Monthly Archives: August 2005

Masturbation, take two: further reflections on sexuality and dialogue

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I’ve been thinking about the discussion of sexuality and masturbation that has taken place below this post and elsewhere, all stemming from this offering from Bonnie, a conservative Christian.

I’m pleased that the few comments below my post have been civil, and sorry that not everyone who has weighed in at Bonnie’s has been equally polite.  This "hot-button" (sorry) issue is one of those that forces reasonable people to confront the very real gulf that exists between secular progressives and religious conservatives.   I was raised as the former, and spent a period in my life living as and among the latter, so I’m keenly aware of just how difficult it can be for folks on one side to truly understand where the other side is "coming from".

It is axiomatic among feminists and progressive sex-ed workers that masturbation is a good thing.  Check out the (work-safe) archive on the subject at Teen Wire (sponsored by the folks at Planned Parenthood).  Here’s a typical response to a question on the subject from a teen girl:

It is completely normal for both women and men to masturbate — it is not "dirty." Masturbation is a perfectly healthy activity. Although some people may worry that masturbation is harmful, it actually is one of the body’s most effective ways to relieve stress.

It is too bad that so many people worry about masturbation. The majority of people masturbate. Women and men masturbate throughout their lives, whether or not they are in sexual relationships with other people. But because masturbation is so misunderstood, the majority of people who masturbate have unnecessary guilty feelings and shame about it. This shame and guilt can lead to difficulties in a person’s sense of self-esteem and in a person’s relationships with other people.

I’ve taught sex-ed at All Saints for the last four years, and on more than one occasion, have given almost this exact answer.   For folks steeped in a liberal understanding of human sexuality, nothing could seem to be more pointless — and needlessly guilt-inducing — than trying to discourage kids (and adults) of either sex from masturbating!  Indeed, in my work as a sexuality educator (going back to my days at Cal as a volunteer with what was called Peer Sexuality Outreach), I’ve generally taken a "pro-masturbation" position.  I’ve defended that take on sound psychological grounds.

Yet when I read Bonnie’s piece, I was provoked, in a good way.  She doesn’t write as a "prude"; she doesn’t suggest that masturbation is "dirty".  Rather, she constructs an argument, using spiritual principles, that makes the case that our sexuality is always about connecting with another human being.   Though she writes as a Protestant, Bonnie isn’t far off from John Paul II’s famous "theology of the body".  Like JPII, Bonnie argues that sexuality is misused when we direct it towards ourselves alone.   Men and women alike, according to this argument, are given the gift of sexuality to create unity and passion and life.  Folks like Bonnie take the euphemism "making love" with real seriousness – sexuality is intended to bind two people closer together, to make love stronger, and in ideal circumstances, to produce children.   

A progressive might say, but how does masturbation, especially in singleness, harm that lovely vision?  "Theology of the body" folks make the case that when we masturbate, even in adolescent singleness, we are training our bodies and our souls to see sex as something that is entirely about us.   Each act of masturbation makes us, in a sense, more self-centered.  It’s not that sperm will be wasted (that argument is never used any longer by any serious folks, and besides, it ignores the reality of female masturbation); it’s that spiritually and psychologically we are conditioning ourselves to think of sexuality as being exclusively about our own satisfaction, pleasure, and release.

As a progressive Christian, I take that argument seriously.  For the reasons I gave yesterday, I reject it.  But it’s one thing to thoughtfully reject a moral position, and another to dismiss it as the ravings of a wingnut!  To publicly take an anti-masturbation stance for the reasons that she does is, frankly, a brave thing for Bonnie to do; she risks ridicule and opprobrium.  I’m sorry to say she’s had some of both directed towards her.  That disappoints me.  Perhaps because I have spent so many years working with youth around issues of faith and sexuality, I’m eager to listen to those whose views are radically different from my own.  Bonnie didn’t sway me, but she challenged me — and I enjoy a civil and robust challenge to my worldview.

To be sure, my own annoyance gets kindled when I think about some of the kids I’ve worked with in the college and the church over the years.  Though the vast majority of All Saints youth come from fairly liberal households, every once in a while we do get teens in our Wednesday night program who do come from very conservative backgrounds.  I’ve privately comforted a 16 year-old boy who told me that his parents had raised him to believe masturbation was a sin.  He had tried and tried to refrain, but never with success.  He was worried, quite literally, about going to hell; he was also worried that everyone else could somehow "tell" his secret by looking at his face.  As I reassured him, gently, that masturbation was not only normal but a gift, I had to quiet the anger that grew inside me at his parents!  To my liberal mind, his guilt seemed such a colossal waste, and his parents deserved a good shaking!  Sometimes, I still feel that way.

But though I will continue to teach and advocate a progressive approach on the subject in my work with young people, I have gained a fresh understanding in recent years of the legitimate theological underpinnings of the anti-masturbation position.  Where I would have once dismissed Bonnie’s post out-of-hand, I am now eager to engage in dialogue.   We are, after all, both committed to Christ and committed to young people. We want joy and fulfillment for the children with whom we work.  And our radically different approaches to this most sensitive of subjects are both motivated, I’m convinced, by profound faith and profound love.

Longer post on sexuality, masturbation, and honoring God

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Chip, who is an infrequent but invariably eloquent and charitable commenter here, writes in response to yesterday’s post on modesty:

I can agree with you when you talk about not giving into the Abercrombie-type image, Hugo, but I can’t agree fundamentally with the concept that "their sexuality [is] theirs." Heck, my sexuality is not my own — my use of it is called to be a picture of Christ and the church. Just as Christ gave his life for the church and was totally faithful to it, so the apostolic teaching inspired by the Holy Spirit asks me to reserve myself for one woman and to be faithful to her … and to give sacrificially for her.

But to broaden the issue: From a Christian POV, I can’t see ANYTHING in our lives to be our own. "You are not your own; you were bought with a price. Therefore honor God with your body [or your talents, or your mind, or your emotions, or your thought life, or your work ... you get the picture]." "And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again." Impossible commands? Sure, in our own human strength … but it’s still something we are called to grow into by the power of the Holy Spirit. And we are to live with the ultimate goal of pleasing God.

I need to do a better job of explaining myself.  Chip’s use of 1 Corinthians 6:20 is an important one, given that it comes at the end of an extended meditation about the importance of avoiding sexual immorality.  But let me be clear — arguing against the rhetoric of the "modesty movement" is not a defense of sexual immorality!   

When I say "I want the women with whom I work to see their sexuality as theirs", I am not encouraging them to use that sexuality recklessly, abusively, or self-destructively.  What I am arguing is that our sexuality is a gift from God, a gift with more than one purpose: Christians are indeed called to honor God with their bodies, but we are also called to take our own delight in living as embodied creatures.   Pleasure is part of God’s gift; to receive and to give pleasure can be honoring to God.  All Christians believe this; conservatives believe that pleasure should be limited to heterosexual marriage, while progressives believe in a more liberated and inclusive ethic, but we are united in our conviction that God intends us to have sexual pleasure, and that experiencing and sharing pleasure can be profoundly honoring to our Creator!

My body is a gift to me from God, and I am called to use that body as I believe He would have me use it.  That’s not the same thing as saying "my sexuality does not belong to me".   I said:

"it doesn’t belong to their fathers, their future husbands, the leering boys in math class or the older men at the bus stop.  It doesn’t belong to the church, or to MTV, or to the magazines, or to their peers, or to their parents."

God was quite deliberately NOT on the list of things to which the body ought not belong! (Sorry for the double negative.)   I think it’s quite possible to teach young men and women that their bodies are their own, gifts from God to be used to honor God; by the same token, their bodies do not belong to the culture, their families, or their peers.

*************

On a related topic, here’s a lengthy, thoughtful, Christian argument against masturbation at Bonnie’s blog. (You may need to scroll down).   She’s making an argument that may be similar to Chip’s (though Chip, I don’t presume to know your stance on masturbation).   It’s difficult to summarize her argument fairly, but here’s a key section:

Sexuality is a valuable treasure, a great gift. We give our very best gifts – our figurative gold, frankincense, and myrrh – to God. In so doing, we give our sexual gold, frankincense, and myrrh to our spouse. We do not “spread the wealth” around; to do so is to cheapen its worth and dilute its significance as well as to make a mockery of the gift itself and the covenant of marriage. Adultery isn’t referred to as “cheating” for no reason; adultery cheats a spouse of what ought to be theirs and theirs alone. Autoerotism also cheats one’s spouse (current or future) out of a portion of one’s sexuality.  (Emphasis in the original; it’s Bonnie’s call to use "autoerotism" as a synonym for masturbation.)

Masturbation is a provocative subject.  I share with Bonnie the belief that in healthy, monogamous sexual relationships, I ought to do all that I can to share my sexuality with my partner.  For many couples, that may mean making the decision not to be sexual except when they are together; refraining from masturbating thus allows sexual desire to build for one’s beloved.  I’ve known of more than one relationship where one partner regularly masturbated and then professed little interest in or energy for sex with the other; that, I think, falls well short of the mark for "sharing" and "giving"! Other couples may come (pun somewhat unintended) to different agreements about solitary sexuality within the context of their relationship.  I don’t think there’s a "one-size fits all" answer here.  The key thing is to be clear and honest, with the other’s pleasure and delight one’s foremost concern.

I don’t intend to turn this post into a paean to masturbation.   Though there is much to disagree with in Bonnie’s post on both theological and psychological grounds, at places she makes very good sense.  But I am interested in rejecting the notion that if our bodies belong to God and to our partners, then they do not also belong to ourselves!   Here, I’ll take the "both/and" stance: our bodies are intended both for God’s purposes and for our own pleasure (indeed, more often than we realize, these may be congruent!); our bodies are intended both for our spouse’s delight and for our own.

Ultimately, when it comes to sexuality, I think far too many people fail to distinguish between what is selfish and what is self-honoring.   Selfish sexual expression is anything that robs another person of their dignity, their value, and what is rightfully theirs. Adultery is selfish, and even masturbation can be selfish when and if it deprives one’s partner of one’s entire energy and excitement.  But as created beings, whose bodies — like all creation — are fundamentally good, we are right to honor ourselves.   On the one hand, self-honor doesn’t mean narcissism; even when we delight in our own bodies, we are giving thanks to the Creator who gave us our flesh.   And it’s worth pointing out that self-honor need not always be the same as self-denial!  When we eat to satiety, and delight in the taste of rich foods, in a very real sense we honor both our bodies and God’s gift of sustenance.  When we explore and enjoy our bodies sexually, we are similarly honoring both the gift which was given and He who gave it.

It’s no accident that so many people call upon God at the moment of orgasm!   When we do so, wittingly or no, we are perhaps giving thanks and praise to Him for the extraordinary gift of our sexuality.   As spiritual people, as believers, we must avoid twin pitfalls: on the one hand, we must be leery of a secular ethic that devalues sexuality and sees it as something to be squandered; on the other, we must be equally leery of those who, with the best of intentions, wish to too narrowly limit the time, place, and manner of sexual expression.  We must always approach our own sexuality with a sense of awe and responsibility, and if we do so, we will neither use it recklessly nor unreasonably constrain it.

Thursday Short Poem: James’ “Windows is Shutting Down”

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I found this one in the Guardian a while ago, and held on to it. In honor of spellcheck, a newly cleaned hard drive, and the start of school, I offer this fine Clive James poem.

Windows is Shutting Down

Windows is shutting down, and grammar are
On their last leg. So what am we to do?
A letter of complaint go just so far,
Proving the only one in step are you.

Better, perhaps, to simply let it goes.
A sentence have to be screwed pretty bad
Before they gets to where you doesnt knows
The meaning what it must of meant to had.

The meteor have hit. Extinction spread,
But evolution do not stop for that.
A mutant languages rise from the dead
And all them rules is suddenly old hat.

Too bad for we, us what has had so long
The best seat from the only game in town.
But there it am, and whom can say its wrong?
Those are the break. Windows is shutting down.

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More on Modesty

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Continuing on the subject of fathers and daughters, I was struck by this Rebecca Hagelin piece on Townhall yesterday.  Entitled "Fashioning a Response to Immodest Clothing", it’s Hagelin’s spirited defense of parents who refuse to buy what they regard as inappropriately revealing clothing for their daughters. (Hagelin has a thirteen year-old daughter).

On the one hand, I’m prepared to share many of the concerns expressed by parents across the country (not all religious conservatives, either) about the apparent ever-increasing sexiness of clothing aimed at young teen and "tween" girls.    Frankly, I don’t hear many feminists vigorously defending retailers like Abercrombie and Fitch, though many of us on the left are as troubled by A&F’s reputation for racism and "body fascism" as by their marketing of mildly provocative clothing to younger adolescents.   For not altogether different reasons, feminists and social conservatives can agree that dressing thirteen year-olds in tiny miniskirts is problematic.

So I have several "yesses" to Hagelin.  But I have a fairly big "no" as well.  Hagelin writes:

…it can be tough to take a stand in favor of modest clothing. But it can be done. Just ask some of the friends Kristin has brought to our house.

Occasionally, a girl visits wearing something inappropriate — a midriff-baring shirt, a short skirt, a low neckline.

I smile and say, “God made you a person of value. You’re somebody special who deserves to be respected. So when you’re in my home, I want you to dress in a way that reflects the treasure you are. So let’s go upstairs. You can pick out anything you like to cover up while you’re here.” There may be a gasp — often, nobody’s ever told them that their body is a treasure to be respected. But then they get it. And you know what? A bond is created, and they appreciate what I’m doing.

Well, I’d love to know what these girls’ parents have to say, particularly with the offensive implication that any parent who lets his or her daughter out of the house dressed "inappropriate" doesn’t see her as a person of value, at least as Hagelin defines it.

More importantly, it’s a reiteration of the ancient lie that one has no right to be both sexually alluring and respected!  While I agree with Hagelin that thirteen year-olds ought to be allowed to remain innocent a while longer, I’m concerned about the message these girls will have as they progress through adolescence into adulthood.  The message is this:  "You have a treasure, but it needs to stay hidden.  Remember that men will only value that which is hidden from them.   Displaying your sexuality undermines your credibility, and it robs you of the chance to be seen as a full and complete human being."

I think that’s a fair characterization of the subtext of Hagelin’s message, and the message of the neo-Victorian modesty crowd that has recently emerged in all of its blue-nosed splendor. (If it’s unfair, please tell me how.)

The feminism which I have embraced, and which I try and inculcate in the teen and twenty-something women with whom I work, is one in which they are taught one overriding lesson about sexuality: it belongs to them.   On the one hand, this approach is critical of consumer culture (ala Abercrombie); it works to strengthen young women to resist the often-exploitative and fat-phobic messages of the mainstream fashion industry.  Feminism is critical of the message that young women’s bodies exist only to be judged or fetishized or lusted for.  On the other hand, it is equally critical of the message that women’s sexuality ought always be tamed, suppressed, and hidden in order for a woman to be respected. 

I want the women with whom I work to see their sexuality as theirs; it doesn’t belong to their fathers, their future husbands, the leering boys in math class or the older men at the bus stop.  It doesn’t belong to the church, or to MTV, or to the magazines, or to their peers, or to their parents.  Are girls of thirteen ready to understand the implications of this?  Almost certainly not.  But girls of seventeen and eighteen may well be, and they deserve better than to hear a message which is only a few rhetorical flourishes removed from that of the Taliban.

On a lighter note, Hagelin links to this site as a suggested resource for frustrated parents: Modest by Design, a Utah-based company that seems closely affiliated with the LDS church.  Rather tellingly, the motto of the company is "clothing your father would approve of."    Huh?  Is mom too influenced by a depraved modern culture to be trusted to pick outfits for her daughter?  I am particularly troubled by the notion that it is fathers who are the more reliable guardians of their daughters’ burgeoning sexualities.  After all, continuing to dress his adolescent daughter as if she’s a small child allows Dad to fantasize that he remains the central male figure in her life.  If he can hide her sexuality, he can deny that it’s there at all, and he can remain his innocent daughter’s shining knight a little while longer.   I’ve always been bugged by the whole "Daddy’s little princess" bit, but when it continues into adolescence, yikes. I’ve seen the damage it does in my teens in youth group.

Of course, these are the musings of a childless man!

And for what it’s worth, the fashions at Modest By Design are very inexpensive.  They also, frankly, are hideous to my Los Angeles eyes.  Tell me, my readers who live elsewhere, does this look like an attractive outfit for going out?  Should I teach in this?   And check out this princess dress for little girls, which comes with the following caption:

This dress is fit for a little Princess! Whether you are a Flower Girl or on a date with your dad, you will look your best. Embroidered bodice, with an organza overlay full skirt, back zipper, and organza ties to make the perfect fit.

Emphasis mine.  Gotta love writing a description for a dress for pre-teens in the second person.

Jury Duty Report

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My jury duty obligation is over, at least until I’m called again.  Los Angeles County, like an increasingly number of places around the country, practices the "one day, one trial" approach to jury duty.  In other words, if you aren’t on a jury panel for a specific case by the end of your first day of service, you can’t be called again for another year.

Though I’ve done jury duty in other courthouses around the county, the last two times I’ve been summoned to the downtown Criminal Courts building (famous to many folks as the venue for the OJ Simpson trial).   In July 2002, I was foreperson of a jury in a forgery and fraud case; after a week-long trial and a day and half of deliberations, we ended with a badly hung jury (7-5 for acquittal on all counts).  It was a fascinating and inspiring experience.  As most folks who actually serve on juries find, one is likely to come away deeply impressed with the commitment, seriousness and common sense of one’s fellow citizens, even if those citizens inexplicably come to conclusions radically different from one’s own after having heard the identical evidence!

I was one of more than forty jurors assigned yesterday morning to an attempted murder and aggravated mayhem case.  It would have been an interesting trial; the accused is a middle-aged man accused of knifing and seriously injuring a man of similar age who was dating the defendant’s daughter (who we were told is in her early twenties).

During the voir dire process, all of the prospective jurors were quizzed about the usual things (ties to law enforcement, past jury experience, and so forth), and then, at great length, about the subject of "age-disparate" relationships, specifically older men and younger women.  Given how often I’ve blogged on that subject this year, I was more than a little amused that this should be such a vital aspect of the case at hand!   It was no surprise that the defense excused all of the men on the panel who had daughters.  I mentioned that I was a youth leader who worked with adolescent girls, but that I was not pre-disposed to view all relationships between women in their early twenties and men in their forties and fifties as unhealthy.   That was an honest answer; though I think such relationships are fraught with perils for both parties, that doesn’t mean that in some rare circumstances, they couldn’t be successful.  Still, I was quickly "thanked and excused" by the defense, and sent back to the jury assembly room.

I don’t mind doing my civic duty every few years.  In the sixteen years since I moved to Los Angeles, it’s only the fourth time I’ve been called — and the first time I wasn’t selected for a trial.  (I was a juror in two personal injury cases in 1993 and 1996 before my first criminal trial in 2002.)  In 2002, when I was at the apex of my "Mennonite enthusiasm", I demanded an alternate oath from the judge rather than raise my right hand to swear.   (I had read a truckload of Anabaptist literature on the subject of oaths and jury service beforehand).   I’m no longer nearly so doctrinaire, and cheerfully allowed myself to be sworn for the voir dire process yesterday without making a scene.

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A brief response to Dr. E

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One week until the start of school…

Rather late, I’m following up on a question from "Dr. E", a regular commenter and Men’s Rights Advocate.  In a recent comment, he quoted from my June 2004 post entitled "Men":

About 1998, it finally hit home to me that much of my academic interest in women’s studies was rooted in my own fear and dislike of my fellow men.

Dr. E asks:

I am curious about this "dislike of my fellow men." What was it you disliked?

In high school and college, I was one of those boys who felt more comfortable hanging out with women than with other males.   I felt I had very little in common with most guys in high school; though I was moderately interested in sports, I was very nonathletic.   I was teased by the "jocks", and most of the male "nerds" were into things that bored me to tears, like Dungeons and Dragons.  (I have no patience for role-playing games).  I was interested in things like poetry and relationships and talking a great deal about feelings, and found that while few of my male peers shared those enthusiasms, a very large number of my female peers did.

But of course, most of my dislike of my fellow men was not based on my own "feminine traits".  Rather, it was rooted in an intense dislike for the ways in which masculine hierarchies functioned in high school (and beyond.)  I remember well the teasing and the ridicule which greeted (and probably still greets) any boy who fails to live up to the standards of "jock culture."   I disliked the way the guys I knew talked about girls; the boasting and the bravado and the objectification bothered me intensely.  I found I could join in in the guy talk (though I was invariably making up whatever it was I bragged about), but it left me feeling ashamed and dirty. I realized that if talking about women in a certain way was the admission price to a feeling of brotherhood and camaraderie, that was too high a price to pay.  Of course, sometimes a desire to fit in drove me to saying things I didn’t really believe, but it left me feeling fairly miserable.

What I loved about women’s studies was, and still is, something very simple.  My first courses in the field taught me something that I’ve never forgotten, and it’s something I always try and pass on to my students.  It’s this:

The greatest lie in gender relations is "that’s just the way things are."

Though I was raised by a feminist mother, my culture and my peers and my elders all told me essentially the same thing:  "Men are a certain way, and women are a different way, and you just need to accept that."   This "myth of inevitability" — also known as gender essentialism –  is the single greatest obstacle that any of us doing gender work must overcome.  In those first classes I took at Cal almost two decades ago, I became convinced that all that I had been taught about men and women was simply a social construct.  More importantly, I began to realize that my own dislike of my fellow men was not a loathing of all males as they truly were, but rather a hatred of what our culture has done to shape what it means to be masculine!  Doing gender history and cross-cultural comparison showed me that there were myriad ways in which gender could be constructed, including ways that were infinitely more egalitarian and joy-filled than what I had been raised with!

My feelings about men began to change as soon as I began to realize that what I really disliked and feared was not men themselves, but the cultural standards to which they were trying so hard to live up.  That realization took years, and its last vestiges weren’t stripped away until about seven years ago.  Today, as I’ve written, I have both male and female friends whom I treasure, and my closest ties — beyond my fiancee — are with other men.   As I’ve aged, my own anxieties about proving myself in the eyes of other guys have (blessedly) faded; as a result I can welcome men in to my heart and love them in a way in which I had once imagined impossible.

But though I do acknowledge that in a very real sense men and women are "different", I can’t think of any uniquely masculine quality that I prize in my male friends that I don’t also honor in the women in my life.  I’ve seen courage and competitiveness and compassion in both sexes, and though cultural pressures often dictate that these virtues be expressed differently by men and women, I’m convinced that at the core, they are indeed the same.

Running, dry-heaving, and “the day’s vanity”

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It’s 12:30 on an summer Saturday afternoon, and very soon, I’ll be in bed for a long nap.  I got up at 4:00 this morning for the one-hour drive down to Huntington Beach to do the 10-Mile race at the annual "Distance Derby".  The race went well, and though I’m still much slower than I was in my "prime", I was, all things considered, quite pleased to run a 1:14, which meant I managed under a 7:30 pace for the distance. 

My friends were, as usual, considerably faster.  Since the 10-Mile race began at 7:00, we were all done in time to jog the 5-Mile race as a cool-down and work up a good appetite for bagels and coffee.

As I ran today, I thought back to the days when running was my only outlet.   Long before I did any other kind of exercise, and long before I was active as a volunteer and youth worker, I ran.  I ran with the passion of a new convert; I ran with the passion of an addict.  I ran and ran and ran; my friends teased me by asking what it was I was running from, to which I would always reply "I don’t know, but if I don’t stop, whatever it is won’t catch me!"

It’s a joy today to not be nearly so single-minded.  At the start of today’s race, I lined up well back in the pack, watching the elite and semi-elite runners take their places.  They were skinny and twitchy, checking their watches, ready to go.   Though a few seemed relaxed, most had tense and anxious expressions — a look I know graced my face often enough.  It felt good to be able to laugh and joke with my companions, and even to continue our conversations through the first couple of miles of the race (until they pulled away to their sub-7:00 minute pace).   I’m a long way away from the fellow who burst into tears in 1999 after running a 1:30:00 in a half-marathon in Camp Pendleton; I had trained for weeks to break ninety minutes (a significant goal for most recreational half-marathon runners), and I fell one second short.  That sort of thing devastated me. I spent weeks afterwards replaying every moment of the race, trying to figure out where I might have picked up a single extra second, mentally flagellating myself for what I imagined must have been a brief, catastrophic lapse in focus and discipline.   Believe me, I was a hell of a bore to be around. I talked of little else.

Yet even as I don’t miss the anxiety and self-obsession associated with that level of running, I confess that part of me feels guilty for not pushing myself to my limits.  One of my old running buddies told me, when I was starting to race, that if I wasn’t retching and gasping desperately for air in the finish chutes after a race, I hadn’t really tried my hardest.  I certainly dry-heaved in agony after many a race in the late 1990s.  As painful as it was, it was deeply satisfying.  There was no doubt that I had given my absolute best; I knew if I had pushed one iota harder, I would have collapsed.

Today, I certainly was in an "anaerobic" zone, and I was pushing hard, but I spent the whole race well shy of the "dry puking" threshold.  I’m just not willing to suffer the way I once was; I’m not willing to risk injury for the sake of a few extra minutes or seconds.  But part of me, swayed by some sort of Protestant work ethic I suppose, tells me that I’m letting myself down by not going to the absolute limits of my potential every time out.  Yet I realized, running along the beach today, that giving maximum effort in a race would trash me for the rest of the day.  My fiancee and I have plans for later; I have obligations that require me to be alert and present for something other than a race.  I don’t run the mileage or do the speedwork I once did, because to do so would mean cutting back on time with Matilde or her charity; time with my beloved; time with this blog; time with my All Saints kids; time to connect with others.

As I’ve mentioned before, I often recite poetry to myself near the end of runs, especially when things get painful.  This morning, I brought to mind what I thought were entirely apropos lines from Yeats:

The intellect of man is forced to choose
perfection of the life, or of the work,
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.
When all that story’s finished, what’s the news?
In luck or out the toil has left its mark:
That old perplexity an empty purse,
Or the day’s vanity, the night’s remorse.

(Yeah, I know I’ve posted it before in a very different context.  But it’s one of the few Yeats poems I know by heart, and I love it so…)  I know, better than many, the cost of the "day’s vanity"; I’ve known the "night’s remorse" that comes from friendships neglected and communal responsibilities ignored, all so that I might lavish still more attention on my own body and try still harder to bend it to my will.

Hall and Oates and more on divorce

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A follow-up to last week’s post on the "good divorce."  Swan asked:

I understand that it’s not a good idea to go into the specifics of your divorces. I don’t expect you to do that.

I would expect you to make clearer though what your interpretation of these passages is. You seemed to say that even though an exception like adultery may not have applied to your case (even if it did, you didn’t HAVE to divorce) and even though you talked things through with a counselor (at least the third time), that divorce was still the best option.

So I’m not saying that divorce is never ever acceptable, and I don’t think many churches are saying that, I just think that many people, even Christians, make the decision to divorce too easily. And from what you’ve written, you seem to be one of them, and you seem to be defending that position.

I also want to make it clear that people who are divorced shouldn’t be treated as second-class citizens at church in any way. It’s real and it happens, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for not so good reasons. And in any case it’s tough and people need support, not judgment afterwards. We have a divorce recovery group at our local church for example, and people freely say that a marriage is their second and are not treated any differently because of it. If it is seen as a fault, it’s clear to everyone that everyone has has faults, and that everyone needs encouragement, not condemnation, and that it is best to learn from our experiences.

I’m sorry if I’m misinterpreting what you are saying, but if so, maybe you could be a bit more specific about what’s good and what’s not in general terms.

Let me begin by recommending a very fine article on the subject of divorce and public ritual in last month’s Episcopal Life by a Rev. Jennifer Phillips.  Very sensible.

I’m wary of saying that divorce is necessarily the "best" option.   When one has made a commitment to another human being, surely the "best" option is to continue to honor that commitment.  But to twist an old phrase, we can’t let "the best be the enemy of the good."   The fact that divorce falls short of the mark doesn’t mean that the experience can’t be a beneficial one for both parties, and in some instances, more beneficial than staying together might have been.

When I was going through one of my earlier divorces, a friend reminded me of the famous Hall and Oates lyric from the 1970s ballad "Do What You Want, Be Who You Are"  (appropriate title for our discussion, and yes, I liked Hall and Oates back in the day):

"It ain’t a sign of weakness girl, to give yourself away
Because the strong give up and move on
While the weak, the weak give up and stay"

Let me be explicit here:  by quoting those lines, I’m not trying to argue that those who stay in struggling marriages are always necessarily weak.  The songwriters — and others — create a bit of a false dichotomy: either you stay in an unhappy marriage, or you leave.  The third option, and one that I have seen work, is to have the two spouses fight like hell to transform their relationship.  Sometimes, the marriage is transformed, and that’s a blessing.  But yes, I’ve seen plenty of people stay in miserable marriages which are never transformed, and I’ve seen them diminished as a consequence.  Nothing sadder than seeing a loved one — man or woman — grow smaller as a result of their relationship.  Few of us can say we’ve never seen that!

(Parenthetically, I know I’m not exactly helping to burnish my evangelical credentials by quoting Hall and Oates rather than Scripture!  Pace, fellow believers.)

I’m also wary of the notion that those who do transform bad marriages to good ones over years of struggle are somehow more virtuous than those of us who do choose to end marriages that have reached the end of their usefulness!  Ultimately, I suppose, I think all of us acknowledge that there’s a real mystery as to why some marriages thrive and others fail.  All of our simplistic, pop psychology analyses fail to capture what, to paraphrase another oldie, "goes on behind closed doors."  If there’s one contemporary truism that does hold merit, it’s that ultimately, no one outside the marriage can fully grasp what it’s like to be in it. 

So, Hall and Oates get it at least partly right, I think.   Every one of us, ultimately, Christian or not, defines that "tipping point" past which a marriage ought not be saved differently.  Scripture gives us some very general guidelines; various ecclesiastical traditions give us others.  No Christian — heck, no sensible human being — thinks divorce ought to be the first choice when one hits a difficult patch.  But at times, it takes real strength and genuine courage to acknowledge that to stay together would do both people (and perhaps the wider community) more harm than good.

It is right and proper to grieve the end of any marriage.  But grief is not always a sign that one has made a bad choice.  After all, look at all the tears shed when a child is sent off to college or graduates from high school.   Leaving a safe and familiar environment can be a scary thing; leaving behind precious memories can be sad — but that doesn’t mean it isn’t often the right thing to do.  We need to do more than comfort the grief-stricken survivors of divorce.  Sometimes, we ought to remind them that they may well have made a good choice, one that reflects strength rather than weakness.

Closing the door; thoughts on the joys of growing older

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I did my first track workout in over a year last night.  I’m flabbergasted by how much speed I’ve lost in recent years… Still, I’m feeling quite fit these days, and if I can’t get my legs to turn over as fast as they did in the second Clinton Administration, then I can live with that. 

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about aging.  I’m 38, and it’s really only in the past year that I’ve started to encounter real evidence of physical decline.   My muscles don’t recover quite as fast from a long run as they used to; my speed is not what it was.   As I found out this summer, if I really want to get back down to the weight I was five or six years ago, I can’t just go back to eating the way I did.  As they say in Twelve Step programs, "the road gets narrower"; when it comes to my aging metabolism,  my body’s ability to burn off fat and sugar has noticeably declined.

We’ve also finished hiring a new "crop" of full-time faculty at Pasadena City College.  Up until recently, I was still the youngest full-time instructor in my division.  For a decade, I was the "baby" of the department.  To be frank, I liked that status.  I got to play the role of the young hothead in more than one faculty meeting, and I assure you that that was a deeply satisfying part to play.  As I wrote a few months ago, the average age of new hires has been rising dramatically in recent years.  Though I was given a tenure-track job at 27, and many of my older colleagues were hired at similar ages, fewer and fewer twenty-somethings are getting full-time posts.

I’m still the "last" prof hired tenure-track in the division while still in his twenties.  But we have selected a couple of folks in their early thirties this year, and so at long last, after eleven years, my status as the "baby" has ended.  On the one hand, I’m delighted to see new "young Turks" join the division; on the other, I’m aware that it means that I am indeed not as young as I used to be.

But this is not a musing filled with regret over a vanishing youth.  Rather, I’m happy to say that it’s just in the past year that I’ve begun to embrace the very tangible blessings of getting a bit older.  While the gray is sprouting in my beard and on my chest, I’ve also found my patience growing.  Ask my friends from a decade or so ago; I was as prone to road rage as any Angeleno.   Monday afternoon, I failed to signal while changing lanes on the 210; a young man behind me "flipped me off" as a consequence.  In my twenties, rage and indignation would have boiled up instantly, and I would have returned the gesture.  Instead, this time I raised my hand, opened my palm, and mouthed "sorry".  The old anger just didn’t come, and as I thought about it, realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d lost my temper on the freeway.

On an even more personal note, the struggle with depression has ended.   As I’ve written before, I battled many personal demons in my teens and twenties — and into the dawn of my thirties.   What I haven’t shared before is that I spent many years on a variety of anti-depressants and other psychotropic medications.   I was twenty when I began taking them; thirty when I stopped.    I am convinced that the meds I took in the late 1980s and early-to-mid 1990s saved my life.  But at around the same time as my 1998 conversion experience, I found that I no longer battled the same sort of crushing despair that had characterized my twenties.  On a spiritual level, I do believe I was healed by God.  But on a physical level, I wonder if my brain didn’t just "outgrow" the tempests of its youth.  I don’t know enough about neuropsychology to say, but I’ve been told anecdotally that many folks simply do outgrow certain kinds of mental illness.

Even when my faith has waned (as it does sometimes), that crushing despair has never returned.  It’s true that with age, I no longer feel things quite as intensely as I did a decade or two ago.   Fewer things make me angry; fewer things make me sad.  When I’m happy, I’m deeply, quietly happy; the manic elation of my teens and twenties almost never reappears.  When I work with teenagers, and see their volatile emotions on full display, I remember perfectly what it was like to feel that way.  But I can also say, with great relief, that I don’t feel that way any longer.  That centeredness may be part of God’s gift of faith, but it may also be part of the process of growing older and growing up.

Bring on the gray hairs, bring on the wrinkles!  Though I remain all-too-vain about my fitness and my weight, the exterior signs of aging on my head and face don’t bother me in the slightest.  A decade ago, I was anxious to fit in with the students whom I taught; today, I feel no desire to be viewed as a "slightly older peer".   Yes, growing older has cost me many minutes on my marathon time.  It’s put many a line on my face.  But it’s also brought me a very deep sense of peace, and it’s brought a degree of emotional stability I never imagined possible.  And those rewards are well-worth the slower track times, the aching muscles, and the crow’s feet.

Donald Justice wrote that "men at forty learn to close softly the doors of rooms they will not be coming back to."   What doors am I closing, twenty-one months away from forty?   I’ve got plenty in mind, but I’d like to think I’ve finally learned to close the door on the "pursuit of everlasting novelty".   Most folks, I think, can figure out just how terrible it is to spend one’s life on that hopeless chase.  If not, maybe I’ll manage a longer post on the subject.