Here's another old Sunday Night Journal (January 22, 2006) that seems worth re-reading. Perhaps people will be more likely to read it if I say it's about sex.
From the Archives
45 responses to “From the Archives”
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That was definitely worth reading. I like your point about the attempt to remove procreation from sex being a distortion of the other aspects of sex too. A clean separation doesn’t seem to be possible here.
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Thanks. A few days ago I received a review copy of a book by J. Bude…mmm…Polish name that I can’t remember how to spell…about sex, and he begins with an anecdote about a student’s confusion about this–the student wants to separate sex from procreation, but not vice versa.
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I’ve seen that book; I’d be interested to know if it is worthwhile.
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I’ll let you know. I’ve only read three or four pages.
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Jay Budziszewski. I like what I’ve read by him, although it was written for college students and not your particularly scholarly college students. He has a column that I found online someplace in which he writes about discussions with students on different topics. Too busy to find it myself.
AMDG -
Wow, great post, Mac. Such an important subject. Maybe the most important of our time(?). (Of course, the wider culture would mock and deride me out of existence for that statement, call me a puritan and God knows what else, etc. etc.)
On that observation from the Episcopal priest that you mentioned, the whole “if it’s so difficult to avoid–and for some, seemingly impossible–how can it be a sin?” thing. I was glad to see someone mention that, I’m always having that thought come up in my mind. When I do, though, it helps to remind myself of those few no-brainers that we all still agree on…child molestation, for instance. As a society we (most of us anyway) can say, without a doubt: “We don’t care how difficult it is for you, buddy, it’s still wrong wrong wrong. And you can’t do it.”
The question of course follows, will we always hold them to that standard?? Considering what we once thought of as sin, and now no longer? If it’s true that we are, in a sense, frogs slowly boiling to death in the pot without knowing it, then, uhhh… OK I’ll stop there. You get the idea.
It could get that ugly. But we’re Christians. We’re supposed to HOPE.
And PRAY.
God help us. -
I always think of duelling in the 17th and 18th centuries: repeatedly condemned as sinful (as well as criminalized), but large numbers of highly educated people saw it as a simply unavoidable sin.
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I’d love to fight a duel.
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Swords or pistols?
AMDG -
Or both, like the frog who went a-courtin’.
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Thanks, Noah. I, too, am inclined to think this whole set of things that fall under the heading of “sex” is the issue, because it’s so fundamental. Christians can argue all day about capitalism and socialism and distributism and what-have-you, and I pretty much subscribe to the “nobody has a monopoly on truth” cliche there. But these elemental things–man, woman, baby–are in another category. There’s really not that much room for disagreement if you want to be at all faithful to historical Christianity–and I’m putting it that way instead of saying “the Church” because I think it applies to Protestants as well.
I am astonished at the speed with which the idea of marriage between two people of the same sex went from reduction ad absurdum to dogma in progressive circles. And that to say otherwise is “hate.” -
Both, but if I had to choose, pistol
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Swords, for me.
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Re: this culture us ugly and it wants to die. Maybe we could euthanase it 🙂
And then get a better, prettier one 😀 -
The revolutionary dream…always tempting but it tends to work out badly.:/ Though decline and fall is not pleasant, either.
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I would be hopeless with a sword, but I’m also a bad shot.
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Well, the first time Louise’s solution was tried was in the time of Noah, and pretty, new world lasted about 15 minutes. I think sometimes that God put that story in the Bible to let us know that it just won’t work.
AMDG -
I would probably be better with a pistol, but I love the idea of swords. I would love to run someone through if I could do it without hurting him.
AMDG -
Straw man?
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I love to run those through, but in that case the pen is mightier than the sword.
AMDG -
someone said this to me this am in the chatty corner on FB
I believe it is possible, by mortification, e.g. practising keeping one’s mouth closed on appropriate occasions, while opening it on others, to reduce time in purgatory -
But how do you know when to do one and when to do the other?!?
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I get a buzz from my conscience. I seldom follow it, which will doubtless lengthen my time in purgatory. Unless my feet will hold out for another shot at Santiago for which I get the plenal indulgence for myself!
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I’m trying to figure out if this has something to do with the previous discussion.
AMDG -
I love this blog! And combox 🙂
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I was either switching my opinion, or putting the other side of the case. From duellnig to keeping your mouth shut.
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And dueling was itself just an aside, from Paul. This is one of the more wandery threads, which are always kinda fun.
I’m wondering now if having a heart attack on the Camino wouldn’t be a pretty good way to go. -
Okay, I know I’m being very dull, but I’m very curious. What is the “this” that someone said to you in the chatty corner on FB? I was thinking it was the bit about mortification, but now I think I must have been wrong.
AMDG -
no, it was the bit about mortification. I thought it followed naturally on from the conversation, which perhaps says something about my dialogical skills. Not to mention my duelling skills.
It’s not a joke, in fact, about the heart attacks. There are memorials and gravestones along the camino, commemorating people who died on it, or who died on reaching Santiago. There is a plaque quite near Santiago, commemorating an Irish woman who died of a heart attack five or six years ago, on reaching Santiago for the second time. Some gravestones are people who got run over. From the dates, the Irish woman was middle aged, ie fiftiese. Most of the people who die midwalk are older.
Think about a long afternoon stroll – it could be normally three to five miles. What you do on the camino is around 15 miles a day, cross country, carrying a backpack, in what to a Northern European (though probably not an American) is unusually intense summer heat. And if you start in St Jean you do that everyday for 30-33 days. -
I thought it was the bit about mortification. It puzzled me for a second because I didn’t realize you were quoting somebody else. But I didn’t get the transition from duelling. I see the connection now.
I can well imagine heart attacks are a real risk on the Camino. The joking part, if it was joking, was that to die in the middle of a penitential act might really help on the purgatory front.
I’m afraid 3-5 miles is far from my idea of an afternoon stroll. More like a workout. In fact for the past several years almost my only bit of exercise apart from yard work has been an occasional quick walk of only a mile or so around my neighborhood. I did have a route that was two miles but it takes me something like 40 minutes and I never want to spare the time. -
I was being obscure. I am convinced that Janet wants to turn us all into pacifists 🙂 so I threw in an anti-duelling remark …. hope that clears the fog
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Two miles is what I regularly do from the railway station to my place of work (or when working at home, from morning mass home again). But I think I’d pack drinks and snacks and possibly a compass if I was thinking three to five miles.
I went on a six-mile walk a fortnight ago (admittedly with small children in tow), and that was pretty much an all-day expedition. -
As I read somewhere, “Religious experience is now often considered a peculiarly inner thing, but in the early Middle Ages one of the highest expressions of devotion imaginable was an arduous and uncomfortable journey to the Holy Land.”
I’m sure there’s a lot to be said for the spiritual benefits of physical discomfort. If only I could find that hair shirt … -
I noticed today on ‘Jesuit Post’ that some J has done the camino barefoot. I found it hard enough going barefoot from Monte de Gozo to the Cathedral in Santiago!
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Before I started this job, I walked 3 miles almost every day, but I didn’t stroll, I walked as quickly as possible, and it took about 45 minutes. I couldn’t begin to do that now. As soon as it quits being 81F/27C at 9:30 p.m., I’m going to start walking. Hopefully that will be soon.
AMDG -
Maybe when/if I retire I’ll start keeping up with y’all.
I admire that Jesuit. I was thinking that barefoot might not be too bad–at least you wouldn’t have to worry about shoes not fitting right etc. But I was also imagining dirt roads, not gravel or pavement. -
The gravelly bits were the worst! Luckily, there were not many of them. Other people walked a lot faster – I couldn’t keep up with the people in shoes.
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running on the track machine as fast as I can I do 3 miles in around 50 minutes. I do put the incline up as high as I can tolerate – between 10 and 15, most of the ride.
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This barefoot J didn’t walk to Santiago. He walked the ‘Ignatian Way’.
http://thejesuitpost.org/site/2012/07/journey-moments-ignatius-the-pilgrim/ -
Pfff – that’s only about 300 miles…
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I would have thought that walking the Jesuit way, if not the Ignatian way, would have been riding.
(Bad Mac! Bad, bad!) -
Paul, I must admit I am sorely tempted. Sorely …:)
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I don’t know how I missed the pacifist remark earlier. I tried to be a complete pacifist for a while, but I just couldn’t make it work–rationally, I mean. And then, so many pacifists seem really angry all the time.
AMDG -
An excellent post, but I have one retroactive quibble – didn’t “rainbow parties” prove to be mostly a myth? Wikipedia thinks so:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_party_%28sexuality%29
Certainly there are enough real-life examples of horribly decadent sexuality, of course.
Did your daughter end up finding a good college? -
I’m very glad to hear it (that those parties are a myth). I didn’t remember the term, actually–hadn’t re-read the Caitlin Flanagan piece.
Sorta….
Light On Dark Water 
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