I've been thinking recently about heaven, specifically about what it's going to be like in terms of forgiving other believers and being forgiven by them. I know that for about the first millenia or two, we'll be so mesmerized by the glory of Christ that we will probably barely recognize that there's any else even there in heaven, but I'm sure we'll eventually find a way to start finding acquaintances who are there.
And I wonder about the dynamics of our "bodies" up there, and how we'll see each other. I imagine we'll be fully naked, body and spirit, fully exposed to each other in some sense, with absolutely nothing to hide from our hearts.
And I imagine conversations with brothers and sisters in Christ who, on earth, deeply wounded us. They perhaps judged us, or wrote us off, or hurt us because someone else hurt them, or just plain acted selfishly. And I imagine standing there, feeling the waves of glory pulsating around us, more conscious than ever before of the depths to which we had fallen before Christ saved us, and of the wonder of our salvation through Christ's death on the Cross.
And I imagine standing there, somehow crying tears of joy, seeing everything made right by God. As if both I and the other person had ESP, not really, but maybe, but at least both knowing something of what the other was thinking.
And it would no longer be thoughts like the ones we had on earth, like, "You hurt me so, so badly," or, "Why didn't you come back to the table to at least talk and try to work things out?" or, "Why did you treat me as if I were worthless?"
Instead, it would be wave after wave of understanding. It would be understanding the depths to which our wounds in childhood affected us all into adulthood. It would be understanding how our pride and self-protective measures kept us from truly living, despite claiming all our lives that an abundant life is what we truly desired more than anything else. It would be understanding that somehow God used our selfish, sinful choices, including being spiteful and writing other people off, and somehow turned it to glory.
I'm sure I can't even imagine how it will really be, but I like to try all the same. I really look forward to understanding forgiveness, and human nature, and the Gospel, to the depths God will reveal them to us in eternity. I look forward to being more able than ever to forgive--even the really big things that people have done, even the dreams they tried to kill. And I look forward to feeling forgiven by others as well.
I look forward to us all looking at each other as if to say, "Yeah, I know I shouldn't have done that," and the other responding, "Yeah, and I know I shouldn't have such and such in return." And at the same time fully realizing that whether our offenses were small or big, once or repeated over a lifetime, that we're now new creations in full. We knew we had been declared new creations when we were still on earth, but now we've come into the full realization of it. We feel the compulsion to ask each other forgiveness to make things right, but there isn't even the hint that anyone will ever get defensive or walk away or not forgive each other. In heaven, everyone will come back to the table, reconcile, talk it through, hear each other out fully, and act and react in love. No one will write other people off, for any reason, ever, and those who did in life will be joined back together, if they are both saved.
I look forward to the really long, tearful hugs. Christians who threw us away. People whom we may have tried to hurt back. Hugging. Embracing. Crying and laughing at the same time. People who wouldn't talk to us in life, or vice versa, now embracing each other with tears of joy that we stand both redeemed and reconciled to both God and each other. Smiling at each other--both of us truly, deeply happy.
I really look forward to reconciliation. I hate broken relationships, and I know God does, too. I look forward to the joy, the sweeping sense of peace, knowing that everything truly is okay, and from then on, always will be, that forgiveness will be pervasive and ubiquitous, and will help usher us all onto the heavenly dance floor, where the party will truly begin.
I look forward to living today in light of that future glory.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Monday, February 18, 2008
Why I am writing a book about the body and sexuality
I am writing a book about the body and sexuality because I believe that we Christians have sent the wrong message about how to pursue purity.
I grew up in an environment where sexuality was rarely talked about, and when it was discussed, it was with a "don't think about it" attitude. I went to Bible college, and most men's Bible study groups ended up being about guys repenting for the hundredth time about their thought lives. And I never once met a guy who felt victorious in the fight.
And I began to think deeply about the question, "If what we have really is the truth, and if the truth really can change lives, then why isn't what we're doing here changing lives?" All these people were defeated in their Christian lives, deeply ashamed, full of remorse, and not at all enjoying who they were created to be--including myself.
And I realized, over time, that it was possible to have the truth, the real, full truth, but to be misunderstanding and misapplying it. And that began to crystallize in the area of sexuality.
Basically, most thinking on the subject of sexuality in the Christian world goes: "It's dangerous, it will take you down, you can't trust your flesh, don't think about it at all, don't entertain any thoughts whatsoever about sexuality, or you're sinning." At least that's what I heard, over and over.
And I realized that where we were starting, on a Bible timeline, was with the Fall of Adam and Eve. We were starting with the dangers, which are certainly real, but that it wasn't the full picture.
Where the story starts is before the Fall, where God created us glorious creatures. If we hadn't fallen, all humanity would be naked, and we would all see each other as God's glorious works of art.
And when you begin to see humanity, and your own body and sexuality, through that lens, and really let it dig down deep to the level of your worldview, everything changes.
The fight against sin changes from a fight to "not look" into the responsibility to "look at the whole thing through different eyes."
Take, for example, a woman's breasts. They are obviously beautiful, and lovely, and attract men. But men, even Christian men, are enslaved to them in many ways. So the goal becomes to avoid seeing a woman's breasts at all costs, which is ridiculous, because any time a man sees a woman, he's going to see breasts. And they might be covered, but that doesn't matter much to a man. His thought life can easily undress any woman. So he's still defeated.
The goal has to be to see breasts differently.
If a woman took her top off in front of a bunch of rowdy construction workers, she'd get stares, and perhaps some excited yelling. But if she just stood there, the novelty factor would wear off, and men would eventually be thinking to themselves, "All right, honey, you're pretty, but we've got work to do." And if she stood there long enough, and the men were free to stare, they'd put breasts in the proper perspective--they're beautiful but they're not supposed to be those men's masters.
And if we could see breasts from a doctor's eyes, through dissections, through charts and graphs of how they function to feed a baby, and of all the things that can go wrong in them, we'd again change our perspective, and see them as even more beautiful because of their function, but not so much as reasons to be enslaved and defeated for fifty years--which most Christian men face.
And the more I thought about all that, I realized that one of the litmus tests of perversion was breastfeeding. This beautiful process, where a woman is feeding her baby, tells how healthy or skewed we are. A woman's body is clearly designed to bear children and feed them. Her hips, her sexual organs, etc., are designed to receive that life, and her breasts are clearly designed to nourish that newborn.
But what do men see when they see a woman breastfeeding, especially in public? A majority of them see something pornographic, something they think they should not see. To me, that's absurd. Breastfeeding is beautiful, and it's a clear reminder by God of how He takes care of and nourishes His children. It's also a clear reminder of how God uses points of immense pleasure in our lives as part of normal healthiness and nourishment. He delights to give His children good gifts. Breasts are sexual objects, but they are so much more, and there is a context for the different ways they should be seen.
Imagine a teenage boy today, growing up like everyone else, who for the first time at age sixteen or seventeen sees a woman with her top open, feeding her baby. What would he be thinking? He'd be thinking, "I want to look but I shouldn't." And if he can look without getting caught, he will. But he will feel ashamed for looking. And if he could, he'd go fantasize and masturbate over it.
But imagine a boy who'd grown up in a home where that sight was normal and frequent. Where he'd seen his mother and aunts and cousins breastfeed many times in front of everyone. Where he'd been to art galleries that included nude art, and his parents not only didn't rush him through those galleries, but stopped, admired, and appreciated the beauty of the art.
And what if his parents said all his life, "Son, you are going to face a hard struggle at times to be pure, but before we talk about that in depth, which we will, your mom and I want to send you the clear message that your desires and the pleasure you can experience in life is a gift from God. You should celebrate how much you long to enjoy sexuality, and how much you enjoy the beauty of a woman. Don't think for one minute that God is displeased with your desires--after all, He gave them to you. And as you think along those lines, as you celebrate how God created you, understand, too, that God designed it to work best in the confines of marriage, where is it safe, and where there is commitment. In that context, God permits us to take all this beauty, and enjoy it to the hilt. So see yourself as God's living art, worth keeping pure, when the time is right for you to get married, dive in headfirst and thank God for such a wonderful gift."
And what if his parents backed it up, as I said, by not being ashamed themselves, and not making the body a big deal, and by his mom and other family members breastfeeding in front of him all through his childhood?
What would such a boy be thinking as he sees a woman breastfeeding? He'd think it's lovely, normal, and good. It's nourishing that little baby. And he could walk right up to that nursing mother and sit down and watch, and think that it's beautiful, and then get up and walk away without any guilt or fantasizing.
And when he got married himself, he wouldn't be thinking, "I've spent the last ten years thinking how I shouldn't think about a woman's curves or breasts, and feeling immensely guilty over that, and now I get to switch gears and enjoy it, but I know I'll still feel guilty for a while, because that's how I've always been trained to feel about these things."
Instead, he wouldn't be struggling at all with guilt, would see his desires and his wife's desires as wonderful through and through, and would be ready to jump in and delight in his wife and their sexuality.
The body is meant to be seen as good, and rejoiced in. Only in that context can we truly fight sin the right way. The goal is not to stop looking or thinking about the body or about sexuality. The goal is to see it through pure eyes, and with a rejoicing, thankful heart.
Writing this book has transformed my life and my perspective. I see the world more beautifully than ever before, and I could not go back to the old way of thinking if I tried.
I grew up in an environment where sexuality was rarely talked about, and when it was discussed, it was with a "don't think about it" attitude. I went to Bible college, and most men's Bible study groups ended up being about guys repenting for the hundredth time about their thought lives. And I never once met a guy who felt victorious in the fight.
And I began to think deeply about the question, "If what we have really is the truth, and if the truth really can change lives, then why isn't what we're doing here changing lives?" All these people were defeated in their Christian lives, deeply ashamed, full of remorse, and not at all enjoying who they were created to be--including myself.
And I realized, over time, that it was possible to have the truth, the real, full truth, but to be misunderstanding and misapplying it. And that began to crystallize in the area of sexuality.
Basically, most thinking on the subject of sexuality in the Christian world goes: "It's dangerous, it will take you down, you can't trust your flesh, don't think about it at all, don't entertain any thoughts whatsoever about sexuality, or you're sinning." At least that's what I heard, over and over.
And I realized that where we were starting, on a Bible timeline, was with the Fall of Adam and Eve. We were starting with the dangers, which are certainly real, but that it wasn't the full picture.
Where the story starts is before the Fall, where God created us glorious creatures. If we hadn't fallen, all humanity would be naked, and we would all see each other as God's glorious works of art.
And when you begin to see humanity, and your own body and sexuality, through that lens, and really let it dig down deep to the level of your worldview, everything changes.
The fight against sin changes from a fight to "not look" into the responsibility to "look at the whole thing through different eyes."
Take, for example, a woman's breasts. They are obviously beautiful, and lovely, and attract men. But men, even Christian men, are enslaved to them in many ways. So the goal becomes to avoid seeing a woman's breasts at all costs, which is ridiculous, because any time a man sees a woman, he's going to see breasts. And they might be covered, but that doesn't matter much to a man. His thought life can easily undress any woman. So he's still defeated.
The goal has to be to see breasts differently.
If a woman took her top off in front of a bunch of rowdy construction workers, she'd get stares, and perhaps some excited yelling. But if she just stood there, the novelty factor would wear off, and men would eventually be thinking to themselves, "All right, honey, you're pretty, but we've got work to do." And if she stood there long enough, and the men were free to stare, they'd put breasts in the proper perspective--they're beautiful but they're not supposed to be those men's masters.
And if we could see breasts from a doctor's eyes, through dissections, through charts and graphs of how they function to feed a baby, and of all the things that can go wrong in them, we'd again change our perspective, and see them as even more beautiful because of their function, but not so much as reasons to be enslaved and defeated for fifty years--which most Christian men face.
And the more I thought about all that, I realized that one of the litmus tests of perversion was breastfeeding. This beautiful process, where a woman is feeding her baby, tells how healthy or skewed we are. A woman's body is clearly designed to bear children and feed them. Her hips, her sexual organs, etc., are designed to receive that life, and her breasts are clearly designed to nourish that newborn.
But what do men see when they see a woman breastfeeding, especially in public? A majority of them see something pornographic, something they think they should not see. To me, that's absurd. Breastfeeding is beautiful, and it's a clear reminder by God of how He takes care of and nourishes His children. It's also a clear reminder of how God uses points of immense pleasure in our lives as part of normal healthiness and nourishment. He delights to give His children good gifts. Breasts are sexual objects, but they are so much more, and there is a context for the different ways they should be seen.
Imagine a teenage boy today, growing up like everyone else, who for the first time at age sixteen or seventeen sees a woman with her top open, feeding her baby. What would he be thinking? He'd be thinking, "I want to look but I shouldn't." And if he can look without getting caught, he will. But he will feel ashamed for looking. And if he could, he'd go fantasize and masturbate over it.
But imagine a boy who'd grown up in a home where that sight was normal and frequent. Where he'd seen his mother and aunts and cousins breastfeed many times in front of everyone. Where he'd been to art galleries that included nude art, and his parents not only didn't rush him through those galleries, but stopped, admired, and appreciated the beauty of the art.
And what if his parents said all his life, "Son, you are going to face a hard struggle at times to be pure, but before we talk about that in depth, which we will, your mom and I want to send you the clear message that your desires and the pleasure you can experience in life is a gift from God. You should celebrate how much you long to enjoy sexuality, and how much you enjoy the beauty of a woman. Don't think for one minute that God is displeased with your desires--after all, He gave them to you. And as you think along those lines, as you celebrate how God created you, understand, too, that God designed it to work best in the confines of marriage, where is it safe, and where there is commitment. In that context, God permits us to take all this beauty, and enjoy it to the hilt. So see yourself as God's living art, worth keeping pure, when the time is right for you to get married, dive in headfirst and thank God for such a wonderful gift."
And what if his parents backed it up, as I said, by not being ashamed themselves, and not making the body a big deal, and by his mom and other family members breastfeeding in front of him all through his childhood?
What would such a boy be thinking as he sees a woman breastfeeding? He'd think it's lovely, normal, and good. It's nourishing that little baby. And he could walk right up to that nursing mother and sit down and watch, and think that it's beautiful, and then get up and walk away without any guilt or fantasizing.
And when he got married himself, he wouldn't be thinking, "I've spent the last ten years thinking how I shouldn't think about a woman's curves or breasts, and feeling immensely guilty over that, and now I get to switch gears and enjoy it, but I know I'll still feel guilty for a while, because that's how I've always been trained to feel about these things."
Instead, he wouldn't be struggling at all with guilt, would see his desires and his wife's desires as wonderful through and through, and would be ready to jump in and delight in his wife and their sexuality.
The body is meant to be seen as good, and rejoiced in. Only in that context can we truly fight sin the right way. The goal is not to stop looking or thinking about the body or about sexuality. The goal is to see it through pure eyes, and with a rejoicing, thankful heart.
Writing this book has transformed my life and my perspective. I see the world more beautifully than ever before, and I could not go back to the old way of thinking if I tried.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Together
We are not meant to live our lives alone. We are meant to eat together, work together, live together. We’re not meant to handle life on our own. We're supposed to be strong enough to handle life filled with people. Relationships are what push us forward. Intimate relationships can open and heal wounds we've hidden for years. In a close relationship, we are constantly challenged to love when we're empty, to show grace where there's none due, and to unveil the flaws we try to conceal. It’s where we learn to be good forgivers and to live out the love God has shown us.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Slaves of Christ
On the way to church tonight I was listening to a sermon about how we don't like to talk about being slaves to Christ. There are five or six words in Greek that can be used to talk about being a servant, but the word the New Testament uses most often is the word doulos, which is the word "slave," even though it's often translated more generically as servant.
But the word actually means "slave," and if the writers had wanted to refer more generically to servants, they had plenty of other words to pick from. But we are called "slaves" of Christ.
I am not saved so that God can fulfill all my dreams, or make my life whole--though He often does. I am called to follow and obey Him, no matter what. Christ is my master, and I am His slave.
And being His slave is better than being free in any other sense. Having Him as my master is the most liberating state possible, because I am free to be what He created me to be.
But the word actually means "slave," and if the writers had wanted to refer more generically to servants, they had plenty of other words to pick from. But we are called "slaves" of Christ.
I am not saved so that God can fulfill all my dreams, or make my life whole--though He often does. I am called to follow and obey Him, no matter what. Christ is my master, and I am His slave.
And being His slave is better than being free in any other sense. Having Him as my master is the most liberating state possible, because I am free to be what He created me to be.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Why I am a CLC
I'm writing a book about people's attitudes toward the body--everything from general body image to attitudes about sexuality, fertility, pregnancy, breastfeeding, and raising children with a healthy, relaxed body image--and the more I've read about it, written about it, and thought about it, the more important it seems to support mothers and families so that they can give their children the very best care.
I took the CLC training in November, and was the only guy there, but I was given a round of applause by the women in the group, and when it came time for a group picture, they weren't concerned to have the instructor in the center of the picture, but to have me there instead! It was good to get that kind of support.
I had previously joined several Myspace and Yahoo BF groups, too, just to get a pulse on what was being said, and at first some women were questioning why I was there, especially as a single guy, but I shared my testimony, values, and goals, and by the time the discussions were over, they were actually apologizing to me for being so skeptical and were inviting me to other groups as well!
I have seen that our society's views towards mothers feeding their children, including in public places, is a litmus test of its perversion, and it really is important and vital to send messages to the next generation of what the beauty of life and love and family is all about.
As a 30-year old single male, it’s obviously hard for me to get involved in breastfeeding advocacy, but I am a sincere person who has become thoroughly convinced that the way our society sees the body has to be changed, including how people view the beauty of reproduction and breastfeeding. My website, http://www.rediscoverbreastfeeding.com/, demonstrates my commitment to these values.
My book is a major effort, and I really do hope that it will make a strong impact on a lot of people, but it’s a big book (manuscript is several hundred pages long right now) so it will be at least a few months before it’s ready for publication. It's truly changing my worldview and my life. Awesome stuff.
I am sure it sounds weird to some for a guy to be a CLC, or just to think the way I do, and some people would probably not be able to think of it any other way, but isn't what I'm doing the point of it all?
When we think of men addicted to pornography, or men who do think of breasts or a woman's body only in terms of a man's pleasure, we destine men to failure, because they can't see it as anything other than the way the media portrays it. And men, in turn, are unable to support breastfeeding, and just to respect and appreciate women the way they should, because everything has been sexualized to the point that men can't even focus on the goodness of breastfeeding--they miss the beauty of it all for the turn-on that it could be. And that dynamic, in turn, affects women negatively, because they grow up feeling like they are supposed to keep covered at all costs, and don't feel free to breastfeed in public, or even supported to breastfeed at home in private in some cases. It's so sad. I feel bad for the men and women who never get out of that cycle of seeing the body that pornographic way.
Until I got involved in breastfeeding advocacy and education, I had never in my life heard anyone, male or female, say, "The human body is beautiful, and should be seen as art, and its natural functions, especially regarding reproduction, need to be elevated and understood as the wonderful works of God that they are."
If we ever want men to see a woman's body and not objectify it, and if we want men to stop thinking that the only kind of women that are attractive are the ones with a certain figure, or a figure that is possible only in a woman's teens and twenties, then we doom them to failure. Many of them won't see a breastfeeding woman as beautiful, and even if they do, they will see it only through sexual eyes, in which a woman is "hot" rather than "beautiful, " and her breasts as something to excite him rather than as a way to nourish a precious new life. I still can't get over the fact that I have never heard anyone tell me that there's another way to view the body than the shame-producing one I've always been sold.
For the most part, women have been very encouraging that a man would be involved in stuff like this. As I said above, when I was taking the CLC class last year, the class of thirty women gave me a round of applause for what I was doing. I think they did so because they knew how much of a missing element male involvement is. Women need men's support, and the awesome thing is that when women feel supported in being who they are supposed to be as women, wives, and mothers, they, in turn, are equipped to better support their husbands in all that they are supposed to be.
My primary goal with my book is for us to ask ourselves what kind of parents we should be when we raise our children. What if, instead of a kid being raised to see the way the body is shown on tv, or cartoons, or movies, or car ads in magazines, what if instead little boys great up watching their dad treat their mom like a princess, and what if the boys were invited from the earliest age to watch the beauty of their mom nursing the next baby. And what if that never switched to a mode of "you shouldn't see that," "Don't look," "If you look at that, you're dirty”?
If they could see the body from that elevated perspective, do you know what pornography would look like to them? It would look like graffiti on a Monet. They would know what's worth only $5 and what's worth $25 million, and they'd refuse the false, and want the real--and save themselves years of guilt in the dark, thinking they're all bad, when in reality, their desires are very, very good, but simply need to be understood in the right context, with the right boundaries.
It's amazing: when you bring this stuff out into the light, the bad stuff loses its power. It really does.
What I think will work is sending the clear message to the next generation that they are God's precious art, of overwhelming value, so much so that they wouldn't want to throw themselves away, and they won't want to miss enjoying the beauty of how God made them.
We don't mind throwing away a $2 clay pot when it breaks; we just buy a new one, put a new ribbon around it, and a flower inside it, and start over. But if we knew that the art we were dealing with was priceless, and especially if the Artist were putting hints and metaphors of transcendence into that art, wouldn't we care for it?
And we wonder why kids are cutting themselves these days ...
To me this subject is a paradox, as so much of life is. We have to think really deeply about this stuff, or we'll just perpetuate the same vicious cycles, viciously ashamed of what God is proud of, and if we were proud of it, we wouldn't be more whimsical, we'd be less. We'd take care of our bodies and pursue that reality, real life, where women look the way real women do, and celebrating the body, in the right context and the right way.
I've read a lot about Natural Family Planning, and it amazes me how wonderful the body is. God made the female body with cycles that are mind-boggling, and the extent that most of us guys have ever heard about it is PMS. But it is amazing, and something that would make guys respect women more, and protect them more, if they only took the time to really understand it and see the body as the wonderful creation that it is. Guys don't know the hundredth of it. Actually, from what I've read and the people I've talked to about it, most girls don't know much more, either, in terms of the actual details of what's going on inside them and why.
But it's all so beautiful! Why are we living in such ignorance? Why are we living on such mundane levels, almost like animals, when this transcendence, this elegance, this precious life is right there, in our own bodies and in the bodies of those around us, to be understood, appreciated, and honored?
We are living art. We stare at museum walls with paintings on them, but men and women are living, breathing, walking, reproducing, breastfeeding art. We are worth so much more than we act like we are.
That's why I love the idea of encouraging and helping my wife someday, of protecting and nurturing her in such a way that makes her safe, where she feels like she can take care of her body, and enjoy being a woman, and bring a life into this world, and know that she'll be supported as much as possible by me.
I was talking a few months ago to a woman at work who just returned to work from her maternity leave. She has a three-month old baby at home. This woman looks half the time like she's staring into the cubicle wall, eyes glazed over, and from several talks we've had, she misses her baby at home so much. Her face shows that her heart is there at home, and it's just a shadow of her that's there at work, typing away at a computer. I feel bad for her. She's expressed over and over how much she wants to be home with him.
Maybe that mental picture will offend some people, because they think it hinders a woman, but personally, I believe in what some might call "old-fashioned" values, where a woman has the opportunity, if she desires, to stay at home with her baby. I can't imagine the heart-wrenching that must go on when a woman has been caring for, cuddling, and breastfeeding her baby for several months straight, watching the baby fall asleep on her, warm body to warm body, and to have to exchange that for a computer screen and a grey cubicle.
I don't know about the other men my age who are single, but as for me, when I get married, I will be doing everything I can to help and support my wife in all these areas.
I had a teacher in college whose wife gave birth to a daughter during a semester when I was taking one of his classes, and the first day after he came back, he took an entire class to talk directly to the guys about how when their wives had children, that those guys were to treat their wives like queens (not to say treat them any less good before having kids). I think the ladies in that class wanted to give him applause by the time he was done.
You can probably see how much I care about these subjects, and thus how I could be working on a book that's now hundreds of pages long. But it's so worth it. I wouldn't trade what I'm learning for the world.
I feel like God has been preparing me for twenty years to write this book, and to truly "change my mind" about so many subjects, and I want to do that to the best of my ability, which means getting others' wisdom and feedback.
I want to be the best prepared husband I can be to my future wife, so I read books about Natural Family Planning, and about pregnancy, and breastfeeding, and raising children, and I really do think that despite the misunderstanding it will create with some people, I am honoring God in my desire to appreciate the body the way He would have us do, and that I am interested not in something I shouldn't be, but in something that we all should be, men included, from a healthy perspective.
I took the CLC training in November, and was the only guy there, but I was given a round of applause by the women in the group, and when it came time for a group picture, they weren't concerned to have the instructor in the center of the picture, but to have me there instead! It was good to get that kind of support.
I had previously joined several Myspace and Yahoo BF groups, too, just to get a pulse on what was being said, and at first some women were questioning why I was there, especially as a single guy, but I shared my testimony, values, and goals, and by the time the discussions were over, they were actually apologizing to me for being so skeptical and were inviting me to other groups as well!
I have seen that our society's views towards mothers feeding their children, including in public places, is a litmus test of its perversion, and it really is important and vital to send messages to the next generation of what the beauty of life and love and family is all about.
As a 30-year old single male, it’s obviously hard for me to get involved in breastfeeding advocacy, but I am a sincere person who has become thoroughly convinced that the way our society sees the body has to be changed, including how people view the beauty of reproduction and breastfeeding. My website, http://www.rediscoverbreastfeeding.com/, demonstrates my commitment to these values.
My book is a major effort, and I really do hope that it will make a strong impact on a lot of people, but it’s a big book (manuscript is several hundred pages long right now) so it will be at least a few months before it’s ready for publication. It's truly changing my worldview and my life. Awesome stuff.
I am sure it sounds weird to some for a guy to be a CLC, or just to think the way I do, and some people would probably not be able to think of it any other way, but isn't what I'm doing the point of it all?
When we think of men addicted to pornography, or men who do think of breasts or a woman's body only in terms of a man's pleasure, we destine men to failure, because they can't see it as anything other than the way the media portrays it. And men, in turn, are unable to support breastfeeding, and just to respect and appreciate women the way they should, because everything has been sexualized to the point that men can't even focus on the goodness of breastfeeding--they miss the beauty of it all for the turn-on that it could be. And that dynamic, in turn, affects women negatively, because they grow up feeling like they are supposed to keep covered at all costs, and don't feel free to breastfeed in public, or even supported to breastfeed at home in private in some cases. It's so sad. I feel bad for the men and women who never get out of that cycle of seeing the body that pornographic way.
Until I got involved in breastfeeding advocacy and education, I had never in my life heard anyone, male or female, say, "The human body is beautiful, and should be seen as art, and its natural functions, especially regarding reproduction, need to be elevated and understood as the wonderful works of God that they are."
If we ever want men to see a woman's body and not objectify it, and if we want men to stop thinking that the only kind of women that are attractive are the ones with a certain figure, or a figure that is possible only in a woman's teens and twenties, then we doom them to failure. Many of them won't see a breastfeeding woman as beautiful, and even if they do, they will see it only through sexual eyes, in which a woman is "hot" rather than "beautiful, " and her breasts as something to excite him rather than as a way to nourish a precious new life. I still can't get over the fact that I have never heard anyone tell me that there's another way to view the body than the shame-producing one I've always been sold.
For the most part, women have been very encouraging that a man would be involved in stuff like this. As I said above, when I was taking the CLC class last year, the class of thirty women gave me a round of applause for what I was doing. I think they did so because they knew how much of a missing element male involvement is. Women need men's support, and the awesome thing is that when women feel supported in being who they are supposed to be as women, wives, and mothers, they, in turn, are equipped to better support their husbands in all that they are supposed to be.
My primary goal with my book is for us to ask ourselves what kind of parents we should be when we raise our children. What if, instead of a kid being raised to see the way the body is shown on tv, or cartoons, or movies, or car ads in magazines, what if instead little boys great up watching their dad treat their mom like a princess, and what if the boys were invited from the earliest age to watch the beauty of their mom nursing the next baby. And what if that never switched to a mode of "you shouldn't see that," "Don't look," "If you look at that, you're dirty”?
If they could see the body from that elevated perspective, do you know what pornography would look like to them? It would look like graffiti on a Monet. They would know what's worth only $5 and what's worth $25 million, and they'd refuse the false, and want the real--and save themselves years of guilt in the dark, thinking they're all bad, when in reality, their desires are very, very good, but simply need to be understood in the right context, with the right boundaries.
It's amazing: when you bring this stuff out into the light, the bad stuff loses its power. It really does.
What I think will work is sending the clear message to the next generation that they are God's precious art, of overwhelming value, so much so that they wouldn't want to throw themselves away, and they won't want to miss enjoying the beauty of how God made them.
We don't mind throwing away a $2 clay pot when it breaks; we just buy a new one, put a new ribbon around it, and a flower inside it, and start over. But if we knew that the art we were dealing with was priceless, and especially if the Artist were putting hints and metaphors of transcendence into that art, wouldn't we care for it?
And we wonder why kids are cutting themselves these days ...
To me this subject is a paradox, as so much of life is. We have to think really deeply about this stuff, or we'll just perpetuate the same vicious cycles, viciously ashamed of what God is proud of, and if we were proud of it, we wouldn't be more whimsical, we'd be less. We'd take care of our bodies and pursue that reality, real life, where women look the way real women do, and celebrating the body, in the right context and the right way.
I've read a lot about Natural Family Planning, and it amazes me how wonderful the body is. God made the female body with cycles that are mind-boggling, and the extent that most of us guys have ever heard about it is PMS. But it is amazing, and something that would make guys respect women more, and protect them more, if they only took the time to really understand it and see the body as the wonderful creation that it is. Guys don't know the hundredth of it. Actually, from what I've read and the people I've talked to about it, most girls don't know much more, either, in terms of the actual details of what's going on inside them and why.
But it's all so beautiful! Why are we living in such ignorance? Why are we living on such mundane levels, almost like animals, when this transcendence, this elegance, this precious life is right there, in our own bodies and in the bodies of those around us, to be understood, appreciated, and honored?
We are living art. We stare at museum walls with paintings on them, but men and women are living, breathing, walking, reproducing, breastfeeding art. We are worth so much more than we act like we are.
That's why I love the idea of encouraging and helping my wife someday, of protecting and nurturing her in such a way that makes her safe, where she feels like she can take care of her body, and enjoy being a woman, and bring a life into this world, and know that she'll be supported as much as possible by me.
I was talking a few months ago to a woman at work who just returned to work from her maternity leave. She has a three-month old baby at home. This woman looks half the time like she's staring into the cubicle wall, eyes glazed over, and from several talks we've had, she misses her baby at home so much. Her face shows that her heart is there at home, and it's just a shadow of her that's there at work, typing away at a computer. I feel bad for her. She's expressed over and over how much she wants to be home with him.
Maybe that mental picture will offend some people, because they think it hinders a woman, but personally, I believe in what some might call "old-fashioned" values, where a woman has the opportunity, if she desires, to stay at home with her baby. I can't imagine the heart-wrenching that must go on when a woman has been caring for, cuddling, and breastfeeding her baby for several months straight, watching the baby fall asleep on her, warm body to warm body, and to have to exchange that for a computer screen and a grey cubicle.
I don't know about the other men my age who are single, but as for me, when I get married, I will be doing everything I can to help and support my wife in all these areas.
I had a teacher in college whose wife gave birth to a daughter during a semester when I was taking one of his classes, and the first day after he came back, he took an entire class to talk directly to the guys about how when their wives had children, that those guys were to treat their wives like queens (not to say treat them any less good before having kids). I think the ladies in that class wanted to give him applause by the time he was done.
You can probably see how much I care about these subjects, and thus how I could be working on a book that's now hundreds of pages long. But it's so worth it. I wouldn't trade what I'm learning for the world.
I feel like God has been preparing me for twenty years to write this book, and to truly "change my mind" about so many subjects, and I want to do that to the best of my ability, which means getting others' wisdom and feedback.
I want to be the best prepared husband I can be to my future wife, so I read books about Natural Family Planning, and about pregnancy, and breastfeeding, and raising children, and I really do think that despite the misunderstanding it will create with some people, I am honoring God in my desire to appreciate the body the way He would have us do, and that I am interested not in something I shouldn't be, but in something that we all should be, men included, from a healthy perspective.
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