What A Find
I met my wife last night. I have awoken this morning to the most amazing day of my life. I am being pounded by feelings from all directions. I am seeing meanings in symbols that are brilliantly flashing to light all around me. So much is now making sense. And I am awestruck by the beauty of this person whose outward appearance is stunning at first and enchanting soon after. But what is on the outside is but a faint glimmer of the beauty that wells up from within. I am infatuated. But more than that I am swimming around in the goodness, the wisdom, and the sparkling wonderfulness of this female whom God has somehow, beyond my wildest dreams, decided to give to me. I am humbled and stunned because I am so unworthy of such a gift. If I had made something so precious, I would have found someone much more deserving and able to cherish and nurture it. But she is mine and I weep with joy and at the same time for my weakness.
The woman I refer to is not the one I am going to marry. She is the one I married 24 years ago. Most of the time since, I have been chasing her around the house, trying to get her attention. Trying to get her to give to me. To consume her on my need for a feel-good fix. That is, I chased her when I wasn’t out trying to accomplish things, pursue personal hobbies, or have meaningful connections with other people. All of that distraction and my failure to truly hear and understand her made most of my chasing annoying. I rarely caught her. And when I did, she soon slipped through my fingers and was once again out of reach behind the wall I had unwittingly been building, brick by brick, for years.
What I really desperately wanted and needed, but didn’t know it, was a state of being called intimacy. This is a secret and deeply sacred connection of souls that is more intoxicating and addictive than the most powerful narcotic. If our culture were to discover this, it would be the biggest sensation of all time in the media, movies, music, and advertising. It would be on every billboard and in every TV show. We would not be able to get through a day without being inundated by it. The government would no doubt make it a controlled substance because its effects would be so powerful.
Part and parcel with intimacy is the concept of wholeness. Wholeness is a related state of being where all the parts of a person are seeing the light of day and meshing together smoothly. Wholeness will allow you to be. To just BE. To not have to fill each moment striving to accomplish, to entertain one’s self, or to consume food, drink, drug, image, sound, flesh, or whatever else brings pleasure by the moment. No, instead of renting peace for your soul, you own it. You can sit still and just be alive. No anxiety over what is not being checked off a to-do list. No worry about how much money is in the bank. No concern whatever over whether I’m attractive enough, clever enough, funny enough, good enough. I can just sit and not move a muscle. Not try to untangle the knots from the ropes of my life. Not even really think a thought. Just BE in a moment and know that that particular moment has been spent well and has been completely worthwhile.
Something I have noticed about wholeness is how startlingly integrating it is. The things we tend to compartmentalize because of their personal nature and shame about the sinfulness of our true inner selves all homogenize into the whole. My wife, in whom there is absolutely no guile, has surprised herself when looking back on her writing in that she would describe things using sexual language which were not at all sexual. And she was not thinking sexually about them at all. It’s just that with her, the intertwining of things as ephemeral as ideas is integrated into a continuum which includes her sexuality. It is all part of the whole and flows in the same current of being.
Above I speculated that if intimacy was ever truly discovered by our society, it would be everywhere. But what is everywhere? Sex is everywhere. But sex without intimacy is really not sexual. That sounds ridiculous, but makes sense if terms are given their full meaning. Sex without intimacy is a momentary physical high from a shot of dopamine. One might as well stick a needle in an arm and shoot up. The only difference is that a gland in your body does the shooting for you. Every moment leading up to orgasm and those immediately after are emotionally dry and one-dimensional. Speaking of one-dimensional, masturbating while looking at an image on a flat piece of paper or computer screen is the quintessential embodiment of what I am talking about. For Christians and morally enlightened people, there is also a permeating stain of guilt that gets all over everything. There is no depth of meaning. It’s like trying to take a bath in a puddle. It’s a cheap imitation of truly feeling good. Wholeness, on the other hand, is a state of feeling good all the time. Not perpetual orgasm, but peace. Sexual experience changes from a consumer item to be devoured like a hamburger to a component of the overall flow of intimacy. It becomes a crowning jewel to a relationship that has tremendous value and gives deep satisfaction in all the other moments that have nothing to do with sex. Indeed, if for some reason, such as an unthinkable accident, a person is paralyzed and unable to be sexual, it really wouldn’t matter. It would be a tragic loss, but would have no effect on intimacy, the true nature of the relationship. As Steve Martin’s character in “the jerk” said, “Well that takes the pressure off!”
Well, I had to tell you about my new wife. She will be home from work soon. I need to be about finding out what’s under the next rock I find in the garden of her soul.
The woman I refer to is not the one I am going to marry. She is the one I married 24 years ago. Most of the time since, I have been chasing her around the house, trying to get her attention. Trying to get her to give to me. To consume her on my need for a feel-good fix. That is, I chased her when I wasn’t out trying to accomplish things, pursue personal hobbies, or have meaningful connections with other people. All of that distraction and my failure to truly hear and understand her made most of my chasing annoying. I rarely caught her. And when I did, she soon slipped through my fingers and was once again out of reach behind the wall I had unwittingly been building, brick by brick, for years.
What I really desperately wanted and needed, but didn’t know it, was a state of being called intimacy. This is a secret and deeply sacred connection of souls that is more intoxicating and addictive than the most powerful narcotic. If our culture were to discover this, it would be the biggest sensation of all time in the media, movies, music, and advertising. It would be on every billboard and in every TV show. We would not be able to get through a day without being inundated by it. The government would no doubt make it a controlled substance because its effects would be so powerful.
Part and parcel with intimacy is the concept of wholeness. Wholeness is a related state of being where all the parts of a person are seeing the light of day and meshing together smoothly. Wholeness will allow you to be. To just BE. To not have to fill each moment striving to accomplish, to entertain one’s self, or to consume food, drink, drug, image, sound, flesh, or whatever else brings pleasure by the moment. No, instead of renting peace for your soul, you own it. You can sit still and just be alive. No anxiety over what is not being checked off a to-do list. No worry about how much money is in the bank. No concern whatever over whether I’m attractive enough, clever enough, funny enough, good enough. I can just sit and not move a muscle. Not try to untangle the knots from the ropes of my life. Not even really think a thought. Just BE in a moment and know that that particular moment has been spent well and has been completely worthwhile.
Something I have noticed about wholeness is how startlingly integrating it is. The things we tend to compartmentalize because of their personal nature and shame about the sinfulness of our true inner selves all homogenize into the whole. My wife, in whom there is absolutely no guile, has surprised herself when looking back on her writing in that she would describe things using sexual language which were not at all sexual. And she was not thinking sexually about them at all. It’s just that with her, the intertwining of things as ephemeral as ideas is integrated into a continuum which includes her sexuality. It is all part of the whole and flows in the same current of being.
Above I speculated that if intimacy was ever truly discovered by our society, it would be everywhere. But what is everywhere? Sex is everywhere. But sex without intimacy is really not sexual. That sounds ridiculous, but makes sense if terms are given their full meaning. Sex without intimacy is a momentary physical high from a shot of dopamine. One might as well stick a needle in an arm and shoot up. The only difference is that a gland in your body does the shooting for you. Every moment leading up to orgasm and those immediately after are emotionally dry and one-dimensional. Speaking of one-dimensional, masturbating while looking at an image on a flat piece of paper or computer screen is the quintessential embodiment of what I am talking about. For Christians and morally enlightened people, there is also a permeating stain of guilt that gets all over everything. There is no depth of meaning. It’s like trying to take a bath in a puddle. It’s a cheap imitation of truly feeling good. Wholeness, on the other hand, is a state of feeling good all the time. Not perpetual orgasm, but peace. Sexual experience changes from a consumer item to be devoured like a hamburger to a component of the overall flow of intimacy. It becomes a crowning jewel to a relationship that has tremendous value and gives deep satisfaction in all the other moments that have nothing to do with sex. Indeed, if for some reason, such as an unthinkable accident, a person is paralyzed and unable to be sexual, it really wouldn’t matter. It would be a tragic loss, but would have no effect on intimacy, the true nature of the relationship. As Steve Martin’s character in “the jerk” said, “Well that takes the pressure off!”
Well, I had to tell you about my new wife. She will be home from work soon. I need to be about finding out what’s under the next rock I find in the garden of her soul.
posted by wingman at 9:55 AM
1 Comments:
some signs of hope in this one, or am I misreading? Your're fight about wholeness, which, as you say, let's us just "be" - which is why it is only possible in our relationship with God. Now, let's see what happens between here and the posting you made yesterday...
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