dear sugar

not sure if you're reading sugar, but i highly recommend it - this post about healing from sexual abuse and sex in marriage is so good - want to make sure if anyone hits my blog looking for any help they find it:

Of course you’re right that the sexual abuse your wife experienced as a child may be the reason for her aversion to sex, but it may not be. The good and bad things that happen to our bodies at the hands of others plays out in unpredictable ways over time. It’s folly to draw a straight line between two things when one of those things is sex. Perhaps your wife has made that line so straight and bright that it’s become precisely her problem: she cannot break the thread that runs in her psyche between the abuse and you.

Healing is about breaking threads and making new ones. It’s about redrawing the line between our powerlessness and our power. I don’t agree with you that those who’ve suffered sexual abuse can’t ever heal completely. I think we’re altered by what hurts us, but with love and consciousness, with intention and forgiveness, we’re capable of being whole again. Completely.

I believe myself to be healed. I know a lot of sexual abuse survivors who are. We’re here. We’re waving to you from the other side. We’re taking it all off. We’re getting down and some of us are even getting dirty. We hope your wife will join us.

read the whole column here: Dear Sugar, Sugar on the Rumpus: The Three Year Dry Hump

is it any wonder i'm so f*cked up?

welcome to my childhood...

The Playboy Club on Madmen...The View is Better From Up Here

have you ever had a salad served to you by a woman w/ a bunny tail glued to her ass? i have - 6 years old. they had one of these in my home town - it was a resort and my aunt was the head of catering. my father was a "key holder" - we had dinner there at least 3 times i can remember. six years old.

i was flipping through the channels last night - they just changed our cheap cable to include amc - i have watched the first 2 seasons of "mad men" as the time frame is totally my growing up years, but i missed season 3 - and didn't really want to watch 1/2 way into this season, but i couldn't turn the channel when this came on - i was instantly transported back to this horror. how could anyone think this was a good place to bring your wife & daughters? oh my stinkin' heck.

other than that life is good, celebrating 24 years of marriage w/ liam today.

have a good one! miss you all.

Mark Scandrette - Love-Making as a Spiritual Practice

great article and thoughts:

Mark Scandrette - Love-Making as a Spiritual Practice

ted haggard struggles with sexuality

Ted Haggard documentary to air on HBO in January - should be interesting to see what this adds to the discussion.

homosexuality

i have been blogging for nearly five years here now and i have chosen to avoid this subject for a couple of reasons. first being i am no expert. second being this subject cuts very close to home for me. third is probably just not wanting to weather a troll storm in my comments or just plain lack of courage, but i have come to realize too late that my silence needs to be broken.

as a recovering sexual addict i have spent far too much of my life with my nose pressed up against the rough edges of life. i haven't written about my sexual addiction in quite some time, mostly because i have had 7 1/2 blessed years of abstinence that i cherish deeply and probably don't want to "jinx" it. i don't believe that's really true when i write it, but sometimes we get superstitious and don't really even know it.

in the past few months i have crossed paths with some amazing new bloggers. most of them are recovery men who happen to be gay. i love gay men. i really do. penni and i have said many times that they are the best friends a wounded woman could have. they live out of a beautiful place in their souls - and usually they've been wounded along their path too, so they just plain "get it".

i am writing about this now because much of the woundedness i see happens at the hands of the church in the name of a very vengeful, atrocious god. it breaks my heart.

as a woman raised in a female hating denomination i had that god on my back for most of my life too. the worst part of spiritual abuse is that the very comforter who should be there when the rest of life turns on you is taken away and made into the one who orchestrated it all. instead of finding comfort from god those of us with vast boatloads of shame are told that the shame is there because we're so screwed up and that god created that shame to get our attention so that we will behave in the way that we're supposed to. it's a really f-ed up logic, but to a child raised in a strict, religious home we're too naive and wounded already that we just can't tease apart the error.

the best part of my recovery journey has been the line from the step 3 "god as i understand him." somehow that gave me permission to begin to peel back the edges of the rigid doctrine i had been raised with and start to question. what i saw was an ugly idol. as sick and twisted as the old testament idols we were warned about. maybe, just maybe this wasn't really god. maybe, just maybe my understanding, and the understanding of those who hurt me so was WRONG. maybe. it's what i'm devoting the next two years of my life to. it will hopefully be my thesis.

maybe that idol needs to be pulled off it's altar so that we can fully find a real god who truly sets us free and is worthy of our devotion.

why this theology stop in a post about homosexuality? it's who i am. a sexual addict who loves theology and i adore the god i've found in recovery. and i so long for others to find that god too.

you see i think the church uses homosexuality as a red herring. i'll shake the red flag over here to divert your eyes so that you don't see my sexual brokenness. i know that in my own life the times i was overly concerned with other people's bedrooms/sexual lives/behaviors was when mine was helter skelter all over the place (mostly in the gutter).

can we all just agree that god wants us all to be more sexually healthy than we are today? whatever that looks like. please, can we stop shaming other people because our own shame is so great and looming that we feel like we need to spread it around?

there isn't some great dividing line that says my sexual brokenness is okay with god and that person's over there isn't. we're all broken. we all need redemption. we all need a god who is big enough to help us heal. let's stop wagging fingers in peoples faces and start to sit with our own brokenness. we all struggle at some level with self acceptance, intimacy and wholeness. homosexual marriage doesn't threaten your family. your own sexual brokenness threatens your family. focus on your own damn family and stop using others as an issue to assuage your guilt.

we who call ourselves christ followers must, in the most honest places of our souls, acknowledge that we know that jesus sat with all who were sexually wounded and offered friendship, healing and hope. how dare we say that there are those who must heal themselves before they can experience the grace of god?

shame on us.

us.

of all people we should be the most understanding - but we're so afraid to acknowledge our own sexual sin/fantasies/behavior that we can't even afford ourselves the grace god extends to us for our own sexual healing.

please understand that i am in no way saying that i expect that jesus will heal anyone of homosexuality. i make no claim/stand/opinion on this - i just know that each of us needs to be more healed and healthy than we we are now. if that healing is found in a committed homosexual relationship before god that is none of my business and i glory in the fact that it's not mine to judge. i want to live a life that accepts, embraces and invites others to the healing i have found and continue to grow in.

if you have been wounded by the god of the religious right i am so sorry. for whatever role i played in that crazy mixed up world i repent. and i invite you to begin to pray, to a kinder, gentler god and ask to have the lies removed, to clear away the error, to do away with the hate and begin to feel the love and peace promised. that prayer continues to be answered in my life and i truly believe it will be in yours too.

here's something my friend steve wrote that might help those of us raised with that right wing god and need to learn to open our hearts and have more mercy and grace:

ragamuffin ramblings: what i wish straight christians knew

dangerous women

when the comments weren't working the other day i panicked and wanted some feedback on what i had written. i sent off two emails, one to dan brennan of faith dance, who is writing on male/female friendships and intimacy and one to one of my new friends here in my community - lydia. she and i are connecting on many different levels. this was her response (that i post here with full permission hoping that it helps others who are connecting too with these thoughts):

Thank you so much for saying you feel safe trusting your inner person with me. Those are words that mean the world to me and I will do all I can to see that trust is not broken. I wish I had some answers for you but I think this goes deeper than either of us and I think it has more to do with the society we were raised in and the whole masculine/feminine thing than it does with you (or me) personally.

I don't think that you are alone in those feelings. I think every one of us as women are battling with those same feelings in ourselves - those of us who are in touch with our feelings and are honest enough to admit them even to ourselves. And if we have been unfaithful to our true self in any way (and there is not a woman alive who has not been untrue to herself in one way or another) we find it next to impossible to ever fully trust ourselves again.

First I think we have to FULLY forgive ourselves for surviving this patriarchal world the only way we knew how, congratulate ourselves for growing enough to choose a healthier path for ourselves and then reassure ourselves that we will never HATE ourselves again - no matter what mistakes we make along the way.

Remember that every second you spend torturing yourself with these fears and concerns is time that robs you of being fully present to the beautiful life you have now and the beautiful people you have in it. LOVE YOURSELF and even love those terrible mistakes that fill you with shame now. It was all a part of finding the right path for you. And the burden of guilt rests with all of us for creating the society we live in. All we can do now is forgive ourselves, love ourselves, and do our best to make a better world for those following in our footsteps.

an email friend sent me this poem she wrote:

My Protector.

A source of external strength.
My source of internal strife.
She keeps me safe.
She threatens my life.

This physical weight.
This emotional baggage. Ties me to this earth.
Ties me to my life.
Keeps me safe.

From what, you say?
From me, I say.

The me, that given to self-discovery and indulgence
may lead me down a path I don’t want to go down.
That leads to a life of exhilaration, passion, love.

A place I long to be.
A place I cannot go.

Are we all two in one?
Does everyone need this protection like I do?
If so. Why don't they wear theirs like I do?
Where do they hide?

Me. I sink down in safety.
Warmth and safety.
Like wrapping up in a down-filled comforter.
Layers of soft, warm feathers (flesh).
Layers that cushion the blows of all their hurtful words...all my possible actions.

How do I let her go?
How do I expose myself?
How do I turn loose of my Protector?

Why do I need a Protector?
Who threatens my life?
I threaten my life.
I created my Protector in childhood.

I had no other constant by my side.
You say I did have a constant by my side?
God was by my side?
Yes. He was and is there.
My brain knows it to be so.

Ever so often my heart catches a
glimpse of his Love.

But still my heart questions.
Seeking…answers.
Answers to questions I need not ask?
Questioning. To know.
To need to know.

What is it I need to know?

I need to know how to retire my Protector.

She's old. She’s heavy. She's tired.
She's holding me down, back.
I want to want her to go.
Lord, please help me let her go.

Lara N.

my friend anj left this in the comments:

This concern/fear/terror feeling of being dangerous is often part of the impact of sexual abuse as children for both women and men. It is as if we internalize that we are dangerous, as we, in our childish naivete and wanting to make the adult be ok, take on the responsibility for the abuse. In our heads, as adults, we know it is the responsibility of the abuser. In the heart and soul of the child inside, we call ourselves dangerous and bear the cost. That is why a man's admiring glance triggers shame.

I think a huge part of this damage done is the negative label it gives to being dangerous. Jesus was dangerous, and, I believe, as women of God we are called to be dangerous too. Of course, that means coming through seeing yourself as sexually dangerous.

dangerous. yes - that is truly it. dangerous. how i long to be dangerous in the way jesus was/is dangerous. now, how to get from "a" to "b" to "d" (as in dangerous, like jesus and these amazing women!)

james dobson has lost his moral authority

i don't have a lot of time or energy for indignation right now, but i am just sick and tired of james dobson and his tribe at focus on the family loosing the forest for the trees.

the news of dobson dropping haggard like a hot potato just sickens me. (here and here) of all of the families in america who need to be focused on right now i would say that the haggards qualify pretty high up on that list.

i actually think that the haggards will be better off without dobson and his shame based ministry providing counseling. i don't know if he could really provide this family with the help they need anyway. but this 'i don't have time' garbage is just sickening. his "kingdom" is the closest to the former "haggard kingdom" - so it's not like travel would be a problem... and the fact that he was involved previously with haggard and didn't love him enough to give him a safe enough place to confess shows what dobson's counseling looks like anyway. it is my opinion that he (and others on this "team") must share in some of the blame for this escalating to this point without any of them seeing the warning signs. at least their discernment must be called into question.

this news comes on top of this article i read on the god's politics blog (here) regarding the voting guide FOTF provided to pennsylvania voters. it rated don sherwood a "pro-family" politician - this was the man who admitted to having a mistress, but denied the charges that he strangled and abused her... pro family? is this really how we are making our choices for our children?

all i can say is focus on your own damn families. leave ours alone please.

important post from jenell paris on the haggard story

lynnette davidson directed me to an important post by jenell regarding the response of the evangelical church to the ted haggard incident:

NAE says Ted Haggard’s situation was individual, not institutional. I don’t know anything more than I’ve read in the media about Haggard or the NAE, and I’m not implying anything about that specific situation. In principle, however, I don’t buy it. When evangelical institutions distance themselves from disgraced individuals, they perpetuate the radical individualism that marks evangelicalism. They are also acting more to preserve themselves than to necessarily tell the truth or to love anyone. My suspicions are these: a person is rarely caught the first time they do something. There’s usually a pattern, and there are usually people who saw the pattern unfolding. Even if no one knew about the sexual issues, people knew about how the person handled power, secrets, and authority. Institutions also hold people accountable for how they spend their money and their time. When individuals sin boldly, there are usually institutions and individuals in institutions who commit the sin of self-deception. They know, but they don’t want to know, so they tell themselves they don’t know.

read the rest here: Notes from an out-but-not-so-proud evangelical

thank you ted haggard!

i know, strange title, but i am so grateful that what is spilling out over this mess is a dialog about pastors, christians, evangelicals and their views on sex, power and sexual addictions. we are all talking about it now.

i am horrified at some of the responses i am reading though. i am learning so much about people's theology and what they believe about sex, god and women. i think you can learn more about people when they talk about sex and money than when they talk about church and jesus.

i think that's why the bible spends so much time on these issues. they show the heart and soul of a person more clearly than hiding behind flowery church-talk.

if i can introduce anything into the dialog it would be this:

SEXUAL ADDICTION ISN'T ABOUT SEX

please understand this people.

alcoholics aren't really thirsty people.

alcoholism isn't about alcohol.

drug addiction isn't about drugs.

and sexual addiction isn't about sex.

hotel rooms and fat preachers wives aren't the reason that pastors stumble into sin.

addiction, especially the sexual type happens when there are broken parts of the past that have injured the body, soul and spirit of the addict. masturbation, pornography and acting out sexually feeds those broken areas in a counterfeit way that masks what we truly want and can't seem to find a way to achieve.

true intimacy and wholeness sexually would fill and replace the need for this acting out behavior, but because so very few of us have the ability or help to navigate this, we settle for the counterfeit and it becomes the fix.

blaming other things and people for our brokenness is NO WAY to find healing. owning our junk, confessing to god, to ourselves and another human being is THE ONLY WAY we can break through the shame we carry so that we can find the healing and wholeness we all long to have in our lives.

i have a precious son (i also have a precious daughter, we're just not navigating this area right now in her life yet) who has awakened to the opposite sex. he was shown pornography a couple of months ago by a friend and since that time we have been dialogging about it.

this morning he awoke and found me at the computer, reading about the ted haggard story, and said "mom, i'm having a hard time when i see someone not thinking about them without any clothes on" (he is so honest and real, i respect this child-like innocence he brings to this so much).

first i prayed for wisdom. and then i reminded him about what we have been talking about for the past couple of months. this is about building muscles. spiritual muscles, that will help him navigate this journey called growing up. we talked about 'taking every thought captive', and that temptation isn't a sin. those pictures will pop into his head for the rest of his life. learning to set them aside and see that person as real and an image-bearer, instead of reducing them to a 2 dimensional picture or image. this is what will help him navigate this.

i reminded him that i must do this. daddy must do this. and pink must do this. all for ourselves. it's not something we can do for each other. it is our responsibility to learn, stretch and grow.

it is a very sad thing to hear of someone, with much influence, reducing women to ornaments and add-ons to their lives. it makes me weep. i would ask that we would each use what influence we are given to speak out loudly against this. it is theology like this that feeds the broken kingdom that cannot truly minister the love of god.

"There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I've been warring against it all of my adult life," Haggard wrote.

how much more powerful would it have been to his congregation if he had started HERE and not ended HERE?

how much light and life could have been brought into the life of his congregation if he had admitted how hard it was to live his life? love his wife? parent his children? how much more could people have learned from him if he lived transparently - free of the shame and owning his junk instead of the portrayal of the shiny plastic christian with no problems and free of struggle?

if we confess our sins one to another, pray for each other, we will be healed.

james 5:16

looking haggard - ben witherington post

ben witherington has a really thoughtful post up on the scandal:

Looking Haggard, Ted steps aside

cancer in the body of christ

reading will's blog today i saw that ted haggard, the head of the national association of evangelicals is caught in the middle of a great and grand mess. god help him. true or not this again sheds light on the issue of pastoral struggles and the environment we have created for those who lead the church.

i blogged at the end of september on the church and porn. maybe i should have entitled it 'pastors and sex'? either way we have a HUGE mess on our hands and we need to begin again. the elephant is sitting square behind the pulpit and if we don't begin to dialog about this in new ways we will NEVER weed out this hidden behavior that is eating like a cancer in the body of christ.

please know i am not condemning ted haggard - there but for the grace of god go i. i pray that this is false, but the new acting sr. pastor at his church said (here) that some of the allegations made have been admitted to by haggard.

i don't see this as much as his failure, but the failure of the church. we have trained these men to be separated from their souls. the disconnect will wipe us out.

i know that when i was in the middle of my acting out in my sexual addiction that i was the most vitriolic and shaming of everyone around me. my own shame was so great that i had to keep throwing it outside of myself. those who are the most vocal in shaking their fingers in others faces many times are the ones that struggle the most deeply. i know it was true for me.

that is why telling out stories is where healing can be found. finding the safe place to share our fears, confess our sins and receive grace and healing is what truly will bring this back from the brink.

it truly is a cancer. and it's breaking god's heart. instead of portraying perfection, image and the bright shiny plastic jesus we need to return to the place where redemption is found. by bringing our stories into the light and allow those damaged places to find healing. we then become the 'wounded healer' nouwen writes so beautifully about.

cancer survivors are some of the most vibrant, enthusiastic souls. watching them minister to those currently going through treatment is like watching jesus himself. they know what it is like to be so afraid. be so sick. be so wounded and broken. real survivors make the best ministers. they never shame. they never wound. they are present and carry their story with them wherever they go.

the church needs a lot more survivors.

how is this any different?

before the technology snafu i had posted a comment by wendy cooper i saw on another blog regarding the evangelical proclivity to blame women for men's inability to control their thought life, and haven't since commented on it myself.

i awoke this morning to the bbc news and heard the report of this article where a muslim cleric in austrailia uttered this:

Australia's most senior Muslim cleric has prompted an uproar by saying that some women are attracting sexual assault by the way they dress.

Sheikh Taj el-Din al-Hilali said women who did not wear a hijab (head dress) were like "uncovered meat".

i see very little difference (other than the degree to which we are to be "covered") between this and the christian fundamentalist belief that women are responsible by their dress for men's inability to control their thoughts and themselves sexually.

i was raised with this. i know that i have 100 lbs. on my body of extra weight because i still believe to some extent that this is true. i somehow was responsible for the rape in my childhood and i must protect myself from it ever happening again.

how and when did we begin to blame others for our own personal responsibility. i'm sure this has it's roots in victorian and puritan thought. it needs to be purged if we are ever going to get to the place where women and men can dwell together in unity.

by blaming someone else for my inability to control myself i am never going to be stronger than i am today.

i am raising a son and daughter in a world where it will be very hard for them to keep their self whole. but it is their responsibility to build those muscles mentally (just as it is for me) that prepares each of them to navigate our culture without being diluted by it or sequestering ourselves in fear.

this is a learning curve for me. i want to wrap them in gauze and lock them away. but i can't do it. there are billboards on every highway in america that promote strip clubs. lewd, nasty, larger than life images set amid the countryside that call to our hearts and minds to escape and come away. i'd love a couple pair of blinders, but i don't have them for myself, and can't install them on their heads either. they are each told that their thought life is their own.

if they begin now to 'take every thought captive' they will be building muscles they will need later in life to navigate adolescence and adulthood.

i also teach them to dress modestly. but not for the reason that they will stumble others. it is for themselves. knowing that they are responsible for their own bodies and how they present them to the world helps them understand that they are navigating culture too.

when we try to use external controls for internal change we will never receive the empowerment and healing we so long for. a head scarf or even a one piece bathing suit will never give my son the self control he needs to live a life of wholeness. if he (or me) needs others to comply to his/my sense of morality to succeed we fail before we even begin.

guarding our own hearts and taking our own thoughts captive is truly the only way we will ever be able to bring healing and wholeness to our sexuality, and have the respect we need for the sexuality of others.

UPDATE: ze frank has some thoughts on this subject here (not for the faint at heart)

rules against everything

i was reading over at scott's blog the other day and came across this post where he quotes a comment wendy cooper left on another post. i found it really thought provoking and remembered my youth, time at camp and bible college and i think i even heard myself make some of these rules when i was "in charge" at camp or various youth groups. i think it merits some further thought:

“Growing up I was taught that it was always the women’s fault. When someone was molested, raped, or whatever… she must have done something to provoke they guy into doing it. The idea that a man would have the ability to control himself was alien. At church this kind of attitude was reinforced by hearing guys say they couldn’t worship if a women at church looked “too hot” or something similarly stupid. When I got to college, I was told that and off the shoulder sweater that showed a bit of my one shoulder should not be worn as it turned on some of the other students. Again the idea was reinforced that men could not control themselves and it was my fault..

In college, the topics of sex, masturbation, and pornography was talked about openly but very little if any was talked about healthy interaction between men and women. Even if it was, it was undermined by the rules against how women should dress or rules against sweat pants just in case a guy got aroused (I am serious). Instead of talking about it, they just created rules against everything.”

what do you think?

Ideals Collide as Vatican Rethinks Condom Ban - New York Times

could it be so? that faithful wives of unfaithful husbands could be protected by the church?? god please make it so.

Ideals Collide as Vatican Rethinks Condom Ban - New York Times: "The issue is AIDS. Church officials recently confirmed that Pope Benedict XVI had requested a report on whether it might be acceptable for Catholics to use condoms in one narrow circumstance: to protect life inside a marriage when one partner is infected with H.I.V. or is sick with AIDS."

what's the difference?

it all seems so insurmountable sometimes doesn't it? like nothing will make a difference. like we might as well give up. how can i help? how can i make a difference? i don't know.

the one thing i do know is that this year i am not the same person i was last year. and the year before that. i am different. i care. i am aware. god use me to make a difference please.

artist link - pero

talking to kids about sex - part one

cheryl left a comment on my post about sex and mentioned her concerns about talking to her own daughter about this topic. she mentioned her struggle when the instruction she was given was so very lacking, this is true in my life too. how can we teach what was never taught to us? it is the question of every adult raised in a home of addiction or dysfunction.

i am no expert here, my oldest child is almost 9, so i've never talked to 'my own' kids before about sex, but i have talked to 100's of other people's. this would be my 'free advice' on the matter.

i know that my 'learning' came from very distorted sources - on both extremes of the spectrum - pornography and the church - neither of those extremes help anyone to have a real, healthy, life-giving understanding of sex and intimacy.

the most damaging aspect to my 'education' was that both extremes were so shame based. being a female was objectified by the pornography and degraded and impugned by the church. (my experience - not all i know). neither equipped me to be female. i still struggle with this today.

so i think it's most important that when teaching is done that is filled with grace, truth and love, not shame and fear. first of all i know that i can't teach anything that i don't believe to be true myself. i am wrestling with my own female-ness in part because my daughter is blossoming into a beautiful young woman and i want her to accept her femininity as a god given blessing instead of resenting and fearing all that life has in store for her. we need to own our own brokenness in this area before we can teach it to our kids. remember they have a 'b.s.' (pirate warning) detector that can sniff out hypocrisy and inconsistency from a mile away.

the best answer sometimes is 'i don't know, but i'm going to find out'. liam and i have committed to answering our kids questions honestly and age appropriately. we figure if they ask, they are old enough to know the truth. preparation for puberty comes early now as they are developing much more quickly than we did at our age.

pink and i have been reading the care and keeping of you together since november. it's a great start that begins with things like brushing your teeth and combing your hair. all things that were totally left out of my education - no one every did basic hygiene with me - i always felt like i was trying to keep up, and watching my friends to learn and copy. it was a horrible place and made for a very insecure childhood and teen age years. i don't want pink to have to learn anything from copying - who knows who she will think is worthy of copying? i know the people i copied were definitely not the kind of people i want my children to model themselves after.

liam is on the lookout for something similar to begin with buck soon. he's only going to be 7 next month, but we know that being intentional with these precious things needs to be one of our priorities.

the book eventually will come to the place where body parts and feminine hygiene will be discussed. this will bring many questions (as it should) and i want to be there to be able to answer each and every one.

one of the other things that i feel needs to happen with children; is that they need never to be shamed for asking questions. parents who project their embarrassment with these issues on their children punish them for their innocence. too many times of shaming and kids will know they're on their own and search for answers elsewhere.

the other area of sensitivity that i would caution about is not punishing your children for telling you the truth - even if it means they have broken the rules or 'sinned'. there needs to be consequences for these actions, but not for the truth telling. punishing your children for telling the truth creates liars and sneaks. children are brilliant - they know the logic of relational math - [i tell you the truth] + [you punish me] = i am stupid and will stop telling you the truth.

most parents fail to realize the real effects of this kind of economy in their homes. thoughtful consequences vs. reactionary punishment will build the kind of relationship that will keep communication open with your kids in a way that keeps you in the circuit. it's not fool proof, but you've got a better chance of being the person they come to instead of going to places where misconception and ugly lies dwell.

the next item i've been realizing is that metaphor speaks truth into my life in a much less threatening manner that facts and figures. i think we can use story and metaphor to describe those things that are conceptual about marriage, sex and love in ways that honor our children's brains and souls, and in a way that stays with them into the times when they really need it.

the only equipment i was ever given was 'just say no'. it worked for a year or two, but when i realized i didn't want things to stop i was out of ammunition to fight temptation and the emotional/hormonal/societal pressure i was facing.

my parents, youth workers and the church couldn't admit that in marriage sex was fun, wonderful and something to be desired to themselves, so they were unable to prepare me any farther than they were willing to go themselves.

honesty and transparency without graphic details at age appropriate times is the best direction to take - speak the truth in love.

love casts out fear, is never shame based and honors the other person and yourself in a way that brings hope and life. it takes courage. most of the time we avoid it because it might bring up our own baggage - but when we take the time to unpack our bags and deal with those things that are holding us hostage our children will benefit, but more importantly so will we.

so, i guess it's taking longer to get to the 'birds and bees' - so i'll make this part one.

sex - heaven or hell?

Sex - Heaven or Hell? - Johann Christoph Arnold

We live in a society that is constantly talking about sex, but we remain deeply impoverished in our understanding of what it can mean. And it's not just the pharmaceutical industry that plays off our obsession. TV producers and radio hosts, plastic surgeons, film directors, and publishers - all of them play off an unprecedented public appetite for more. The obvious result of all this has been the wholesale commercialization of sex. But it has also meant the gradual disappearance of true intimacy and the degradation of the erotic into the crude and banal. In the space of a half-century, attitudes that were once unthinkable have become commonplace, and what was once classed as perversion is now said to be natural and normal. Yesterday's porn, as the saying goes, is today's advertising.

Some people insist that negative attitudes have merely become healthier; and it is true that much of what our grandparents saw as sin, our own generation sees as freedom. But for many of today's teens, neither view holds true. They regard sexual activity neither as a sin nor as a source of liberation, but as a quick fix for loneliness and boredom. "Sometimes I think the whole world is focused on sex," says Jake, a fifteen-year-old, with a world-weary sigh. "There are nights when I'm locked away in my girlfriend's bedroom while her parents are out…and sometimes I think, maybe we could really be out doing something else besides this." And even those who boast about their exploits often live in quiet fear of diseases like AIDS.

We are leaving our children a world where the very dimension of human experience that was once regarded as the most sacred and heavenly may turn out to be the most hellish. Robbed of the chance to discover sex as innocents, they have little idea of its mysterious capacity to satisfy not only bodily cravings, but the mind and spirit as well. To them,reverence is a meaningless, old-fashioned word; lust something to indulge; a condom the only necessary precaution. But the price is often high: anxiety, self-hatred, confusion, and despair.

How can we rediscover sex as the wondrous, divinely created gift it is? How can we be delivered from experiencing it as misery? There are no simple answers; after all, the sexual sphere is always precariously balanced between grief and joy, fulfillment and frustration - between heaven and hell. But that should not discourage us. Rather than leading us to treat sex as a problem to be solved by moralists and prudes, we ought to grapple with its challenges and enlarge our understanding of it.

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lust and anger

there was a hint in my comments yesterday that making friends with our lust and anger meant embracing sin - that's not what this means or what i'm saying.

spending time in silence and meditation is about understanding and feeling the emotions that cause the sin - it's about looking at the temptation, wants and feelings without the actions - understanding more about why i feel i have unsatisfied needs and unresolved relationships. sitting with those things - not sin, and holding them in the light. this helps in stopping the sin from actually happening - it breaks it's power over me and helps me build bridges instead of walls in my relationships and allows god to meet my needs instead of grasping to meet them myself.

the most helpful tool i've had in maintaining my abstinence and sobriety over sexual addiction and compulsive overeating is by carving out margins in my mind and in my time. realizing that i don't have to react to temptation or be shamed by it (remember jesus was tempted - it's not a sin to be tempted) into sin has been the biggest victory of my recovery. before it was temptation/shame/sin, bam, bam, bam - i would give in because the shame that came from being tempted caused me to feel like i had no choice but to continue in my way of life and cycles of addiction.

but carving out that time - to respond, not react to the temptation or emotion - specifically anger or lust (and lust isn't just sexual) has given me breathing space so my mind can engage, my heart can feel the emotions and my soul can give voice to hope. it's how jesus handled his temptations - i'm not saying that in a spiritual one-up-man-ship way - but really - look at the way he faced temptation - there was no avoidance, there was no fear or shame - he was spending time in silence and prayer previous to all of the documented temptations, he took a breath, engaged his brain and soul (i don't mean a soul like ours - i don't want to get into the theological stuff, i'm willing to admit he's got way more soul than we do!) and addressed the temptation head on and told it to flee. you have no home here, no right, no nest to lay your filthy little eggs - be gone! (my paraphrase)

now jesus did this instinctively, he wasn't compulsive or an addict - but we can learn this response - but it only comes with margins - it only comes with silence, space and time to make friends with our thoughts and feelings - not be driven by them to behavior that causes us to sin or escape into behavior that is destructive.

nouwen continues today:

How do we befriend our inner enemies lust and anger? By listening to what they are saying. They say, "I have some unfulfilled needs" and "Who really loves me?" Instead of pushing our lust and anger away as unwelcome guests, we can recognize that our anxious, driven hearts need some healing. Our restlessness calls us to look for the true inner rest where lust and anger can be converted into a deeper way of loving.

There is a lot of unruly energy in lust and anger! When that energy can be directed toward loving well, we can transform not only ourselves but even those who might otherwise become the victims of our anger and lust. This takes patience, but it is possible.

here's to loving well, telling the temptations in our lives to go to hell (in jesus' name!) and finding that true inner rest that brings us all to a deeper way of loving.

the how and the why of it

tim writes in the comments

'With addictions/compulsions I have found the "why?" question to hard to answer straight up. I have found that a "how?" question is a good starting point. How does this work for me? How does it give me relief? How does it allow me to get revenge? Once I can answer these questions I can start to piece together why I do it. Keep talking. The angels are rejoicing about your choice to enter the light.'

first - thank you tim and all of the others who have been praying for me and emailing me. as i answered anj's email yesterday i said that hitting the 'publish post' button yesterday was like lifting a 500 lbs. weight. afterward i was shaking, crying and exhausted.

but i didn't turn to any addictions to comfort me. i called my husband and he prayed for me, i snuggled with my kids a bit and i guess i did a bit of compulisive blog reading, but other than that god kept me, through your prayers from sin - 1601!

so, just for today, i choose to breathe, to unclench my teeth, relax my shoulders and enjoy today for what it is. a lot of cleaning and lawn work. :) i choose to integrate myself into my community instead of withdrawing. feel my feelings, even if they are scary and maintain my constant contact with god.

back to tim's comment. the 'why' of it all didn't come until years into my recovery, slowly bit by bit (and i still don't understand it all). but he's right - the 'how' is a good start, so how does this work for me?

it's only as long as it was 'working' that i kept habitually participating in active addictions, when it ceased to work i hit bottom. until that point what i traded was 'worth it' to me. it was only when i realized the full impact of what it was doing to my marriage, my family and myself - especially my relationship with god, that it finally stopped 'working'.

my addictions also stopped working for me when i finally began to understand god's grace.

it's only when we 'get' grace that we can break through the shame that motivates our addictions. up to that point god was some sick, twisted masochist (i didn't admit this to my brain, but that's truly what i believed when i started to pull it all apart). grace breaks the cycle.

it seems so backwards, if we have grace we're going to sin more - but that's not true. that's what the grace police (mike yaconelli's term) want us to believe - but it's a lie.

grace breaks the shame, it shatters it - not instantly, it's still a lot of work to replace the lies with the truth, but when you begin to fully understand it it's like a virus spreading through your computer - but this one fixes things instead of making them broken.

the word picture that explains what it felt like during my deepest darkest moments was that i felt like i was flushing myself down a huge toilet, and as i circled the bowl, that big dark tunnel at the bottom was just sucking me down. grace took a net and scooped me out. (what a stupid word picture, sorry - i wish i was jen lemen then i'd have a beautiful picture here - but that is truly what it was like for me).

that dark tunnel was suicide for me. i will post on that soon, but i don't want to get sidetracked (again).

how does it give me relief? two words - instant gratification. that's what it was all about. i didn't have to do the work it took to have real intimacy - i had 'it' instantly. and because i never had experienced real intimacy this forgery was 'good enough' and i couldn't imagine ever trusting anyone else enough to have real intimacy, so why should i give it up?

real intimacy is hard, it's work, and it's SCARY as hell. i have been married for almost 17 years, and i've known my husband for 20. do we have intimacy? sometimes. when our addictions don't get in the way. we've been in couple's therapy this past year to try to re-learn what other people know automatically. stuff that was never taught in our homes growing up. trust, respect, honor, intimacy, communication. stuff like that.

if you are an addict there is almost 100% surity that your significant is an addict - and if you're single, unless you 'fix' things you will always attract an addict. it's some broken eternal principle. healthy people stay away from unhealthy. they can spot us miles away. i fought the idea that my youth pastor husband was an addict with my therapist for years. she was convinced he dealt secretly with sexual sin too. he doesn't. not that he isn't tempted at times to view something innappropriate, it's just not his thing.

it was then i remembered that he finished his degree in 3 years instead of 4, worked crazy long shifts for years in our lives, left me with two tiny babies alone in the middle of nowhere while he worked 'part time' for a church and nearly full time at the job that paid our bills... hmmm, do you think he might have work issues??

bunny trailed again... sorry. how does it give me relief? for me it was about control. i still have HUGE control issues. our sex life is fully under my control. yuck. didn't like to have to write that, but it's true. because of my freaked out survivor stuff and the fact that i'm abstinent, living like a nun would be just fine with me most of the time.

control during the addict years meant that i didn't have to wait for him to meet my needs. i punished (this answers the next question - about revenge) him (and all men) by not needing him. fulfilling my own needs, and not being present during the times we did have sex.

side note - there was another 'persona' that was the sex kitten and uninhibited about sex that did visit at times. i don't think it was an alter (like mpd or anything that formal) but there was definately an altered state that i would sometimes allow myself to achieve where i became the whore. neither the nun or the whore was a true representation of 'bobbie' - i am not present in either of those personas. (even further off track side note - this is why many abuse survivors turn to alcohol and drugs - so that altered state during sex can be achieved more easily).

how does it allow me to get revenge? it wasn't until i read the wounded heart by dan allander that i began to understand the anger that i had toward my abuser that i was channelling at liam (the fake name he's chosen to be called here) the term allander used was 'surrogate abuser' - i treated him like he was the man who raped me. i couldn't get in touch with the anger i felt at that man, so i directed it at him.

i know that's where the physical attacks came from. i didn't know it then, but i was attacking him like i wanted to attack my abuser years ago.

one of the things that has brought me great healing is being involved with an incredible ministery called the international justice mission, gary haugen and his associates tour the world looking for victims to help, free and rescue - praying for them regularly and supporting them financially allows me to get that 'revenge' on abusers, those who steal innocence and victimize the weak.

replacing those broken areas with real live truth has helped bring healing to my life. real intimacy, control in areas of my life that i'm supposed to have control over instead of trying to control everything and everyone around me, seeking justice for wrongs committed. participating in reality, instead of brokenness has brought me much peace. thank you for reading my stories.