Sex.

Here's what a popular women's health website says: "Repression is the only sexual sin against oneself. If you're in a relationship enjoying regular sex, or you're single and have casual sex, or if you're celibate but have found creative ways to sublimate; that's all fine. But if a lack of sex represents a deprivation or you've closed off your natural sexual energies, that's not good."

Silly me, all those years of thinking that it was a good idea to wait for my spouse. What naivete! All that repression, and I could have brought a truckload of emotional baggage, memories of other men, a handy "sexual satisfaction comparison chart," and maybe even an STD just for kicks. What was I thinking? Instead I committed the deadly evil sin of repression. I deprived myself. I closed off those natural sexual energies until I got married, and I began that intimate relationship with my husband with no emotional regrets, no experience, no way to compare, no disease, no old memories.

I really got that messed up, didn't I? Our relationship would have been so enriched if I had been able to say, "No, no, no, honey, you've got it all wrong. My last lover did it like this..." That would have brought us closer. We would be so much better off if I had to continually fight the memories of other faces, other moments with other men. I'm sure that would bring more sexual satisfaction for us.

When we justify what we desire without regard of the consequences, we suffer. Choose sin once, or twice, or a few times, and you will find yourself tied up with it. You'll change your mind and decide life seems more peaceful free of it, but you can't undo those knots. You are bound to your past decisions.

That's why God says things like "Adultery is a dead-end road (Prov. 2:18)" and "Illicit sex is a honey-coated dagger (Prov. 5:3)." He created sex; I hardly think He did so just to deprive us pointlessly. Deprivation is necessary first so that you can have sexual satisfaction later. The kind of sexual perversions that we hear of so often today come from sexual saturation. There's no age limit, no partner limit, no method limit. Get bored? Find someone new. Do something different. Eventually you run out of new and different and you've forgotten how to appreciate sex for what it is: physical fulfillment and emotional connection as an expression of love, service, appreciation, and awe for the one you're committed to. Sex is meant to be exclusive.

When was the last time you had sex that felt that way? It isn't possible outside of marriage. You might get some of the factors right, but you can't show love without showing respect, and you can't show respect when you're giving someone a cheap, uncommitted experience instead of a real, exclusive intimacy.

Real deprivation is denying yourself (or someone else) the richest and best that sex can be, and attempting to be satisfied (or to satisfy) with a far inferior version. If that's where you are, or where you have been, don't stay there. If you've been walking the line, keep this in mind: if you camp out on the doorstep of sexual sin, you'll find yourself walking in, staying a while, and then forgetting how to leave when you want to. Walk away.

It's worth it.

The funny thing with trends is that they're so extreme. I've found, in my many years of wisdom, that extremes are almost always wrong, in one way or another. There's something to be said for walking a road of moderation. Seems like the Bible even says something about that...

So this article from David Sirota wasn't really a surprise, just a confirmation of what I've long suspected: our trend toward "a global economy" has created a backlash, and we are beginning to experience it in our local worlds.

Sirota doesn't actually discuss globalism, per say; he talks about the homogenization of American culture:

"The nationwide journey has been a blur — and not because I’ve been under-rested and overcaffeinated, but because America’s newly homogenized culture has made everything seem the same.

Indeed, in making anywhere into everywhere, homogenization has swallowed up not only our downtowns, restaurants and radio stations, but even our understanding of American democracy. The essence is that our culture has lost sight of the importance of local."

Here. My backyard. We all got so excited about the immense possibilities opened up by the internet and other technologies that we decided hometown stuff was just, well, kind of boring.

I can flip on the radio and hear twenty commentaries about the Middle East, the trouble on Wall Street, or the latest presidential campaigning. I can find news about politics in Zimbabwe, Myanmar, and China. I can listen to live radio from Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Uruguay. But do I know the name of my aldermen? Have I been to a city meeting lately? What do I know about the people running for county assessor?

Hmm. Time for the trend to swing back the other way. Watch for hyper-interest in all things local, coming soon to your very own backyard.

Image Credit: woodleywonderworks at flickr.

The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning. Sir Winston Churchill

Just for the sake of being certain that I am not stripping myself of all sense and meaning, a few unreserved assertions: Read the rest of this entry »

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What does it mean to counter the culture? Our friends at Wikipedia tell us that "it is a sociological word used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day,[1] the cultural equivalent of political opposition."

What can you say about a society that says that God is dead and Elvis is alive? (Irv Kupcinet)

Our well-trained American minds immediately think of hippies smoking weed in the back of the VW, war protesters burning American flags... unproductive actions like that.

But what is culture? "All the values shared by a society" is the key phrase here. Our culture consists of those societal structures, traditions, and values which we accept as normal (thus, right) simply because they are. Everyone around us accepts them; they are familiar and comfortable. We do not question their rightness. Read the rest of this entry »