Called to love tenderly

The last presentation last Saturday, by Roger and Kathy Chmiel and Fr. Dennis Koopman, was hard to hear, especially when Kathy was speaking.  Roger and Kathy are an older couple, and Kathy was having issues with getting her microphone positioned properly. Most of what I did hear of what they shared was the obvious stuff.

I don't know why Encountered couples who share about their sexuality manage to miss the emotional mark on it, but it happens almost every time that they come off as being titillated by talking about it. It's as if we can't enjoy our sexuality in proper context.  Some of the moments that I have felt closest to God are when I have been closest to my wife. I realize most people will find the idea odd that our sexual intimacy should be a sacred experience. Most people - even most Christians, I suspect - will tend to think that this is one realm in which they don't want to have a sense of God being present. Perhaps it is because of society's insistence on treating sex as something fun but tawdry, and of treating marriage (or less) as a sex license. Yet I think that the union we experience as a married couple, which finds one of its most beautiful and intense expressions in our sexuality, brings us a fuller experience of God than almost anything else we do. Our ecstatic union shared between each other reaches and stretches beyond us, even leading to the incomprehensible wonder of the creation of another life. This certainly doesn't mean that we're doing something wrong if we aren't thinking of God's presence during every act of intimacy we share - or even the majority of them - but I think that this awareness of and closeness to him may also be part of God's intent in giving us this gift. Yet sometimes it feels like couples who are sharing about their sexual intimacy are crowing about their naughtiness rather than celebrating their holiness. It is as if we think more of society's view of our sexuality and only paying lip service to God's plan for it. Still, I am glad when couples share about this aspect of their relationship, if for no other reason than that it fosters an atmosphere in which we can take the tawdry out of it and discuss things like this.

There was a wonderful moment (that I missed the first part of) in another area of this talk that was pretty central to it, a beautiful story about a time that Roger was upset over a project he was working on and Kathy, rather than withdrawing in the face of his anger, simply took his face in her hands and reminded him of how much she loves him. It completely defused his frustration. What a beautiful moment.

There was another phrase they used, though, that I wish Catholics would avoid the secular sense of. They talked about how deciding to love tenderly when the beloved my not be acting in a lovable way "can feel like martyrdom."  I think martyrdom is another most misunderstood gift of God.  We tend to speak of it as a sacrifice to be avoided. I am convinced that true martyrdom looks and feels like love in action; this is the consistent characteristic of every act of martyrdom that I've ever read about. And this is a great gift which God provides to a privileged few. If it were his plan for me, I pray the Holy Spirit strengthens me for that moment.

Meanwhile, I will settle for dying to myself in the ways to which he calls me each day.