The Monk Downstairs
(This paperback version include book group discussion questions and the first chapter of the sequel.)

Recently I requested all of my medical records to lug with me to Denmark in my continued quest to stay out of status migranosis. There were two manila envelopes full of them — and that was just from one neurologist. The beginning of every office visit summary starts out like this:

“The patient is a pleasant middle aged woman….”

Excuse me? But how did that happen?

Perhaps the reality that at 38 I am, apparently both ‘pleasant’ and ‘middle aged’, is what led me to enjoy The Monk Downstairs so much. The New York Times Book Review describes it as such:

“A tender, witty novel in which a former monk, after twenty years in his order, rents an apartment from a 38 year old single mother; the ensuing relationship grows cautiously, taking account the prudence required of struggling people who aren’t going to get that many more chances.”

See anything that might appeal to moi? Monks, motherhood, spiritual crisis, being 38…

Even if you have less in common with this characters than I do, you will still find this to be a well executed novel with real, flawed, loveable characters and everyday life experiences that just might help you feel companioned for a journey. I’m especially fond of Mike’s struggle to rebuild his spiritual practices after a crisis of religion. (Gee Rachelle, really?) And I was equally touched by Rebecca’s final acceptance that she must experience grief over the crisis moments in her life (ex husbands, bad dates, aging parents.) Author Tim Farrington writes of Rebecca:

She had never allowed herself to grieve wholly before, she realized now. … some pragmatic, self-protective sense had told her that grief was bottomless. Skirting this sea, she had dipped her toes in; she’d wondered what would happen if she crossed the line, but it had always seemed that it could only be a kind of defeat, a drowning, a death. And so it was. But maybe it was not the end, to be defeated by life. Maybe that is even part of what it meant to be a human being; to recognize ways in which death had come, to stop looking away from the failures of love, and to grieve.

Then there is also this great bit from Mike, in which he spots a little bit of wisdom at his first-time-out-of-the-cloister job and records it in a letter to a former brother monk:

..or as my colleagues at McDonald’s put it, “My bad.” I’m sorry I dissed you….The ritual response to a penitential “My bad,” incidentally, is a benevolent, “It’s all good.” The drama of Christ’s forgiveness is reenacted a dozen times a day over the deep fryer and the grill, by teenagers, with refreshing succinctness.

Lest you think this novel is all heaviness, be not afraid! Mike is funny, Rebecca is droll, her daughter is sweet and hilarious, and the sex…we’ll the NY Times Book review is a bit off there because it is neither cautious nor prudent, but pretty damn hot. (Not for the prudish of heart.)

Special kudos to Tim Farrington for writing the character of Rebecca so well. About half way through the novel I thought “Wow. This female character is really spot-on. Who wrote this?” When I turned the book cover over I was surprised to see it was written by a man–so convinced was I that a sister must have created Rebecca’s reality. Props, Tim!

Today’s Flavor: Bittersweet, romantic, and real.

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Ladies and gents, this morning I bring you a very special cross-cultural experience: Eurovision 2008.

Yes friends, long before Simon Powell got snotty on American Idol ,the citizens of Europe have been fighting amongst themselves to find the best songs/performers for the last 53 years. Last night the big finale was held in Belgrade, Serbia and 43 countries reported in with live voting results. With production numbers akin to the opening ceremonies at the Olympics, and with ratings to rival the Superbowl, Eurovision swept the continent last night. Even in little Denmark it was broadcast on no less than 3 stations with voice-over commentary in Danish, Swedish and German.

Truly, I’ve never seen anything weirder.

So here, to ease your way back into the work week with a smile and a baffled shake of the head, are my top pics from Eurovision 2008.

Most Enthusiastic
Latvia – seriously committed to the pirate look with Wolves of the Sea.

Most Confusing
France – always so classy, what with the women in beards an all…. Maybe they should have let Bret and Jemaine enter Foux Da Fa Fa instead.

Most Warped
Azerbaijan – operatic goth angels and something akin to vampires. Someone should probably check their basement for body parts.

Best of Show (According to Moi)
Croatia (music video, not show performance) — 75 yo rapper scratching on a gramophone w/a great band. This one is actually truly good.

Most Avant Garde
Bosnia & Herzegovina - Like the love child of Weird Al Yancovich and Cindy Lauper. Trip-ee!

Best “Ewwwww!” Factor
Spain - Apparently, Borat’s cousin rocks the house for Spain–complete with playskool electric guitar solo.

Most Likely to Rock Hard
Finland - These guys rock like Vikings! (This isn’t the live performance, but their music video. I actually kind of like ‘em!)

Official Winner (Really)
Russia - Do you think ripping open his shirt put them over the edge, or was it the ice skater?

P.s. My regular Monday post is still going up at BlogHer today. It’s on poetry as prayer and you can find it here.

in just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame baloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old baloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it’s
spring
and
the

goat-footed

baloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

-e.e. cummings

Time for Mondo Beyondo…Back to dreaming. Back to fertile ground. Back to reaching for hope.

UPDATE: Congratualtions to Tess Marshall of Anchors and Masts! She won the Mondo Beyondo drawing and will be recieving Begininngs, Tweet, and Reka Twige Kwifasha No Gufasha Abandi (Let’s Learn to How to Help Ourselves and Others) in the mail soon! Thanks to everyone here and on Twitter who played along!

Andrea told Jen, and Jen told me how to write Mondo Beyond Lists. These are the biggest of our big dreams — the real whoppers you can hardly admitt to. Making the list is a little like a prayer, sort of a request to the universe, and if you are very brave, the beginnings of an affirmation.

Since I’ve started the habit I’ve seen some things come to fruition (living abroad, getting out of the body image trap, making a life habit of yoga) and some of those hot desires have cooled down and gone away. (surfing, adopting, living in Italy)

There are new dreams in my being these days and I feel afraid for them, because they seem so fragile. So I decided to write them down today and make them a little more real — things always seem more concrete to me if they are on a page in word or in image. Usually I would want to make a list like this pretty — with watercolors and mixed media. But today all I had was a sharpie and some cardstock. And you know what? It was enough. So here is my Mondo Beyond List for now:

-Sing my lungs out in front of a big crowd, preferably with these folks.

-Transfer (in good time) to the UK, somewhere midsized like this.

-Get a paid, monthly column in a national magazine where I can feature pieces about seasonal rites and rituals.

-Publish three books: Tales from an Urban Abbess, Soulcrafting for Kids, and A Very Mild Narcissist (an image-based journal.)

-Have at least one good Muslim friend with whom I could really share my soul (and vice versa).

-Watch a sabbath community form organically where we could co-exsist with a few soulmates.

-Find a healthy way to practice the priesthood again.

-Travel to Africa with Jen, Mada, Odette, Grace, Lillian, Eden, and Cate to watch the women there step further into thier own power.

-Keep our ties strong with Souren; see him a couple of times a year long enough to reconnect.

-Be truly migraine-free. (Wow, it took all my breathe to whisper that one.)

-Stop fighting with time and be at peace with what I get done in any given day, month, year, season….

-Be on a first-name, call-any-time friendship basis with at least one artist I admire because they are learning to master his or her craft. Right now the short list would include Sabrina, John, Tim,Ira, or any voice from this show.

What is your Mondo Beyondo dreams? Make them real in the comments, give us your top choice on Twitter, or link to your blog below. One lucky Mondo Maker will get a copy of Jen’s new zine, one of the orginals, and just for fun, one of my zines from last year, Tweet. Contest will close on Monday morning. Go on now, dream big!

One of the things I love to do when I travel is too look for what the Celts called “thin spaces”—places where the natural and the spiritual intersect. Most often these are places in nature—streams, wooded glades, or sacred stones. But being the city girl that I am, I often find these holy spots in unexpected urban places. Here’s a stream-of-consciousness journal entry I wrote while visiting two of London’s famous chapels: the ornate and royal Westminster Abbey, and the lesser known and a more austere White Chapel (aka St. John’s Chapel) at the Tower of London.

Walking into this famous cathedral I am immediately disappointed. The view from both the left and right is a jumble of overwrought memorials, each one trying to outshine the next. There are so many of them that at first, I think some have been moved from another part of the cathedral for restoration work. But no, this is the cobbled together result of centuries of hero worship—a marble bonfire of vanities.

This is not a cathedral, but a tomb. Not mosque, but mausoleum. A place of worship, perhaps, but what is one to worship here? Power it seems. Money. On our more optimistic days, perhaps we could say artistry is worshipped here, as the stone has given way to sculptor’s hands, as the tombs shift from warlords to writers.

There is a staff of dear men here, trying to hold back the encroachment of effigies. Men who don red robes and hold wine aloft, who offer candles and incense, and who insist on a minute of stillness at the top of each hour to send their prayers out on a loudspeaker amongst the tourists.

I am standing in the ornate Lady’s Chapel when the bell of my first hour here chimes. The high arched ceiling is an architectural wonder of pleats and patterns. The eye is overwhelmed by its intricacies. In this visually explosive place, I am surprised and grateful for the crowd’s quiet acquiescence to the hourly call to prayer. The room goes silent as a vicar prays for survivors of Burma’s’ flood and China’s earthquake. Tears come to me unexpectedly, and I look longingly at the altar piece – Mother Mary caring for her young—and wish that I could sink into this moment and hold a little space for the parents who are mourning losses today, for the children whose mothers are gone. But although the crowds is willingly stilled for sixty seconds, they are balanced like racers on the balls of their feet, ready to spring forward and consume more sites. The second he says the Amen, the flow of traffic proceeds again, drifting quickly past the Marian shrine, and on to the huge black-and-gilt memorial of King Henry that dwarfs the small white altar.

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Yesterday I sat in another White Chapel, this one at the infamous Tower of London. Compared to the Lady Chapel at Westminster, the White Chapel of the Tower is barren. No, not barren, but spare. There is symmetry here between the clean arches and the rough stone, and a purity of line. It is not ornate. The kings never stayed here long and all the furnishings had to be simple so they could be carried with the court on progress. There is only a simple altar with a central cross, rows of wooden seats, and a single center aisle. All of the beauty is held in the Roman arches, and the age of the stone.

It feels very thin in the chapel, surrounded by all of the uncarved stone. The only representational shape the small cross on the altar. Even though we are several flights up into the Tower, I am drawn to the earthiness here. The altar is roped off, but I come as close as I am able and stand in the heavy stillness. I feel my body align into a centering pose, and I ask to be shown something of this holy space. It comes at me in rush then: the weightiness of the decisions made in this place, so regal in its starkness. Pious rulers knelt here seeking guidance. Greedy rulers came as well, justifying their often vicious actions by naming them as God’s own.

People stream behind me as I feel the importance of the White Chapel. They are flowing through this space to see what lies on either side. The chapel is merely a hallway to most. The portion of the Tower where the White Chapel stands is flanked on either side by rooms full of weapons: colonnades ringed in flintlocks, cannons in every corner, a whole hall of armor with enormous codpieces designed to intimidate one’s foe. Warfare and trickery lay heavily in most of these spaces; bloodshed and sorrow have baptized so many of these rooms. Power misapplied and malingered. But here, in this still stone room, in this dim light, even amongst all these shadows, a un-distilled power resides—some kind of force I cannot quite name: God’s power perhaps, too often ignored, man’s too often honored, and the ongoing strength of stone and silence.

More on Westminster Abbey and looking for London’s thin spaces coming soon…

Related Posts:
Mother Mary Calls to Me
Fairy, Mallard, Lily, Tree: A Christening
Oceans Vast: In the Wake of a Tsunami
Prayer Flags: Intercession for the Gulf Coast

Practicing gratitude for things like this helps keep me where the light is.

Given that we’ve recently moved to a new nation, I’ve done very little public writing about our life in Denmark. There are sheets and sheets of morning pages in my spiral notebooks – mostly about displacement and how it’s triggering delayed mourning in me over a whole slew of lost things. Most of them I can’t bring into focus yet, but one or two are starting to get a little less hazy. Eventually I’ll be able to write about them here, but for now they are still percolating prior to public display.

One thing that has caught me off guard here is the level of depression I’m experiencing. In spite of the charm and adventure of living in Europe, depression is always waiting to find a nearby nesting place. Any of you who have been through a stint with depression knows how even one day of that old sorrowful feeling can make you fear sliping back into the abyss. I’m not overly concerned thus far. As long as the migraines stay relatively infrequent and the Spring unrolls into Summer, I should be okay. Keeping an eye out for my cycle buddy doesn’t hurt either. Still, there are days where there is crying, and phone calls to Jen, and where not even chocolate can help.

Staying present helps. I’m finding that living in the here and now is more helpful than slipping into a past I cannot reclaim, or spinning forward into a future over which I can only pretend to have control. But staying present does not come easily to me. My spirituality tends towards the prophetic which means I live a little less in the now and a bit more in the not yet. In addition, my works as a writer tips me towards the past to find connections between old stories, and casts me into the future looking for new inspiration. But the now, well, the now doesn’t come easily.

Having a rhythm for the day helps me stray present to the current moment. Every day that I deviate from my regular rhythms I find myself living in regret (I should have done X instead…) or being frozen by options (should I write? Bike? Clean the toilet?). Without routine my day too easily becomes a four-hour binge of Dexter, followed by a crabby afternoon where I try to write after the kids come home from school. (Never a good idea.) Last week, when I strayed from the routine, Jen had to spend the bulk of the day talking me out of the sobbing mess that once resembled Rachelle.

Right now the essentials to my daily rhythm include:

Walking through the college garden on my way home from dropping the kids at school. I’m finding that in this busy urban neighborhood I need the relative quiet of the park. Otherwise my tendency to get distracted by sparkly things goes on hyper drive and I can’t quite seem to calm my nervous system.

Writing my morning pages. This practice from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way are a mainstay for many artists and writers. My habit of penning three pages comes and goes as needed, and right now it’s quite needed. I write them every morning as soon as I get home from the school/garden. Now that it’s sunny I can write them on the bedroom balcony – any extra Vitamin D has to help the gloom as well.

Yoga. Yoga. Yoga. Thank god for yogis on DVD. I have to have at least 45 minutes of Vinyasa everyday or I wobble about completely off center. I don’t think I even knew how to be present at all until I started doing yoga. I spent all of my time regretting the past or wondering about the future. But yoga keeps me focused on the current breath, the work of holding one pose and flowing into the next – at least for a few minutes.

Working on a regular schedule. After yoga I grab a shower and get to my desk. Sometimes I actually have to set the kitchen buzzer to make sure I show up at the page on a regular schedule. When I first came to Denmark I tried to write 4-5 hours a day, but right now I’m finding that even 2 or 3 hours is a good day’s work for me – at least when it comes to working on a manuscript. Then I log another couple of hours answering emails and typing up blog posts. Then my alone-time is up, and it’s time to leaving once again to fill my bike basket up with the days groceries, then peddle to the school and pick up the kids.

Without this routine, this rhythm to my day, I’d be a) a basket case, b)completely unproductive.

What staves off your depression? and/or What helps you stay productive as a writer/artist?

Cate was yelling at me. Again.

Every day it’s the same story. I pick Cate up from school and she happily shows me the new trick she can do on the peddle car; the stone she dug up in the sand pit; how many times she can hop the jump rope on one foot. We find Eden and start the ten minute walk home. By minute seven Cate is screaming about something. Anything.

We started with sympathy, then moved on to time outs, and I’m sure at some point there’s been some yelling on my part as well. Clearly Cate was struggling with the transition between school and home. Clearly she was angry. And clearly whatever she was yelling about was not what was really bothering her.

Finally, I sat her down at the kitchen table and got down at eye level. I addressed her very calmly and very seriously, “Cate. This isn’t working. You’re having trouble moving between being at school and being at home. I can see that you are angry, right?”

“Yes! I. AM. ANGRY!” (also crying)

“It’s totally okay to be angry. But screaming at Mommy is not okay, right?”

“RIGHT! OKAY? OKAY? RIGHT! RIGHT! RIGHT!”

“Did you know anger is a cover-up emotion? It covers up some other emotion. Something else is hiding under there.”

“It is?” (now backing down to mere sniffles)

“Yes. And I need you to think about it and tell me what it is that’s hiding under there.”

With that, the floodgates broke open. She missed all the friends she left behind when we moved. She didn’t have any friends at school. And she missed BF Day (her old school.) And some of the kids said mean things. And she doesn’t know Danish yet. And her only friends who speak English live far, far away. And did she mention, she didn’t have any friends at school?

Well, I’d already addressed all of those things. We talked about how making friends was her superpower, but that it took time. I had reminded her that we had only been at the new school for 2 weeks. I had explained that it would take a little longer than usual because we don’t know Danish yet. But, I had assured her, friends would come.

Knowing I’d already said all of this, and having a not unsmall amount of parental wisdom, I did not go into this again. Instead I asked her a question of clarification, “Cate. Do you want Mommy to talk about all these problems with you, or do you just need someplace to put them all.”

“Like what place?”

“Like a shrine.”

“I could make a shrine?”

Sure could. I dove under my desk and came up with three or four odd little boxes and tins. Cate chose a tin that used to hold bandages – Jesus bandages to be exact. After asking for stickers, tape and some scratch paper, Cate went to work. Soon she had a bonafide Shrine for Hard Feelings. It consisted of the bandage tin, a sticker of a sacred heart Jesus, some fortune cookie sized strips of paper cello-taped to the side, and one of those tiny golf pencils. Cate wrote her hard feelings down on the pieces of paper and tucked them into the tin.

“If I put these in here, Jesus will make the sad feelings go away.” she said.

“Well,” I fine tuned, “Jesus might not make them go all the way away, but at least he can hold them for a little while.”

Cate has been faithfully using the Shrine for Hard Feelings for a week now. Sometimes she’ll start ramping up into a yell-fest, but then you can see her sort of visibly pull up, and she’ll say “Wait a minute,” and go find her shrine. I’ll see her scribbling away, then tucking the paper into the tin and snapping it shut. A few minutes later she’ll be back with me, or her sister, or her dad, and the steam will have been vented.

Sometimes I wonder what all my ad hoc spirituality is teaching my children. I’m trying my best — but so did my parents, and my church, and my religious school — and I sure ended up with a bunch of crap mixed in there with the goodies. If I make up random sacraments, if my children spend their lives building Shrines for Hard Feelings and hurling plates at Anger Altars, will they regret it? I am not sure. But this I believe; my attempts, though small and flawed and most assuredly open for misinterpretation, these humble attempts at caring for these precious souls will teach them these true things

Your feelings are real.
Someone loves you enough to help in hard times.
God is big enough to handle your anger.
There is a place for you.

That seems like a good place to start.

Cross-posted at BlogHer with links to other great blogs about children’s spirituality.

Buy a Farm Animal: Change a Life
Donate a buck or a billion at ChipIn

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Original art by Jen Lemen
for Let’s Help Ourselves and Others

It’s a rare day that I find a project so solid and so personal that I’m ready to champion it from the rooftop – but this is one of them! My soulsister Jen Lemen has fallen in love with every African immigrant in her D.C. neighborhood. They inspire her ever day, and she in turn extends a loving hand of assistance whenever she can. From springing someone from human trafficking to getting a sick daughter in Rwanda to the hospital, Jen and her network of passionate folks gets the job done.

Now Jen and Odette are on a mission to take Rwandan school girls the supplies and inspiration they need to be the next generation of leaders in their struggling, determined country. The inspiring Grace McLaren passed the opportunity to Jen to go to Rwanda; Jen asked her blogging pals for some financial support; and in 24 hours there were funds for the trip AND enough to print a book. What kind of book? A full color zine in two languages depicting the story of Odette and her brother Innocent’s clever microbusiness…in a Ugandan refugee camp…when they were 7 and 9 years old. (I cry every time I hear it.)

If this doesn’t convince Rwandan schoolgirls (and middle aged American ladies!) that small attempts can bring significant change, I don’t know what will.

Now that the books and supplies are taken care of, Jen is doing one last ask for a little more money. Innocent needs a cow. I know. It doesn’t sound like much, just one cow. But his niece (Odette’s daughter) is sick, and the meager little house flooded this year, and the cow, well, it will keep his family afloat in a highly tenuous situation.

Do you know what a cow costs in Rwanda? $600 – the equivalent of three trips to Costco or one really crappy dresser from IKEA. Now the Cotsco thing might keep you rolling in frozen lasagna, which I will admit, feels like a lifesaving act some nights in Americana. But a cow will produce enough income to keep this large extended family feed for as long as it lives.

Paul and I are down for $100. Let’s see if we can get her the rest of the way there, shall we?

Donate a buck or a billion at ChipIn.

Friends, thanks so much for reading this. Hold on to hope: all is not lost, Africa can thrive, Rwandan schoolkids can change their world, and one cow can make a difference.

In Kindness and Hope,

Rachelle Mee

For the whole Rwandan Project in orderly detail click here.

We in post-modern America live in a challenging moment in many regards, but especially when it comes to sex and kids. A sexually charged entertainment industry makes sure our children are exposed to body baring clothes and surgically enhanced bust lines as soon as they are old enough to watch cartoons. The infamous marketing machine sells dolls with cleavage, and journals about boyfriends to girls in their tweens; while teenagers watch television programs where actors in their twenties portray high school students ‘hooking up’ for the weekend. Pharmaceutical companies encourage inoculating girls as early as age 9 with the anti-HPV drug to stop the spread of a cancer-producing virus which can only be passed through intercourse. Women who overtly express their sexuality are lauded one news cycle and condemned the next. Porn is available at the click of a button; revealing sex scenes are no longer confined to Rated R movies; and virtual reality chat rooms allow users to do what they will in complete anonymity.

It is in this milieu that we are raising our children.

In the face of so much overt sexuality, it is easy to default to a defense position wherein the most radical steps are taken to keep our children ‘safe.’ Ironically, our very attempts at defense and protection can also create much dysfunction.

There may be no definitive answer to the question, “What should I convey to my children about sex.” And there is certainly no quick chapter and verse that will give us an easy answer. In an issue this nuanced and complicated no parent or mentor will have a perfect track record. Each approach will have its pros and cons, its detractors and its supporters. Because of the complexity of our situation, and the centrality of our sexual identity in defining ourselves as humans, we must find a way to enter into an honest dialogue with one another. The language of debate will only dissolve our opportunity to create new and re-newed approaches to sexual education and sexual identity for the upcoming generations.

That is why I am so pleased by the tone of the conversation going on in the comments around this topic. Chris Brogan, a guest writer at Problogger has said that the best material on his website can be found in the comments. This is a sentiment with which I whole heartedly agree. I want to say ‘Thank You’ to everyone who is participating in this intriguing conversation. Furthermore, I’d like to invite you all to continue on with this important discussion.

There were a couple of themes that emerged out of the comments that I want to think through together a little bit more.

Physical. Relational. Emotional. Phsyical.
Bob and Beth both brought up the idea that perhaps sex is not only physical and relational, but also spiritual in nature. This is something that has intrigued me recently. In the past few years I’ve expanded my friendship circle beyond the walls of the evangelical church. Now, many of my atheistic and/or scientific friends insist that sex is all about brain chemistry and physical relief. (This is the initial argument of the intriguing film, Dopamine.) Meanwhile my artistic and/or spiritual director friends insist that there is a scared component of sexual union that cannot be ignored—especially for women, who hold within their own bodies the power to bring into existence new people! (Ten years after first bearing children this creative reality still blows my mind.)

Which is it? Brain chemistry or emotional and spiritual union? I think the answer is both/and. As the women on Sex and the City are sure to attest, sometimes sex is just a physical release–a hedonistic pleasure that lasts for a moment, and then passes by. Other times, as is captured halfway through the movie Fever Pitch, sex does connect people on an emotional level, and sometimes in a sacramental dynamic. (No good example there…anyone else got one?) If sex is–at least sometimes and perhaps at all times—more than a physical act, then the question becomes: How do I communicate to my children that sex and physical intimacy can contain some, all, or none of these aspects; and that an awareness of this is necessary in order to make good sexual decisions?

When Do I Have to Decide?
Monica brings up the concern that as her children age, her time is running out to log an opinion on abstinence vs. responsible sexual activity. Which raises still more questions such as: When do we start talking to our children about sex? Is there an age, a stage of development, or a certain number of candles on the birthday cake when the topic becomes daily news? Or, is everything we communicate to our children about their bodies bedrock for a growing collection of topics about physicality and sexuality? Is there a way for us to include our children in our own evolving understanding of sex and intimacy? Or must we have all of the answers prior to the time our kids hit their teens? What do you think?

The Message or the Method?
DD asks two good questions: Is it the message of abstinence that causes dysfunction, or the method? Is there a way to teach abstinence until marriage that would not carry with it a subtext of shame and guilt? Here I’d like to proffer a fairly clear opinion. No, there isn’t. Or perhaps a more gentle way of phrasing it might be, if there is, I haven’t seen it. Insisting on abstinence until marriage for every person on the globe does not take into account the human reality of personal individuation and cultural diversity. It treats people as objects which can be placed into the proper equation for optimal health and wellness, and not as humans with differing needs and with varying ways of interacting with the world. In a culture where people may marry at 18 or 45, procreate in their teens or in the 50’s, a one-reality-fits-all is simply inadequate.

Jesus, Sex, and Culture
Which leads to DD’s next question: is Christianity here to acquiesce to culture or to transform culture? Yes, Jesus spoke about transforming culture. But not in the way the Christianity has tried to transform culture. Christianity has spent it’s long years trying to transform the minor issues such as drinking, smoking, swearing, gambling, and sex; while systematically ignoring the major transformational needs Jesus focused on—providing for the poor and the widow; inviting the outsider to the table; spending time with the marginalized; releasing captives; and seeking justice in the face of religious legalism and political tyranny. Sure there were and are break-through moments where Wilberforce and his community used the convictions of their faith to end the British slave trade; or where Wallis and his community got modern America to think more widely about political and economic justice. But overall, we’ve just spent a lot of time preaching to the choir while the rest of our culture was left to its own accord. As my friend Mr. Jim says, sometimes the question we should ask is not only WWJD, but WDJD—What didn’t Jesus do? Either way, it’s pretty clear he didn’t worry too much about sex.

I have just typed 1,095 words –far too many for a blog post. And of course, being who I am, there are plenty more to come. But I am a firm believer that one voice from the pulpit is an imperfect model at best; and I wholeheartedly embrace the benefits of a teaching-learning community. So please, carry this conversation on. What thoughts come to mind for you on these ideas? What questions have they raised? Has this helped you reach any decisions about how you will present sex to your kids? Are you revisiting stories from your own coming-of-age years and seeing them in a new light? I’d love to hear what you have to say, here or on your own blogs. Drop your ideas in the comments below, or leave us a link to what you have to say about the topic over at your place.

There’s a lot more burning in my brain about sexuality and faith, and I’ll still be posting again on this topic in the days to come. I’ve got a story about Hugh Grant and another about America Fererra. There’s something in there about pouring champagne to celebrate the end of virginity, and thoughts about the language we use to describe that experience. The issue Susan raised about the difference between glossy sex and earthy sex seems pivotal; and Monica’s questions and Another Rachelle’s experience has inspired me to work up a post about the myths Christianity teaches about sexual ‘consequences.’ A thought or two about the current Miley Cyrus ruckus is also in the offing, along with whatever else comes up in the comments. So please, stick around. It seems like we have some work to do–and it’s work that can best be accomplished together.

Yours in the Journey,

Rachelle