Will and Grace

If you read me on a regular basis, you’d know I’m pretty much a level headed person for all my seemingly wild encounters (this is of course relative to what ‘wild’ is determined by local convention), you’d know I’m generally happy with my life, and glad to have know all the people I’ve slept with. At this point in time, the people I spend much of my time with are people I’ve made love to, and regardless of whatever that had conspired between us, the relationship’s are usually pretty platonic pretty good, and I do not regret a single one. I think a couple of encounters were pointless, certainly, but even those have lessons to be leant.

Also, if you’re reading me on a regular basis, it would mean my endeavors hold some manner of fascination for you. Possibly out of a few reasons. But I’ve just this feeling that some do so that they may console and pride themselves on how much morally superior their living is. Darling, If it disgusts you, why do you insist on engaging yourself with my the deprivation of my soul, as you so call it.

Believe it or not, I went to a little sermon with Mr. Big today (He was very proud of himself that he finally went to church), and the pastor was talking about perfection and good deeds, things like that.

There was always something that puzzle me about what the fundamental tenet/s of his preaching entailed, and it was this: If Christ had had to die for us since we all fall short of the glory of God, and that by acceptance of Christ, we are all instantly of perfect spirit and will not want to sin, (since right believing produces right doing,) then how do you explain me? I am sure I’m believing right, you can’t argue with this, because that’s the very nature of faith. You can’t know through certain moral markers if you are believing right. Then, it wouldn’t be faith. Faith is the belief you have to have in things that you cannot experience solidly, without relativity.

You can tell me yes, you know you are believing right, because you are a happy person. That’s relatively easy for yourself to judge; then I tell you I must be believing right, because overall, I am a happy person. By the law, my lifestyle is fairly sinful, I covet all manner of things all throughout the day for starters, and that’s just for starters. But that does not stop me from being happy.

Essentially, I must be believing right, because I believe that I am. And you cannot argue with me because your opinion will undoubtly be made upon social convention and it’s prejudices. Also, it isn’t that difficult to believe right, because the bible has made it easy to do so. Christ died on Calvary for my salvation, all I’ve to do is believe that, and I do. Can there possibly be any contention then, on whether or not I’m believing right?

Besides, if you were to judge my lifestyle from the law (which is where all moral judgments comes from), that that would negate the work of Christ. You cannot be living under grace and under the law simultaneously. However, you can easily argue that the moral judgment was impressed upon you, by God. But if so much of the bible ordains the conduct of judging not, least ye be judged, then why would God impress upon you such a thing, just so you can impress your judgment (not that I care) upon me? Would it be infinitely not more effective if he simply crafted a way for me to live morally? And if God were all that great, then he would create a passage, a means, for me to achieve that moral lifestyle painlessly, but more importantly, effortlessly. God delights in rest, so I believe that more than anything, if a moral life were to be achieved, it would be without, nay, it has to be without, self-effort. Because Self-effort is the law, and the law was designed to bring out our sin. To prove to man that we are indeed fallen short of the glory of God.

I am not insisting upon living the way I live. It cannot be insistence, when it feels as natural as if does, and when it has caused me no unhappiness, any more then the sort of unhappiness that people feel anyway in any sort of relationship, because there is no such thing as a perfect relationship. I love loving people in all manner of ways and if I were to deny myself that, deny myself the sort of love that I find so paramount to my life; then that would be insistence, because that would not be natural for me to do so. When I mention ‘love’ it’s not just the physical satiation, and it’s not only the emotional or intellectual fulfillment and connection. It’s all of that, and more than that. It’s the feeling of truly being engaged in another person’s existence.

You cannot determine anyway, what sexual promiscuity is. Socially you can, what’s acceptable and what is not, that’s not very difficult. What’s promiscuous here is completely normal say, in the UK (or so I’ve been told). The dressing we dismiss as common today, would have absolutely shocked 15^th century Europe. If as women, our wrist and ankles are seen at any point in time in say, Iran today, then we are sluts. But it’s not only geography and time that makes morality so relative that no one has the right to judge.

Think about how vastly different people’s personalities can be. A lot of people would agree that sleeping with one or two persons in your lifetime is allright and does not make you an immoral/promiscuous person. As long as you truly love the person, it’s fine. But then how, pure is our love for another human being anyway? But more importantly, how are we to judge that the way in which you have loved that one (or two) people is any more noble, pure and true, then the way in which I’ve loved, say, the more-than-just-a-few people that I have. The way I am makes that possible, and the way in which you are makes that impossible for you. If your personality is the sort that can only function in the love of an eternal One for this transient life, then you cannot try and understand how I can find as much fulfillment at the end of my life through loving many, and loving them all, passionately. Just as I cannot claim to understand the fulfillment of loving One, since that is simply not me! At the end of the day, we might all just die equally happy (or equally unhappy… but the glass is always half-full in my world).

And stop saying my nature delights in sin. I delight in people, in their ever changing characters and in all their variety. It is all that makes it delightful to be human, the connections you’re able to make with them. My attitude towards sex is not even vaguely destructive, in fact it’s completely inclusive and I believe the people I’ve loved and am still loving all help me to grow, to understand and to be tolerant and accepting. The last two traits (tolerance and acceptance), of which are the two things that this world lacks, but needs, badly.

Before any one misunderstands me and say I am using scripture, or am twisting spiritual faith (I don’t like the word religion, because faith and religion are to me two very different things –Faith establishes the need for God in order to live a good life, religion ordains that we live a good life in order to find God)… I must say that I am not using anything, to justify anything. My believes are as is, and there is certainly much of the Christian faith I do not understand. But then again, the thing is, is it the Christian faith that I do not understand, or the many interpretations of the bible that I do not understand and that contradict one another.

I’m not saying that the Christian faith is about accepting Christ and then living however you wish, because technically if I’m believing the right thing, then I will by default, live the right way. It is though (and I must stress, is so, to me) about accepting his grace and living in that grace, and not simply ‘however I wish’. I sin, certainly, I cannot be doing right all the time just because I live in grace. The reason I need to live in grace is because I am incapable of living perfectly, and therefore need to live in the pardon of God. If by living in grace I am perfect all the time, then why should it be called living in grace in the first place, because I will not need grace if I were perfect then. Do you see the paradox? And all Christians live in grace because that’s what the death of Christ is all about.

When I’m about to do something that will be wrong, I feel it, and there are therefore certain things I won’t do and some people I won’t like sleeping with. I’ll feel wrong and feel like there will be consequences, even if the consequence is confined to a discomfort in my soul. The rest of the way I live, my lifestyle as a whole, does not feel that way though; But there are individual instances that do.

The whole spiritual-moral questions is impossible to address because so much of it is based on relativity, and so much of it is a paradox unto itself. How do you lampoon bad behaviour when 1) you can’t determine it, since it is relative 2) it is pointless to determine it by the law, because the law is constructed precisely to bring out bad behaviour, so put it beside any human being, and they will fail for certain and 3) how do you advocate a moral life, under grace, when morality is determined by the law, and you cannot demand that a person live like so and so and so, and under grace at the same time. Because self-effort will automatically negate that grace!

Huh?

Oh my God, I’m so confused now. I’m sure you are too, but these are questions that have been around in my head for like, ever. I thought structuring them would give me an answer, but it has not. But nor does that matter, because philosophical discourses, and especially spiritual ones, were never meant to yield any answers. Don’t send me email to tell me to stop thinking about how I live, and just start living it. I AM living it, but part of what’s great about living it all is how I get to think about it too. I like talking/writing about stuff like that because it gives me pleasure to, so there.

xoxox