to visit, and by then talking to some other kids as random questions emerged, was that not a lot of kids are having a lot of sex. I had mistakenly assumed they were, because they know so much. But the reality is that they know a lot of theory, but have no practice. This of course begs the question where do kids learn about some of the more “interesting” things out there, and then I realize that you are reading this on the internet and my own question is answered. When I was in high school, back in the mid 90’s, the internet was new, and we had to learn about sex the old fashioned way: porn videos taken from older brother’s collections. Kids today have a plethora of information, or misinformation, just a google search away.

(As a side note, I think we all have to just blame porn for the entire misconception kids have as to what sex is. Physiologically—I kinda teach science—porn stars represent only about .1% of the human population. The vast majority of us do not have 12 inch penises or DDD breasts, and if you were to actually try some of the stuff you see on video or the internet without the three hours of preparation that goes into one minute of filming, you will hurt yourself, and each other. Case in point: one of my seniors from class of 07 whose boyfriend convinced her to have anal sex with him. To make a long story short, they did not prepare her for him, and he basically shoved it in her rectum, causing some tissue damage. Nothing permanent, but she had to wear adult diapers for a few days until the outer and inner sphincter muscles had healed and could close properly. End of digression.)

Back to my point…Certainly there are kids who are having sex, but from what I can figure the numbers are running parallel to how fishing works—90% of the fish (sex) are caught by 10% of the fisherman (kids). Granted those 10% are having a lot of sex, and a lot of other kids have tried it (mostly disastrous failures that they will only admit much later in life). There really is NOT a lot of sex going on. But they will never admit it. It’s too bad that there is so much pressure though for kids to have sex, so much so that they can’t just be kids.

I am just going to dive right in and say that I lost my virginity when I was seventeen. I was a senior in high school and I was (obviously) not married. I was in a meaningful relationship with the person and eventually married him and loved him at the time, but…

If my daughter were seventeen and came to me for advice on whether or not to have sex, I would suggest that she wait. (She is only two now, but I am praying for a relationship with her that is open and honest where she actually would come to me like that.) There are so many reasons I would tell her to wait – and none of them religious. If she is a practicing Christian and at the time truly wants to stay pure for her God and her future husband and herself, I will do everything in my power to support her in that decision. Josh and Lydia have done an extremely good job of discussing sex and reasons for waiting and ways to make it wholesome and meaningful. However, I recognize that there may be some teenagers/young adults out there who are still considering having sex for the sake of just having sex, regardless.

Non-religious reasons to wait until you’re older to have sex:

• Sex is extremely powerful and extremely emotional and I believe it takes a certain amount of maturity to handle the power and emotion involved that many teenagers probably don’t have yet. Here’s what I mean by sex is powerful – especially for a girl. I was kind of dorky in high school and didn’t have a lot of boyfriends and definitely was planning on waiting until marriage. Once I finally had sex, I realized that I loved it. Not as a romantic act with my partner, but the actual physical responses it caused in my body. I think if I had had sex at an earlier age without someone serious, I would have had sex with just about every boy at my school because I liked it and it would have made me feel pretty and desirable to suddenly have boys look at me. At the time, that may have sounded like fun, but the physical risks (pregnancy and STD’s) and the emotional risks (boys not calling me back after I had sex with them) would have been unimaginable. I thank God that I at least waited until I had almost graduated and was in a committed relationship!
• Because of my parents/society’s ideas about sex and relationships, I thought that because I had sex before marriage, then I definitely should marry the guy. Like I said, I loved him at the time, but I loved him with a 17-year-old’s ability to love. We did get married and our marriage did not last because I did not know enough about myself at the time to be in such a committed relationship. Now I know most of you out there probably wouldn’t rush out and get married, but you may feel like you should stay with that person for years to come, when they may not be the one for you and you will waste precious years learning about yourselves and who you could be and who you could be with others. I have since remarried and in many ways, 13 years later, I am still learning about myself and who I am in a relationship.
• If you have the “experimentation” mentality like I did, you may not just stop at intercourse. For example, there’s (and I have not done all these things): oral sex, anal sex, pornography, threesomes, and bondage. With a loving spouse, I think oral sex is appropriate and pleasurable, but none of the others. They may sound like fun at the time, but can be extremely physically and emotionally damaging for people too emotionally young to handle them.
• This is tangential, but related and important, especially for girls. Believe it or not, (from what my husband has told me and maybe some other guys out there can back me up on this one), it is not necessarily appealing to other guys to know you’re “easy.” Low-cut tops and mid-riffs and thongs showing may seem sexy to today’s youth, but it’s much more sexy and appealing to have some mystery about your body and to not show it all off. (Paul’s addition: there are girls you take home (low cut tops, thongs, etc), and there are girls you take home to Mom (the other group). I often tell my students that I dated the cheerleaders, but married the drama dork.)

When it all comes down to it, the decision to have sex should be made by just you. Not kids around you, not your significant other, not your parents, and not movies. Ten years later, heck, even one year later – those other influences will become insignificant but you will always be left with the memories of your first time. And even if everyone around you is “doing it”, there is no reason that you can’t be happy not.

Posted by Sarah.

Us males can get sexually turned on even when we don’t intend to be. We can see an image, and it can turn us on against our will. It may be a generalization, but this doesn’t happen like that, or as much, with women (so I hear).

Jesus, exaggerating, says to cut your eyes out of your head (and throw them) if they cause you to lust.

This is a hard saying. Though he was hyperbolizing (hmm. Apple OSX’s Text Edit recognizes hyperbolizing as a valid word. Wordpress does not. I trust Apple more), he was serious about the subject matter. He was talking about internalizing God’s famous Ten Words to the Israelites. Instead of merely refraining from adultery, one shouldn’t even allow adulterous thoughts into his heart.

I wish I could define some terms with Jesus. Lust. This reminds me of the guy who, after Jesus told him to love his neighbor, said to Jesus, “…but who is my neighbor?”

“What do you mean by ‘lust’?”

Which of these thoughts, upon looking at a woman on the front of Cosmopolitan in a grocery store, counts as lust?:

“Wow, she’s beautiful”
“Wow, she’s hot”
“Wow, what smooth skin”
“Wow, nice boobs”
“Wow, I want to have sex with her”
“Wow, I can imagine having sex with her right now… first I’d take of my shirt…”

I don’t know where the line is concerning lust, but I do know that many of us have personal standards, and that’s what I want to work with in this post. Sometimes we find ourselves thinking too much about sex, when we didn’t intend to do so. Or we look at pornography, or masturbate, when we didn’t intend to do so.

Sometimes we do things that we don’t intend to do. This applies to many things, but for the sake of keeping in the series, we’ll apply it to sex.

I’m not sure where to fit this next part in, but I need to get it out there: pornography is not a personal issue. It’s a social issue. I grew up thinking viewing pornography would adversely affect me only. False. One of the most horrific and wide-spread crime industries is human trafficking (including sex trafficking). Most women involved in prostitution/pornography are involved against their will (recommended reading). Accessing pornography perpetuates sex trafficking. Even if you’re looking at both-party consensual pornography, it contributes to the industry demand. It doesn’t matter how many trafficking rings are broken up if the demand continues. Another supplier will rise up.

With that rant out of the way, let’s talk about finding practical ways to behave how you intend.

We tend to be compartmental in thinking about aspects of life. So we assume that we can exercise self control sexually, but, for instance, feed our belly whatever it wants whenever it wants it. However, the truth is that if you cannot control your [diet], then it’s likely you won’t be able to control yourself sexually. So think holistically. If you want to change a pornography habit, consider that you’ll also likely need to change your sleeping habits, homework habits, work habits, etc. I think I’ll write a future post solely about this topic…

Habits remind me of my frequent trips to Boba World in Pasadena with friends (yeah. Boba.com. How’s that for official?). When you got back on the 210 heading East from Fair Oaks Ave. (entering straight into the carpool lane!), there was a groove that my right set of wheels settled into. I could take my hands off of the steering wheel and my Honda would stay in the lane, even when the freeway curved. Habits are like that. They form literal grooves in your brain, that deepen with repetition, so that eventually the behavior can be done in autopilot.

Secondly, habits are like little monster pets, like my Jr. High Tamagotchi. When you indulge in a habit (whether it’s reacting in anger or watering the houseplants every Tuesday), you’re feeding the little monster pet. And the little monster pet gets bigger and stronger. Likewise, if you deny the habit, the little monster pet gets weaker and smaller. If you starve him, he’ll (eventually) die.

If you’re giving up [pornography], consider marking your calendar when you resist the temptation for that day. But if you resist the next day, make a double mark instead. The second day meant more than the first, because you’re more effectively starving your little monster pet. On the third day of resistance, make three marks. If you give in and feed him, you can start over with the marks the next day, or you can decide on a number of marks to take away (I might take away 5 or 10 marks). For more on this idea, or for software that accomplishes this same thing, read Jerry Seinfeld’s philosophy on the matter.

—————–

Often the “battle with lust” is considered a male issue. And so it’s women that are the objects of temptation for men. And so at church beach parties, women are [encouraged] to dress modestly…

Actually, I’m going to refer you to another post, written by Magpie Girl. She says it better than I could ever:

Excerpt:

Women get the message in church quite a bit—that there is something wrong with their physical selves, that their bodies are dangerous and sinful… I mentioned how this message – that women’s bodies were a temptation to men and should therefore be restrained, covered up, and hidden from view as much as possible, was a common message in the church. I explained that the only time women were mentioned as physical beings was in some story about how tempting they were, or perhaps to instruct them on a less revealing dress code while singing in the worship band.

Please read the rest of the post.

I include this to point out that the issue of “purity” is complex and has potential unintended ramifications (like demonizing women’s bodies). Sexual purity of life and thought (especially as a teenager) is not just about not thinking about sex or looking at pornography, just like the Christian life is not just about not sinning. Look at the bigger picture. Purity isn’t the goal. It’s means to a goal. How is purity affecting your union with God? How is it helping you live a full life? How is it helping you become the person God intends for you to become? How is it helping you to help others?

Kashmir - The Curse Of Being A Girl.mp3

Regarding this series:

Commenting anonymously

Due to asstounding lack of foresight, when crafting my invitation to comment anonymously, I didn’t realize that I’d want to differentiate multiple anonymous commenters. That is, if you posted as Anon, you might be mistaken as another who has posted as Anon.

So, if you’d like, you can just make up a name. Anon02, AnonSassyGirl, GargantAnon are some good examples. You’re welcome to my great anonymous name ideas.

Sexuality/romantic relationships on other blogs

Travis over at Living As a Foreigner has begun to write about sex, and I’d like to think he was inspired from this series =d. If you have articles on your blog about these topics, shoot me a note. I’d love to create a link for you on my blog.

Facebook notes and commenting

Several folks have told me face to face that they’ve been following the series on my Facebook. FB receives the RSS feeds from my original posts and then posts them as notes (which is really cool!), but then it ignores all the comments. If you’ve a mind to join in the discussion, please make comments on my blog, instead of on Facebook. At the moment that I’m writing this, 36 37 comments have been made on the series. If you commented in FB, you’d be missing the discussion that already exists. Thanks for understanding.

Guest Bloggers

I’ve recently asked another person (the first was Lydia) to be a guest blogger. This request was born out of an email discussion that I had with her. That is, I didn’t know she had things to say about a certain matter until it came out in conversation. That is to say you might have something great to share that I’d want to post in this series. Here is a criteria:

• Obviously the content should be regarding sex and romantic relationships.
• The content should contain points that aren’t commonly made. If the content is just repeating what I heard growing up, I probably won’t be interested. And/or
• The content should reflect your own experiences. Be humble and don’t assume that your version of life is the best for everyone. Don’t just sit there and preach at people (sorry if that’s what I do).
• A “this is my sex story” story is perfectly acceptable. Stories by nature have more credence in my book than information presentation.

So if you have something you’d like to offer to contribute, write a post up, email it to me (josh {dot} d {dot} england {at} gmail {dot} com), and I’ll decide if it fits in this series (yes, it’s subjective and based on my whims. Try to email me on a good day. Just kidding, for the most part).

From Monument to Masses - Comrades & Friends (Loquat Remix)

Josh here. My wife, Lydia, typed out her experience with sex. She wrote it with the intention of sharing with women only in a private Facebook group, but she was willing to share it here, too, since the articles here were already talking about sex. I think this helps show our candidness- how serious we are about being open to (especially) teens. After the song and image is Lydia’s story.

Warm regards,
Josh

Julie Doiron - Tonight is No Night (Lyrics)

I’m going to tell you a little about myself. Please tell us your story if you would like to.

My story has a happy ending, an idyllic beginning, and cloudy middle.

I was always taught that sex was meant for married couples. I learned this from my parents, in church, and through societal expectations.

I took on this moral standard of saving sex for marriage very seriously. I used to think that I would curl up and die of shame if I ever had sex before marriage.

But, at the same time, when I was a teenager, I wanted to have sex. There were times where I didn’t know if I could keep my commitment to purity. I did though. I almost gave in during a shady relationship in high school, but I kept my promise to remain pure for my future husband.

When I started a romantic relationship with Josh, who shared my goal of saving sex for marriage, we set boundaries. We led an upright relationship (not just figuratively but literally-*snicker*). I look back today and really feel like we were blameless.

We both entered into our marriage as virgins. On our wedding day I was nervous about starting our sexual relationship. It was something that I had waited for all my life, and here I was about to experience it.

We didn’t expect sex to be perfect at first, but we did expect it to be rewarding on our honeymoon for all of our waiting.

We never thought that sex would be a point of contention in our marriage. We had such chemistry and love for each other, and knew that sex was supposed to be good!

It ended up being one of the most difficult things to deal with in our marriage.

We had read books before we got married, and I had talked to a doctor about it, and a couple of my girlfriends were so kind to volunteer some advice. All of that helped but didn’t quite prepare me for the experience.

I just wanted our first experience with intercourse to be full of love making and passion. It wasn’t. It didn’t feel magical or special. And that was very disappointing. It felt like experimentation. It didn’t feel full of love for months.

Our first night of marriage was actually a really good memory. We didn’t have sex but spent a romantic and fun night together in bed at our apartment.

On the second night we arrived late at our honeymoon beach house. I wanted to have sex that night but Josh told me on the way there that he was too exhausted from the drive and didn’t want to try it that night. I was a little disappointed but fine with it.

Then in the middle of the night he changed his mind. *smirk* By then, I was too tired. I went along with his advances for a little while because I wanted to satisfy him and I didn’t want to deny him. But that was a mistake because soon he could see that I was not into it, and he was deeply hurt that I had been so unresponsive towards his first try to have sex with me.

We were successful at the act the next morning, but it was not pleasurable to me, and it was nothing special.

From Josh’s first attempts at sex he was kind of turned off to the idea of having sex with me. He was still wounded. He remained that way for about a month. We had sex but not as much as I thought we should have. I couldn’t believe that I wanted to have sex more than he did. It was a horrible feeling to be a woman who couldn’t get her sexual desires met by her husband. I felt lonely.

We talked to each other about what was going on with our sex life. Josh eventually got over his bad experience with sex.

Our next difficulty was that when he wanted to have sex, I wasn’t in the mood. And wen I wanted to have sex he wasn’t in the mood. We were constantly missing each other in this way. It took a while to balance out. But meanwhile it was hard to a have patience with each other. I think I had that hardest time accepting it when he didn’t want to have sex with me.

We were also having other difficulties in our relationship. The first year of marriage was full of pain and disappointment. But At the mark of the the first year we felt accomplished. We had overcome many challenges together and we were feeling all the better for it.

[Josh speaking: I wrote the following few paragraphs to include in Lydia's story:]

Whenever sex didn’t work out, it was deeply hurtful to me- more hurtful than what makes sense. There’s something about sex that’s tied to my heart and my manhood, and when I experienced failure it rattled me to the core. It was traumatic, actually, and therefore each sex experience would affect future sex attempts (bad experiences could induce a downward spiral. Lucky for us, good experiences eventually created an upward spiral). Most of our sex failures had to do with missing each other’s moods.

Lydia had a belief that she needed to try to have sex with me when I wanted it, even if she didn’t. So we’d start making love, but I received mixed signals. She’d make advances, but I could sense something was wrong. Her lack of passion would make me nervous and hesitant, dooming our experience. It definitely would have been better if she had turned me down before we tried- it wouldn’t have created as many negative associations. Not that I’m blaming it on her. I was often withdrawn emotionally (more or less in the first year of marriage, but exceedingly so in the first few months) because of the shock of being married. When Lydia wanted sex, I would be withdrawn and incapable of joining with her at any level. In this way I communicated that I didn’t want her (or that I didn’t think she was beautiful, or whatever), and each of those events also affected future experiences.

So that’s a description of us missing each other’s moods. But my main point is that it was traumatic, and each experience affected the next. Even when everything was going smoothly, the memory of failure could turn up and ruin the moment. It was bleak sometimes, and very lonely.

[End Josh, start Lydia:]

We’ve been married for three and a half years now. We are doing better than ever. It’s been an upward all the way. There are always challenges that we have to face together and there always will be.

We enjoy meaningful and pleasurable sex together now. We are still working on it!

Take what you may from my story, but here is one thing that I will point out to you. At times I have looked back on my life of sexual purity and I have doubted whether or not all that waiting was worth it. Was it worth it to wait for a disappointing night and a relational trial? Then I remember how much my husband and I have bonded through learning about sex together. I’m glad that I saved this experience to share with him. In our situation, waiting until marriage helped us to be in a position where we could trust each other to be committed to work out our problems together.

One of the things that I regret is having so much fear to learn about sex. I wish that it wouldn’t have been an embarrassing thing to talk about with my mother. I wish that I would have talked to more friends about it. I wish that I would have known more about my body before I entered into a sexual relationship with my husband.

Also, I didn’t allow myself to learn about sex and contraception until sometime into my engagement due to my embarrassment of the topic and fear that it would fill me full of lust. I wish that I would have known earlier about sex and contraception.

Please take note: My story is not everyone’s story. There are many versions of the “first sex story”. Some people have it more difficult than I did, and for some people it really wasn’t that difficult.

Posted by Lydia

The first time I saw Lydia, she walked into the classroom on the first day of the semester, when I was already seated. I had never seen anything so beautiful. Time slowed down. The ~thirty other students in the class blurred out of vision. If I had been close enough to hear her speak, all the other sounds in the room would have faded. I wasn’t entirely sure she was human.

Lydia noticed me for the first time a semester later. Heh.

I honestly did not consider pursuing Lydia romantically. I was dating someone else at the time, and secondly, I had a lifetime’s experience with girls I liked not liking me. Nevertheless, my point is that something like love at first sight happened to me.

Now, if we’re at an eligible age, we can become obsessed with finding “the right one”. If we’re religious, then we can become obsessed with God leading us to the one that [he] intends for us. The subject becomes central in our prayers, because although we’re devoted to God alone, we’re helplessly drawn to the idea of being with another human. Frustratingly, the Bible has little to no information on the subject (hmm. This is becoming a theme in this series). Jesus doesn’t seem to be concerned at all with romance (I think the only time he mentions marriage is when he tells the Sadducees that there’s no marriage in the afterlife), and Paul says that we should stay single if we can help it. As a rule, Biblical authors have so many assumptions about finding a mate that they don’t find the need to write about it. More on the Bible later in this post.

But even though the Bible doesn’t help us choose a mate, we have a big Christian culture that tells us plenty. It says that God does indeed have someone in mind to be our spouse. One fellow involved in ministry told me that his church will not let him progress in status/rank/responsibility until he gets married. I’ve heard many Christians talk about something called “soul ties”. I’ve heard all sorts of criteria for prospective mates. I’ve heard of people telling other people that they heard God tell them to marry the other. I’ve heard conflicting information, wise information, and silly information. And most things I’ve heard would be tenuous at best to pull from the Bible. Not to say that it’s all bull, but please be aware that your romance philosophy is based on popular culture, not Biblical ordinance.

To be clear, although the Bible reveals how people pursued marriage in the Ancient Near East (ANE), it does not say, “you should pursue marriage like this…” or even, “you should pursue marriage like people living in Biblical times did.” In the ANE (in other words, for people in the Bible), most marriages were arranged (and still are in many places in the Middle East, India, and other countries). So, one could say that Biblically, marriages are to be arranged (so please be careful when using the term “biblically”. Someday I’ll write about how much it annoys me when people throw the term around loosely.). So although arranged marriages are “Biblical”, in American Christian culture the idea of arranged marriages is laughable. Again, my goal is to point out to you that your romance philosophy is based on popular culture, not Biblical ordinance.

My story of adoring Lydia from the first moment I saw her speaks of fate, of God’s providence. However, I’m quite certain that both of us could happily be married to other people. I believe that God knew of the possibility of Lydia and I being together. I believe God helped our relationship, before we were married, to foster skills, emotions, and wisdom for a good marriage. I believe [he] would have been willing to do that for Lydia and another man, and with me and another woman.

That being said, I believe people who say God led them to their spouse. I have room in my cosmology for multiple manifestations of romantic partnerships. If God tells you to marry someone, then by all means…

Be cautious, however. If you have the desire to marry, then your hormones and emotions will compete with God as voices in your heart. In fact, I think that you can safely assume that the voice telling you to marry someone is not God.

If you believe God wants you to marry a specific girl, whatever you do, don’t tell her that! There is no reason. If God ordains it, then it would be so even if you don’t tell her what God told you. If you do tell her, but you were mistaken in hearing God, then you will do damage to her and to your relationship with her, and lower your chances to marry her. And by the way, if I was the girl, I would be much more flattered if you actually wanted to marry me, as opposed to doing your obedient duty to God.

Speaking of actually wanting to marry me, I see too many people in love with the idea of being in love with someone, of being in love with the idea of marriage. They go forth, looking for someone who can fulfill this dream, and if they find someone, then their desire to be married (to anyone) is met. I’ll say it again: they’re in love with an idea. I knew a man who was like this, and I became concerned for every girl he met, because you could see the desire in his eyes for her, though he just met her. Don’t be like him. Love the girl, not the idea of marriage. Love the boy, not the idea of marriage.

Okay, back to the topic at hand. I mentioned love at first sight. There’s also the feeling of love in general… perhaps you just started dating someone, or perhaps you just really have a crush on him. And the feeling you feel, well, it must be love. But it’s also attraction, and it’s also your emotions, and it’s also chemical releases in your brain. I’m not saying it’s not love, it’s just that we’re made up of a lot of different parts. You see, we’re not separate parts that are disconnected from each other. Your heart is aching for the boy with the cooperation of your spirit, and your sexual organs, and your conditioned habits. You’re one entity. (Also a topic for another post is how our culture makes these separations {spiritual from physical, etc.}).

Isn’t it a little disconcerting that feelings of love can be reduced to a scientific explanation? Chemical reactions in your brain. That’s all. In the same way, your pet dog can be dissected and explained as a sum of it’s body parts. The explanation doesn’t do justice to the being that is a dog, but there’s value in looking at things in new ways. Try considering your feelings of love as non-magical. The exercise could lead you to new understandings.

Feelings of love (and love at first sight), are not the stuff that makes up healthy marriages. They’re involved but mostly as a byproduct. That’s partly why arranged marriages are more successful than the Western style, because feelings of love don’t take precedence over a choice to love. More on this in another post (maybe…), but this is why I see that Lydia and I could be happily married to other people. The substance of my relationship with Lydia has been built on me choosing to love her consistently. I haven’t been able to rely on my feelings of love for her– even though I think she’s the most beautiful girl in the world.

Good luck, may God lead you.

The Darkness - Love is Only a Feeling