What Jesus Said About Sex

Posted: February 15, 2016 in sex
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I have been thinking about sex.

It’s such a fun, funny, touchy topic.

Jimmy Demaret, remarking on sex once said “Golf and sex are about the only things you can enjoy without being good at.”

Henry Kissinger said, “No one will ever win the battle of the sexes; there is just too much fraternizing with the enemy.”

Sex — it’s just something we humans want, that we like, that by nature we are made for.

Famous pastor Rick Warren says, “We were made to worship.” True.

But I verily, verily I say unto you, “We were also made for sex.” We’ve got the equipment.

For anyone has never had sex, or not for a while, they don’t worry that that they won’t know what to do when the time comes. They will!

Sex is natural for us.

But I have been thinking about it from a spiritual point of view too, and I’m wondering, what did Jesus say about sex.

What Jesus said seems different from what the church has often taught about sex.

Tony Campolo once remarked that the church has put out the message, “ that sex is a dirty, filthy thing, and you should save it for the person you marry!”

You should save what is nasty and yucky for your spouse. Really?

It reminds me of Za Za Gabor’s cynical jibe on marriage and sex.

She quipped, “I don’t know anything about sex. I’ve alway been married.”

But what did Jesus say?

“Haven’t you read … that at the beginning … the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said ‘for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”  (Matthew 19)

Cool! I don’t see anything dirty or shameful here.

Jesus said taht God made made male and female. God made sex. God made us as sexual beings.

And further, we know from Genesis 1:26-27 that God made male and female in his image, so our very sexuality is the image of God in us.

Holy Bikini Batman, God likes sex!

Sex is the gold of God, shinning within us, decorating the core of our divine personhood.

Question: Is this the way in which Christians view sexuality? We should. We should see our own sexuality in a positive, Biblical way.

But to get real about this, some of us, have shame over our past sexual behavior? Even if we are old, or disabled and not sexually active any more, we may judge ourselves for our sexual past? We may judge ourselves as sexually impure.

Maybe this is because we have misused the gift of our sexuality or we think we have.

I think for all of us, on this topic, we need to be told some good news.

Here is the good news. In Christ we are all forgiven for our past sins. Jesus’s death on the cross covers our sexual failures, sins and hurts too. In him, they are removed as far as the East from the West. And in him we are restored to the sexual identity God originally created in us.

To heal we might say to our selves, “I am a sexual being. My sexuality is good. Where I have misused it, I am forgiven in Christ. Dear God, through Christ, please forgive my sexual mistakes. My sexuality is not a dirty thing. It is beautiful. My sexuality is a gift from God.”

Recently my daughter moved from a dark, older apartment to a bright, fresh, newly remodel house —  a new kitchen, new laminate flooring, a tasteful, modern grey, white and black decor, a white crown molding in the bedrooms, a red front door. Gorgeous! Apparently the house had been trashed, then just before she moved in, completely retored.

Old things can become new again. What was trashed can be remodeled. Restoration is a beautiful thing.

God is like a good landlord. He restores what he is responsible for. God is a restoration God, and he can redeem a harmful sexual past. He can make all things new, and he can remodel our sexuality and the relationships that surround it.

As we know, sex is intrinsically a social thing; it takes two to tingle. It is an aspect of how we humans relate to each other, and as such it was intended by God to be one of the ingredients of good relationships.

When Jesus said in Matthew 19, “the two will become one flesh,” he was saying that when a person leaves their father and mother, and chooses a spouse, and marries and has sex, the sex is part of them becoming one with their mate.

When Jesus prayed in John 17 that we would all become we were reminded that sex is a part of that plan. Sex creates a deep spiritual oneness with another person.

This so goes against what we are currently being taught in our culture, in movies and music. We are currently being taught that sex is just a physical act, that it is a casual behavior, like eating, and we should feel free to do it with any one we like if they consent.

Billy Crystal captured this casualness when he quipped, “Women (just) need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place.”

But consider, by way of contrast, Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 6:16,  Message version of scripture. Here Paul echoes Jesus.

“There is more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, ‘The two become one.'”

Here as with Jesus we are told that sex is more than a physical act, it is deeply spiritual. It creates spiritual oneness.

Paul goes on, ” Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever—the kind of sex that can never ‘become one.'”

Paul is addressing the issue of sex outside of marriage. Here, and throughout the Bible, we are  insructed to keep sex within marriage. The Bible never counsels young people to leave their father and mother and shack up with a friend.

But why reserve sex only for marriage? The church has been good at saying this, but  not good at explaining “Why.”

Here is the “Why.” When we have sex with another person, scripture observes, that our identities combine. We become one in intimacy, one in vulnerability, one in shared history and one spiritually.

“We did it,” means we merged!

As a result we never again think of that other person the same, or will our relationship with them be the same. We have crossed a line and entered into the “us” zone. Whether we just fall asleep afterwards or have a long talk into the night, we will in some sense carry that person with us as we go forward.

One of the difficulties that ensues from this if the sex is premarital is that, in a sense, we have acted married and so we may feel married because we have married our most intimate selves to another soul.

Scientists tell us that the chemicals of sex — endorphins and oxytocin — make us feel bonded. Oxytocin is known as the “cuddling hormone” because it causes us to feel a connection and bond with our lovers, even when we aren’t really bonded.

Sex, in this way, actually confuses our thinking. Sex makes us stupid. Once we sleep with someone, we may, in effect stay mentally asleep and fail to notice areas of deep incompatibility that will eventually undo the relationship.

We might say, “It was nothing! It was just a one-night-stand.” That’s not true; sex is always something — it is intrinsically the kind of thing that people build lives on, the kind of thing that has always been honored as sacred, respected for centuries and centuries, as a gateway to family.

Pretending sex isn’t best reserved for marriage, won’t dilute the profound mutuality of it.

That special person, chosen to share in that delicious, memorable, soul bonding feast will remain inside, long after the phone stops ringing.

The truth is that if the relationship doesn’t last there will be a ripping apart of what was bonded, whether we hear the tear or not. Sex bonds, and that bond undone. It’s a ripping of our hearts.

It is so sad for those this has happened to. We can recovery, but we will need to seek healing and help to do so.

Rings and vows, increase our odds of staying together, and of us not damaging our fragile identities  and the identifies of others.

1 Corinthians 6:19 tells us,  “Our body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit” and that we, “can’t live however … [we] please, squandering what God paid such a high price for?”

Good, all good counsel.  Paul got it right, and so did Jesus, when it came to sex. It’s  good, when we stick to the plan of the one who created it.

 

What Did Jesus Say About Politics?

Posted: February 9, 2016 in church
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Many Christians view politics negatively, perhaps after the fashion of Larry Hardiman who once quipped, “The word ‘politics’ is derived from the word ‘poly’, meaning ‘many’, and the word ‘ticks’, meaning ‘blood sucking parasites.'”

Ronald Regan had a mitigated view.

Politics is not a bad profession. “If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself,  you can always write a book.”

But what did Jesus say about politics?

In Mark 10:42-45, Jesus responding to his followers when they became political, competitive and  power hungry by saying, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Jesus opposed dominating, power hungry, competitive, self-serving leaders. Jesus taught servant leadership.

How can we apply this to politics?

Christians would do well, following Jesus, to promote and elect politicians who have servant’s hearts. Those leaders can be strong, but they should use their strength for the people, not for themselves.

Which candidate currently running for President of the United States would be the best servant of the people?

I think Jesus might say, “Look into the candidates hearts. Elect the best servant.”

I have always admired British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in this regard. Churchill stayed in London when the Germans bomb it during the blitz of WWII, even though this put his own life at risk.

Churchill’s position: “We shall go on to the end … we shall never surrender.”

That’s leadership. In the blitz, Churchill didn’t dominate his people,  but instead he identified with them, lived with them, served them.

We recently hired a woman in our church to be our REFINERY gardener. We needed to buy her a lawnmower to cut our courtyard grass. I told her we should get a gas lawn mower, with a twin turbo V-8 powering it, one that you ride on. That way the staff could even use it to get to work and back.

Instead she wanted a GreenWorks electric lawnmower, one that you push. Why? She didin’t want smelly, toxic gasoline in our church storage areas and our church courtyard.

I didn’t try to dominate her, although I am her supervisor, but instead respected her as a fellow leader. She should have the power to make her own decisions. We bought the GreenWorks mower. She is the gardener, not me. She, and her good vision for our organization are to be respected. My job is to support her, to empower her, not to control her. Jesus taught servant leadership; we Christians would do well to ask what this looks like at church, and at home. It looks like not dominating people.

What else did Jesus say about politics?

In Matthew 10:15-16 Jesus said, “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.

Jesus taught us, as his followers, to be shrewd. What does shrewd mean?

Here it means not easily deceived, not easily taken advantage of, not overly simplistic and gullible in thinking.

This is needed when Christians confront politics.

During many recent Presidential campaigns Christians have run after candidates they thought represented their values — say pro-life, or pro-family — only to find that once in office those candidates did nothing to advance those causes.

We Christians should be smarter than that, and not let candidates manipulate or deceive us by seeming to align with us on one Christian issue.

Paul, in 1 Thessalonians 5:21 commands us, “Test everything.” What should we test, politically? Going back to Jesus, we should test the hearts of our political candidates and the plans they have to accomplish things.

Before we vote, we might ask, is this candidate full of love, or hate? Does this candidate or this issue come from a place of fear, or love? Will what this person proposes work, or is this a false promise?

It is no secret that the American government has recently been stuck, polarized and bogged down by politicians who are unwilling to work together. So, we are in need of servant’s hearts in government,  ones who can negotiate, compromise when needed, get things done, serve, not try to dominate.

This brings us to the third important thing Jesus said about politics.

Jesus said, ” Love your enemies.”

We are not to hate even those who oppose us.

When George Bush was president, some of my Christians friends thought he was the devil. The invasion of Iraq sealed that for them.

When President Obama was elected, I heard a few Christians who thought the sky had fallen. Such hatred. Such lies, that he was a Muslim, that he wasn’t an American. Those charges were ridiculously untrue.

Listen Christians, you have the right and responsibility to choose candidates, and to side up on the issues. You do not, as Christians, have a calling or mandate to hate well-meaning leaders you disagree with. I don’t believe we have ever elected a truly evil American President.

We Christians are not called to be negative or cynical or despairing about government or its “blood sucking politicians.”

We should control ourselves. Jesus told us to love even our enemies and scripture commands us to pray for all our political leaders. We can disagree, we can oppose — we cannot hate. Hated is toxic. Jesus was against it.

Consider this flash point for love and hate in politics — political parties.

Which is the Christian political party; what is God’s party?

Let’s consider this conceptually.

The Republicans are pro-life, but the Democrats care for the poor, and the Independent Party claims their foundation is within Christianity.

So which one is God’s party. None of them. There is no perfectly Christian Party. One represents Christians well on one issue, one on another. And it is complicated. There are Republicans who care about poverty, Democrats who are pro-life.

We must not be naive.

We must face facts; the people on the other side of the aisle, in the other party, those who differ from us politically, even those in another form of government or even those in another religion aren’t necessarily evil. They probably even have some good points to make on the issues the country faces.

In my own church we have people from all persuasions; some have told me they are staunch Democrats, some staunch Republicans, some Independents, and yet we happily go to church together without forcing anyone to adhere to other’s political opinions.

This is because we Christians are not called to be devisive, to be unreasonable, to be narrow-minded, and we are not called to be negative or cynical or disparaging about government, about someone else view of government, even about those “blood sucking politicians.”

Our passion and calling, as a Christians, is to love our leaders, to love those who we disagree with, to work with them to bring about good and to pray for them to follow God.

I spoke to my dad recently. I asked about politics. He is 87 years old. He has always been very conservative.

When I asked him about the race this year, he said what he always says, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Wise man. Then he added. “I changed sides.”

I had to laugh. My dad, changed parties! He has never done that, but I applaud his open mindedness. He is a lover, not a hater. He is following Paul who described wisdom as being open to reason.

Love and not fear should dominate our political Christian thinking. When we  vote, we should ask, is this vote coming out of fear, or hate, or love. We Christians are called to hope, to love, to good and truth wherever it exists. Good governance is full of love.

Good governance is Abraham Lincoln, loving us as one people and preserving the Union at great cost. It is Teddy Roosevelt loving nature and preserving it though a system of national parks. It is Franklin Roosevelt lovingly shepherding us through the Great Depression.

Lastly, in terms of politics, I want to bring up something else Jesus said. He said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”

Jesus did not say government is the way, truth and life. For the Christian, our ultimate trust is in God, not government. Do we expect human government to establish Christianity on the earth?

Our government may follow our Christian morality — we want it to; it would be good for it to — but government’s role is not to teach our faith or our prayers to the people. We, the church, do that ourselves.

It is good and right to seek a just, fair state. We should do all we can do to bring truth, order and wisdom to government. It is noble to be a politician, it is a great calling to lead a nation, but we must not try to turn the state into the church, not expect the state or the government to do the work of the church.

The government can’t make people Christians.

The story goes that in 311 Constantine was marching to capture Rome when at Milvian Bridge he saw a vision of the initials of Christ in front of the sun surrounded by these words: “By this sign conquer.”

Then the narrative goes, Constantine marched his troops into the river, declared them baptized, and ordered them to paint those letters on their shields.

Historian Charles Williams says that then “All insincerity became Christian.” Legs standing in water don’t make Christians. No one can mandate Christianity. The state does not exist to force baptisms.

And yet some Christians seem to want someting like this. I have heard Christians say that we have lost the fight for prayer in schools, lost the protection of unborn life in our laws, lost the sanctity of traditional marriage. It is as if they think the government should be the church.

I personally don’t want the government teaching my children how to pray. I don’t trust they would do that well, but I do want the government to allow my children to pray — and it does. I wish the government protected unborn life, but even if it doesn’t I will protect life whenever I can. And whatever the government decides marriage is, that doesn’t change or harm my marriage.

My marriage is still sacred. The only real threat to my marriage is me. It is mine to keep sacred, and if it is ruined, it wll not be ruined by governmental law, it will be ruined by the choices my wife and I make or don’t make to deeply love each other.

We Christians are not losing. We have not lost our freedoms or our values or our own choices to be moral, and we have not lost our own definitions of what is moral.  The government has yet done very little to take away our right to personally live according to our values.

Of course, as we look back on history, there are many case of the American government running over citizens rights, but I find that when I go to church I am yet free to practice all the essentials of Chrisitanity without any governmental interference.  As for now, the first amendment of the Constitiution stands. It protects us. I expect it to continue to protect us. I appreciate this.

And consider this. Nothing the government does or ever can do cancels the redemptive work of Christ on the cross. Jesus died to set us free and so we are free indeed. No Government can do that —  set us free from sin and death — and no government can take Christ or our freedom in Christ away from us.

Christians, pray when you want. Protect life by your own choices. Love and marry as you choose, and keep your own marriage sacred by being loyal to your own spouse.

Our lives, our values, our hopes, our truths are safe — in Christ.

I like what Jesus said about politics.

What kind of political leaders can we support? We can support servant leaders. What kind of political thinking should we do? Savvy and shrewd. What best defines the good politics? It is love not fear.

What is our true source of order and stability?

It is God.

I Love This Pickle!

Posted: January 26, 2016 in goodness, wonders
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Contentment is a great feeling, unless it stifles excitement.

You can get too contented and fall into apathy or indifference. Perhaps you are there if you are no longer excited about stuff like tonight’s pork chops, next year’s vacation to the great Northwest, putting up the lights this Christmas or something along the lines of your next new friend —  or precious love.

I love getting excited! That is why I drink espresso. So does my youngest daughter. I remember how when she was little she got to clutching and chewing a giant, green dill pickle and then exclaimed with her famous, family jolly face, “I love this pickle! This is the best pickle I have every had in my whole life!”

Excitement; it’s an ignitement! Boom!

Recently I drove a 2013 Infinity G37 sports coupe — 330 hp, sharp steering, Bose sound system. It growled and yowled; I howled!

Reverse is just okay; ahead is super “Yea!”

I like being content, kicking back with what is, making friends with reality. Today I was very content with my cats. They were such a finality of furry finesse — dipped in black, doused in fluffy, immersed in sleepy, lions couchant on my lap. They make me purr.

I also like being discontent, with things that need to change. I like making plans, making changes, creating a new future, crafting something better.

Last week I bought a new but affordable espresso maker, a burr grinder and a tasty blend of locally roasted coffee. This morning, I was excited about better lattes — and not paying coffee shop prices. After drinking a double shot of Dark Horse I was even more excited. I love it when a good plan comes together — on my tongue, in my brain.

I might go to Nappa Valley this spring, tagging along after my wife, the archivist, as she goes to a work conference — my own bookish true love setting the pace for us as she so often does. I like following her around, especially to wine country.  I might buy that used but yet fun G car, I might write another blog post, I might plant some flowers in the new courtyard at the church tomorrow with my botanical friend Brenda, I might wash my black cat Megan — soon. She needs it: she wants it.

There is so much hope when we try things, when we enjoy stuff, when we just go for it.

I’m excited. I need to pick a date to take my friends to see the wild flowers in the dessert this spring. I want to take a bunch of them. I don’t think I will need any coffee to put those new countertops in the bathroom later this year. I can’t wait to go to work today. We might put the new gates in the halls this week! Where is my check book? I want to make that donation to my favorite charity — the one I work for.

I’m jived! I can’t wait to see people today!  I cannot wait to not judge the next person I see; I can hardly stand it as I anticipate telling them that they are amazing. I want to empower everyone I can!  Where is that set of drawings, who is my next best friend? What do we get to do next? Where is that dill pickle?

I can hardly wait for next and for coming and for here, and even this —  to finally jump up and down on my grave and shout to the sky, “Bring it on– smacked up and packed down and pushed all together and completely running over the top!”

I can hardly wait for eternity.

I’m excited about a life that just keeps on going, about a God who just keeps on loving, about friends who are always there and never leave.

Excitement — I don’t think you can’t overrate it.

“Yea!”

“Wahoo!”

Dispensing the Truth

Posted: January 14, 2016 in truth
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A friend who works investigating social security fraud once said to me, “Everybody lies.” I thought, “Wow, nothing like law enforcement to craft a lovely, generous, cherry outlook.”

Of course he was right — and of course he wasn’t. Blunt, extreme generalities seldom shelter complete truths.

Not everyone cheats the government out of social security money, not everyone is fundamentally a liar, but all of us sometimes fudge the truth a bit with each other, and perhaps for good reason. We do so to be sensitive, perhaps to be successful; some at times simply to be safe.

Some one recently asked me, “How do you like it? ” It was about their hair. “Careful, careful,” my mind whispered frantically. “Your life depends on your answer.”

We prevaricate, or at least dither with the truth, to be kind, sensitive, supportive.  It works, kind of, but let’s be honest here. We do lie. All of us, and it has come to me in moments of personal clarity that perhaps the most fundamental lies are the ones we tell ourselves.

Recently I dialogued with myself about a certain kind of success. I muttered internally, “I don’t really care.” I really do. My accismus is self-protection. If you can’t get something, pretend you don’t want it. “Ah,” that’s painful.”

But there is hope, as we blunder towards Bethlehem, as we muddle toward the kind of truth that can set us free. Truth is a process — with our Caesars, with our friends and family, with ourselves.

Someone told me recently, “I trust you.” I trust this person too, and yet a deeper level of trust still needs to be and can be constructed as we get to know each other better. Trust takes time.

Consider ritual deference. It is a game we all play. Flatter publically; mistrust privately. And let’s not act uppity about this.

Who hasn’t been obsequious? Who hasn’t fawned, flattered, flirted and flummoxed the truth, to ingratiate ourselves to another person we wanted something from, even if it was something good, perhaps simply mutual respect.

It isn’t all bad. Recently someone asked me if I liked a purchase they made. “It’s great,”  I said. “Nice. Good job.” In a way I covered my opinion, but I did so because I wanted them to have the say, make the choice, enjoy their selection. It didn’t matter what I really thought. What I was saying was that I supported their right to make this decision independent of me.

The dispensing of truth is a lot about discernment, roles, dosage, timing —  even love.

I love you so I will tell you the truth. I love you, so I will be very careful with what and when and how I speak to you.

Deeds of Gallantry

Posted: January 12, 2016 in beautiful
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Deeds of gallantry were accomplished in an “age of lace, logic, blood and bigotry;” thus Tyler Whittle gets at the English contribution to botany in the 17th Century in his delightful tale of botanist-explorers, Plant Hunters.

While botanist Young John was working on his catalogue as the King’s Garderner, Charles the First was losing his head outside the garden wall.

So knowledge may be filched from a season of chaos, and beauty from violence.

We see this in the arts. Frida Kahlo began painting after she was severely injured in a bus accident. Van Gogh painted “Starry Night,” lonely and crazed. And there is Jacques-Louis David painting through the French Revolution.

People do stuff — gorgeous, gentle, life-giving stuff — even during times of chaos and pain. They garden, paint, write, sing, hum, invent, cook and give care during difficulty, sickness and war.

Within the vagaries of difficulty lie the armamentarium of aesthetics. Pain paints, and it plants a garden too.

Because of this, we should never wait to start finding and making new things. Procrastination — waiting to begin beautiful things until life is post-trauma or post-messy — it’s a fool’s business. Life is never post-messy.

Wisdom will futz through the mud to find a Fragaria muricata, the lovely Plymouth strawberry plant English botanist Old John found in a rubbish dump.

Deeds of gallantry in times of difficulty — these are at the core of every laborious science, craft and art.

Getting To Gentle

Posted: January 10, 2016 in animals, healing
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All of us creatures get worked up, exercised, frustrated — with life, with each other, with reality, with ourselves. Often it is because we have made a mistake, or others have, or we all think we have.

It’s not that much fun.

Take my cat Megan. She had a cat box faux pas last night. Her business went beyond the box. Afterwards she seemed to be a bit embarrassed. When I approached her, she took off running, then she came back to the problem, agitated. In the next few moments she seemed to be having a bit of an anxiety attack. She has lots of of past issues, needs psychotherapy, maybe not,  perhaps medication, I don’t know. I can identify. We mostly employ gentleness.

We cleaned up the problem, then I took her upstairs to the bathroom. It’s her safe place. She loves the upstairs bathroom. When she was a kitten, this is where we took her to recover after we found her sick and abandoned.

Last night, once in the  bathroom, I talked softly to her, as I always do.  She needed a bath, so I gave her a washing, some shampoo, some warm water, a bit of toe scrubbing. During the rinsing, for a moment or so, I think she thought I was going to drowned her. I didn’t.

She survived for the toweling, which went better than the washing, but then this is not a cat who hates a bath. She rather loves it, applied gently. She is familiar with bathing. — she often has a bath — and she especially enjoys getting dried. She purrs, she wheezes, she rolls over on her back. Afterward she struts the house, quite proud of her new look and feel.

Meagan likes the upstairs bathroom experience so much that sometimes when I even walk by the bathroom, she runs in hoping it is time to get washed, or a least brushed. Hydrotherapy —  for her it kind of substitutes nicely for psychotherapy. Me too.

Cats are kind of simple — like all of us.

What helps them, what helps us, when we have a problem, when we are traumatized, when we get anxious is rather basic.

What helps is the absence of judgment, the foregoing of shame and the abandonment of harshness. What helps is someone else’s care, a safe place, warmth, a loving voice, a happy solution,  a soft towel, a pat or two — these gentle things help.

What is the way back from trauma?

It’s is nicely accomplished, somehow, by getting back to what is gentle.

If Not, Not!

Posted: December 31, 2015 in conflicts
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“We, who are as good as you, swear to you, who are not better than us, to accept you as our king and soverign lord, provided you observe all our liberites and laws — but if not, not.”

This was the oath of allegiance sworn by Catalans and Aragonese to the Spanish monarch in Madrid in the 15th Century.

I love it!

It’s in-your-face; it’s respectful.

It’s got commitment in it; it’s got a brash sense of liberty hanging around it; it has boundaries.

This oath respects that we take on different roles, but that those roles don’t make anyone better than any one else. That’s right.

Mutual respect, mutual value and mutual good are at the core of all good relationships. For love to exist, both sides must honor and value the other.

This fits us; it squares with democracy; it squares with our modern marriages; it squares up nicely with modern society.

Men and women must equally honor each other. Races must value other races. Rich and poor — mutual respect. Parents should respect their children, the children respect the parents.

Differing faiths are fine to differ, but they must not hate and attack each other. Political parties exist to put forward contrasting opinions, but hate, disrespect and personal attacks will ruin both. Having differing ideas doesn’t necessarily  make either side evil, it just makes them different.

The best relating is a confident, everything-on-the-table negotiation. It is dialogue, with respectful boundaries — well put.

If yes, yes; if not, not.

We make a pact to honor.

Let’s not let it get to not.

Love and Art

Posted: December 29, 2015 in beautiful
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“Renoir is perhaps the only great painter who never painted a sad picture.”

                                                                                                        Octave MirbeauI

I love painting.

I don’t love painting the bathroom or the kitchen, but I love painting,  as in the stuff hanging in the Musée d’Orsay, the National Gallery, the Vatican — like that.

When I travel, I go to museums. When I read, I sometimes choose  the biographies of great artists or I select art histories.

Lately, I’ve noticed that the sadness and the mental angst in some of the great artists stands out, and yet not with all of them — not with Renoir.

I love Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

For me, art and happiness, art and family, art and community, art and the good life merge in Renoir. This is personal. It’s been an epiphany for me. When I have encountered Renoir, at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, at the National Gallery in London, at home through Francesca Castellani’s Renoir: His Life and Works, I have found myself quite wonderfully smitten with his work.

In Renoir there is no dark societal evil such as we find in Pieter Bruegel. There are no horrible family feuds lurking, as with Vincent Van Gogh. There is no drunken self-destruction as in Jackson Pollock. Pillaging, evil, raging, darkness, addiction, mental illness – we don’t find this in Renoir. What a relief!

Sane life; sane art.

Renior at home, with his wife Aline, in the fields, with his children, with his friends, his community, nature all around — this inspired his art.

It isn’t that life was perfect for the Renoirs: There were Renoir’s early rejections by the Salon juries, there was Aline’s suffering with diabetes, there was the progressive deformity of Renoir’s hands from arthritis. This severely limited his mobility during the last twenty years of his life.

But despite these hardships, life was good for him, Renoir kept painting, and he reveled in the good he saw around him.

Renoir made the everyday gorgeous — a skiff, flowers, a child dancer, girls at the piano, a woman bathing, a couple dancing, a boating party.

He was gentle with reality, painting it softly, graciously. When we take in his oeuvre, we are invited into his comprehensive tactility, delicacy, intimacy, his charming domesticity — all in sumptuous living color.

This is helpful to me and to all of us who aspire to write, to develop craft, to do music, to paint, to do art. We can be artistic, and mentally sound. It’s a revelation. We can be highly creative — and also stable.

We can love, and craft art out of love, and give the world something needed when it is a bit crazy as it is always want to be. We can show life off in all its gorgeous sanity.

Renoir did. Velvety bodies, pearly flesh, flushed cheeks, dark eyes, soft hair — Renoir loved us.

And for this and all the good he enjoyed — I love him back.

The Absence of Jollity

Posted: December 24, 2015 in thriving
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“I consider that the only thing to be really regretted in our last two years operations is the absence of jollity.”

Calvert Vaux

I’m reading the biography of Frederick Law Olmstead, 1822-1903, a fascinating American landscape architect who played a major role in designing Central Park in New York as well as many other public outdoor spaces.

Olmstead got around,  organized a lot of different things — for instance he oversaw a sanitation effort for the Union in the Civil War — worked hard, exercised some creativity, made a name for himself. He even ran a gold mine in California for a bit.

Olmstead’s colleague, Calvert Vaux, however did note while working with him on Central Park one of Olmstead’s serious shortcomings  — it was “the absence of jollity.”

Wow, poor Olmstead. No jollity! That’s a serious problem. It’s like no  money, no food, no vacation. It’s drudgery, sludgery, skulduggery.

Jollity — you’ve got to keep a good supply of that on hand. So you succeed. So you make some money. So you are taken quite seriously. If your are still unhappy, sour, dour, cold with others — then what is the good of that?

Good includes good humor; it is rooted in joy.

What is the secret to a good marriage?

Keep em laughing.

What is the secret to a good partnership?

Mocking problems, hooting over what you have to deal with  —  including the ridiculosity of everyone but you.

The secret to good parenting? It’s verbal acrobatics, a joke here and a gentle tease there. It’s running in the house, dancing in the kitchen, tickling on the living room floor, giggling during family games, it’s funny words and sounds, floating to the ceiling, falling on the floor — snorting.

And what is the secret to a healthy, medicinal spirituality? The Bible says it’s a merry heart.

What to do?

Flee the absence of jollity. Don’t do an Olmstead.

Laugh more, work less, niffle-naffle some. Love more, snicker more, tickle more, chortle more — hee–haw and guffaw.

How? How do you get started?

You could begin by considering how completely and seriously ridiculous you are!

I Love Old Ladies

Posted: December 19, 2015 in people
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I love old ladies.

Take my friend Claudene for instance. She recently had another hip sergery.  Not a whimper or a whine — just surgery and then nothing but tough.

I asked her, “Why don’t you whine?”

“Wouldn’t do any good,” she replies.

There you go.

She recovered so fast after her surgery that I didn’t get out to see her at the hospital like I did for her first hip surgery. She didn’t have a word of complaint or criticism about that.  I like old people who are easy on you, who have learned to keep their mouths shut a lot.

Take my friend Louise.

She had a stroke awhile back. Tough go of it. She couldn’t talk for some time after the stroke which must have been hard for her because she is world class talker.  She is a super talker — funny, dry, wry and fly.

Indeed, Louise is one of the smartest, coolest conversationalists  I know —  liberal, fiesty, free of spirit, spunky even sassy. I like those kind of women; they keep it  real, and fun.

Louise doesn’t spar like she used to, but that twinkle is still in her eyes and I know those flip comments are still running through her head.

Of course not all old ladies are like these two; there are some cranky, negative, narrow-mined octogenarians.

But the ones I know are mostly calm — they don’t carry weapons — and they seem to be at peace with themselves and others.

What is it? What is the good the years can do to us?

I think it is this: we are better when we are old enough that we have nothing much left to prove — but we still wear a little lipstick. I think we are better when  we don’t care so much what others think — except when we watch the news at night and humph a little.  I believe we are better when we have seen and done pretty much everything — short of stuff that would have put us in prison — and when we know we didn’t do anthing perfectly and so we don’t expect anyone else to either.

What I like is the well-seasoned wisdom that isn’t interested in telling other people what to do but more into just enjoying people as they are.

Some of the old ladies I know, Claudene and Louise are among them, meet together for Bible study and fun. They talk, and they learn, and they take care of each other a bit, and laugh a lot. They are led by one of my very gracious friends, Glee, a real lover of people, another one who knows how to  speak only positive things, a wise woman among wise women.

I don’t know a more fun bunch of people than this group.

Well-seasoned ladies, who have been through it, who don’t whine much, who have outlived their more fragile men —  well most of them — and who know how to shut up a lot and how to talk a lot and how to eat heartily — and stay off a bathroom scale mostly — and  poke fun a lot with out being critical or mean — I love them!

 

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