pedadidact

2010 February 12
Transit: North Dakota - Washington

Morning did not come without an amount of waking and rolling, but all told, I slept fairly well on two reclining seats. Out the window cities had been replaced with low tumbling hills draped in white fog, every leaf and limb sheathed in crystal scabbards of verglas. To the south a weather beaten cattle fence stood like an aged sentry loyal to his trust, stooped low under long years but resolved never to give up his post in this isolated riff of snowbound northern exotica.





Between cycles of prayers and naps I passed the morning until around eleven, when I ventured to the viewing car. Wrap-around windows afforded a wider view of nothing, more or less, but it was a lovely sort of powdery vastness with no homes or vehicles in sight. I sat down with a book and began to read, sometimes interrupting myself to write whatever came to mind. My hand dipped regularly into a bag of cranberries and yogurt raisins, and sunflower seeds Erin packed me.



Near mid-day a few brief text messages were exchanged with friends, in particular with my step-brother. In a way ironic to those who know us, I have come to feel more of kin to him than any of my other siblings. Perhaps it is because he is in a way a passionate idealist.



As the sun dipped on the horizon a woman, twenty-two years old, sat down directly beside me. Green sweater, a ring in her bottom lip; a healthy complexion taut with youthful convictions. She did not hesitate to engage me in conversation.



"What are you reading," she asked. I held up the cover flap, INTO THE WILD. She cheered and gave me a high-five, launching into a slurry of excited thoughts about activism and the environment. For the next five or six hours, Alyssa, as she introduced herself, and I had a very warm discussion of beliefs about conservation, ethics, spirituality, and one hundred less significant themes. I found her company to be very enjoyable. She seemed to have a battery of zeal lacking a definite cause or direction to point it in. Another gentleman named Mike joined us.



Though self-medicating with half a dozen "aluminum pills" of Budweiser, he held down an earnest talk about faith and Christian life. Thankfully I was privileged to explain to him the exchange of legal identity believers experience with Christ through faith, and the resulting fruits which accompany it. Another man, Don, had taken a kind of fatherly role towards Alyssa. Now both were trying to convince me to come up to Vancouver to begin my trip. "Where better to begin a cycling trip," Alyssa coaxed, "than the Olympic Games!" But I had no passport with me. Near midnight we resolved to have breakfast together. I hoped to have more evident entries into discussing the gospel with both of them.



A man without reasons to risk his life is already dead, and the stronger his reasons the more alive he is.

I cannot be the smartest, strongest, or most handsome man. Neither do superior talents or superlative knowledge seem within grasp. Perhaps I may strive instead to be amongst the most compassionate, gregarious, gracious souls of this generation. "What is desired in a man is kindness," and what is needful for doing good is not native power but a faith-filled realization of personal weakness. God, plant these in me!

When I was a teen I heard of a man who on his wedding night discovered his wife did not enjoy sexual intercourse. In fact, for reasons she couldn't understand nor anticipate, the bride felt it hurtful and demeaning. Despite an intellectual apprehension of her husband's love and respect, and of the Divine authorship of sexuality, she could not shake the impression and requested pathetically they never do it again.

I recall feeling flabbergasted by the story and felt awful for both of them, though admittedly as a young man my empathy was especially towards the husband as a sorry victim. However, a decade later my thoughts have changed. Of course if I were to marry with the expectation of sharing certain experiences with a woman it would seem a loss not to enjoy these precious, intimate, and even sublime moments of marital pleasure. It would be, as it were, to be "in love" without "making love". Yet I should hope for, and in fact am persuaded there is in me, a prepared willingness to conceive of conjugal acts only as one of many means of expressing mutual affection.

Intercourse is a powerful, unique act, but sex does not comprise the greater portion of a healthy marital relationship. How else could marriage be sustained in the event that injury, incident, or distance prevented it altogether? There are, unhappily, women who have been subjected to abuse, who, while still desiring the loving companionship of a man, and willing to receive his embrace and kisses, are unable to psychologically endure memories unearthed by intercourse. Others have been, through birth or trauma, rendered temporarily or permanently unable to enjoy all of the pleasures others do. For them, sexual intercourse is impossible or too painful to allow. Are these sorts of women to be deprived of all the other benefits of marriage, to be illegitimized because they cannot offer one aspect of their total selves?

I believe that if two persons love one another sincerely, and it comes to pass that one is not sexually minded, or has a degree of inhibitions or special needs, the other should be willing in the interest of love, and for the sum of the whole relationship, to forgo these acts and together find other means of expression and communion. I am not supposing this would be easy for all people, but under such circumstances I think it would be for the best. Women should not be cajoled into that which is emotionally or physically hurtful to them. Neither do I think it good that for reasons beyond their control, women should be deprived the other benefits of marriage, be it companionship, security, or affection, to whatever degree they are comfortable with. Of course no man is required to get himself into an impossible position, but to consider such a situation impossible, I think, is a mistake.

To be frank, if a man marries a woman and it so happens she is effectively without any orifice besides an open heart, he should be content and rejoice to fill it with the love which Christ has for the Church. Husbands are commissioned to prefer their wives above themselves, even to willing abstinence that affirms, rather than shames them.