For Fidelity

I want to make a case for fidelity.  Most people don't really use this word in common speech, so it might not even register with clear definition for many people.  Simply put, it is the state of being faithful.  It doesn't necessarily refer to marriage, though that kind of fidelity is probably what comes to mind if anything at all.  It can also mean close reproduction, as in video or sound...remember the old hifi's?  It just means being true to whatever you have committed to.  If you translate a book, it should be done faithfully.  If you deliver a message, if you offer assistance, if you give your word.  In all of these things we should have a high degree of fidelity.

Sadly, it seems this is grossly lacking in our society.  I know far too many people who shift and blow with trends and whims and emotions.  As I believe grace to be the central concept of Christianity, I don't condemn anyone for it.  I know we all have our issues and that God works with us wherever we are.

But I for one, take fidelity very seriously.  I value it.  I can't be happy when a husband or wife or mother or father leave.  I can't be happy when they find someone new.  I can't just shrug when someone leaves their faith.  I have to root for the white knight.  Give me the Princess Bride, not Dear John.  The Four Feathers, not the Watchmen.  I know life happens and we all have to muddle through.  I know good that has worked out after all kinds of bad faith cases.  Like I said, I'm not judging anyone or setting up some sort of system.  But I also can't pretend it doesn't bother me.

I want my words to be true; I don't use them loosely.  I want my commitments to be real; I don't make them lightly.  In this broken world, there are virtuous people who mean what they say and do what they commit to.  They still exist today.  But we don't value it.  We barely speak of it.  Fidelity is a virtue we need to reclaim.

Obstinate

Very often my own life illustrates Truth to me.  Often my relationship with my child tells me many things.  Just recently, as is her bent, she was getting an attitude when I tried to talk about something important for me, but which she doesn't care about or want to think about.  Now, I realize it was over her head somewhat, but not so far that she couldn't engage with me on some level.  But instead she chose to make it as difficult to proceed as possible.  To so ruin the moment that I didn't even want to talk any more.  So was I to force the issue and win the battle of wills?  Sometimes I do, but not in this case.  So I stopped talking.

That's when it hit me: that she was treating me very much like we treat God.  I wanted to share something that was from a deep part of me.  I wanted to reveal my heart to her and to know hers and to experience the real joy of close friendship.  But she was more interested in what I could do for her and nothing more.  Don't bother her with anything else or she'll do as poor a job and make it as miserable as possible until she gets her way or hates me for forcing things.  It's a fight that truly can't be won...not really.  I can enforce my will but I can't in the least make her love me...make her want to know me.

All the blessings of clean clothes, good food, shelter, protection, entertainment that I bestow upon her are lost.  They just are what she has always known.  They don't make her love me, though of course I would not stop them...sure check them from time to time, remove luxuries when necessary to coax behavior.  Of course, I will feed her, clothe her, comfort her, protect her always, even if she doesn't acknowledge it or deserve it.  But what I really want is the open and free relationship of enjoying each other's company.

I think God wants nothing different from us.

Gender

I've been wanting to blog about this for some time and every time I can't quite get it to work. Then something else occupies my mind and I forget about it. But here goes again.

Gender is something that really defines us, but at the same time, I don't think is so static. While we are physically one or the other (and for the record I don't believe it is possible to be mentally one gender and physically another) our whole existence is not so set as we may think.

I totally believe it is possible to be very in touch with aspects that we associate with the opposite gender and still be fully healthy and fully man or woman as the case may be. For example, there are very masculine men and there are men who embody more traditionally feminine characteristics. Some men are sensitive, artistic, nurturing, emotional, etc. Some women are also aggressive, strong, competitive, protective. This doesn't necessarily make them any more or less men or women, because I don't believe each gender to be so polarized. I think that is a gross generalization that we apply to people and I believe it is unhealthy.

I think that by saying this set of characteristics define "man" and this set define "woman" lead to many of the sexual and identity issues we face in society. Where those would not be issues if people were freer to be who they were. God does not make mistakes, people do. And by pinning things down so rigidly we stack the deck against certain people who don't fit the profile.

I myself have never fit the profile, though not in the homosexual sense. Many of the traditionally male associated attributes I don't understand or like. Interestingly, my wife is the mirror image, exhibiting many traditionally male characteristics herself. Now, don't get me wrong here. This isn't some kind of twisted role reversal. I am fully man and she is fully woman. At the same time, we both embody very male and female characteristics as well, so get over that. If you know us, you understand what I mean. My wife is far more apt to watch sports or gore and less apt to talk about her feelings or thoughts than me. Though she is sweet and nurturing. I am more apt to express myself verbally and physically. Though I am fiercely protective of my family and enjoy tough physical activities.

To put it another way, we all have access to all aspects of humanity, from both genders. We are parts of one whole. I believe God designed it that way, like everything else, to represent an aspect of greater reality. God is necessarily beyond gender and exhibits the complete form, the ideal, of whatever we echo here in this world. Next to his complete masculinity every man is utterly feminine. Next to his femininity, every woman is utterly masculine.

I could go on, but it gets immensely complicated. I could blog entirely on the beauties of femininity and again on the virtues of masculinity. Suffice to say, I believe the physical aspects of gender to be entirely a part of this world. But I believe the deeper truer aspects of gender to be parts of one whole which we all echo in various degrees and combinations. Celebrate the differences. Experience and enjoy the complex interweavings of gender and leave people to be who they are out of love and respect, and because deep inside, we are not so well gendered as we might think. But don't take my word for this. Many famous Contemplatives have discovered the same thing.

Imprinting

This is a tough topic. I'm going to muddle through it and hope I don't spill too much of myself on the screen. Since this is a topic that reaches beyond what I have words for, I think it will be best to stick in the realm of metaphors. If you have trouble with Contemplative writing of this kind, do us both a favor and skip this entry.

I often refer to myself as a sheepdog. The metaphor has been especially powerful for me lately. In my life, I've noticed certain times when I seem inexorably drawn to someone. I just can't get them out of my head and I am overwhelmed with deep love for them. Not in a romantic way, but real love. These bonds are not at all easily broken. In fact, I can't really think of one time that I have broken it. I don't think I could. The people may go, but the bond stays in me if nowhere else.

One example, I was so impressed upon by God once when I was giving a presentation at a school of second graders about this one child in front of me. I don't know her name, I don't know anything about her, but I have prayed for that child for the past 10 years or more. I've never forgotten her and I could never even find her if I wanted to. But I pray for her to be safe and to grow and to be whole and loved. This is a weaker form of what I mean.

The bond with my friend that I mentioned in the previous post is similar but stronger for having interacted with this friend for so long. Then it happens periodically with the kids I minister to. I love them all and am fiercely protective of them, but every so often there is one that I am really impressed upon. Usually, I don't initiate the connection. In fact with kids, they usually do it because they are so much more apt to respond to those feelings, even though they don't understand how to verbalize them. Heck I can't even describe it. But I feel it deep in my soul in a way I don't with most kid-like clinginess. It's like my heart is bound to that person and something spiritual occurs. I've even seen it go both ways in which I feel myself healing from unrelated heart issues simply by interacting with someone I am attached to. I don't need any reciprocity and am joyed when I see development in the other person in the areas that I have been shown in their heart.

I've struggled with how to explain this in a way that doesn't come across creepy, espeically when talking about kids, but nothing has worked. Then, as often happens with pop culture, I was reading the Twilight series with my wife...I know, mixed reactions, I'm having them myself...but I have to admit it has entered our cultural consciousness very much like the Matrix and Star Wars and it will not go away. There is a lot of truth in those books, packaged amongst the preteen romance and the faddy vampire stuff.

Anyway, the idea that struck me about this was the idea of imprinting. How perfectly apt to my sheepdog metaphor! The wolves have this process of imprinting which is based in real developmental psychology, but fantasized into a spiritual attachment of a positive kind. I hesitate to use that term, since in the vocabulary of Spiritualism, spiritual attachments are pretty exclusively negative. But this concept of imprinting is so well described in the books even down to the confusion with creepiness. It isn't that at all. In fact it is so much the opposite. Someone I am "imprinted on" for lack of a better term is perhaps safer with me than anyone else in the world because I only want what is good for them, only want to help and heal and protect. Just like Jacob and Renesmee.

I've looked for other ways to describe this phenomenon, but they just aren't there. There is nothing in Christian literature that I have yet to find, though the concept is not foreign to Christianity. Jesus is said to have been deeply moved with compassion for people and mystics often talk about being given a heart for someone. I think it must be a process whereby God connects people who need each other for something, even if one of them doesn't realize it.

I'm not trying to make a doctrine out of this. I'm just trying to give a window into something that I wish was more widely recognized. And this metaphor melds well to the situation and with other metaphors that I find helpful.

In the meantime, if I seem inordinately attached to someone, please play it out against this metaphorical backdrop and see if it doesn't fit. It's all positive as far as I can run with it. And at the very least, I feel that someone has recognized the concept in some form or it never would have come out in the book.

Real

What does it mean to be real? The term was popular a few years ago: keep it real, be real, get real...they've all been used. But what does it mean? I guess in its basic sense it has to do with genuineness. No pretense. That carries with it a tone of simplicity, of singleness. And also focus on what is important.

I want to be real. I want to know what is real. I want to live life in its realest, purest form. I want to be ever moving toward greater perfection, greater reality.

So what is real and which direction is more real in my circumstances right now? I want real connections with people. I want to share my life with people. I have this with my family, but I want it in a larger circle. A band, a group, a tribe, stripped of its wierdo connotations. A group of like-minded people to be a part of each other's lives.

What would that like-mindedness center on? Simple reality I think. I have no expectations other than to make our lives better by the synergy of our relation. In other words, to be true friends. To raise our kids together, to share our struggles and joys. I don't mean in any kind of pie-in-the-sky hippie way. Just in a real, genuine, organic, unforced, unartificial, undictated way. No programs, or rules, just people living who get me and I get. A group where our differences make us stronger because they play together instead of against each other. A place where wounds can heal and bonds can grow strong and unbreakable.

This is possible. It is emphactically and empirically possible in our very existing world. Many people already have these kinds of relationships. When is it my turn? When is it yours?