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the second for tonight. then i have other work to do.

singleness: what's so bad about it? it seems to me that to remain single is to live in a way that respects that God is the one who will regenerate the Church. Children are an incredibly beautiful sign of the life that God brings into the world and the way that we are to live with fecundity before fear, but let us look at singleness. This is not a knock on marriage, but just because marriage is good doesn't mean that singleness isn't.

i said something about singleness being a possibility in my life to my mom over Christmas break and she totally shut down. it was like she didn't even want to hear a bit of it. This is all kind of funny coming from a biblical literalist. I mean, shouldn't she take Paul's words literally? at the moment, i'm not "burning with lust," so from a biblically literal standpoint, maybe it would be better for me to find a nice little monastery in the woods and begin my vocation. now, you don't have to be a monk to be single, of course, but we have so devalued celibacy and singleness that it creates in us this frantic need to be attached, to be married and sexually active. Can we imagine the power of so many single Christians living faithfully and prayerfully in their lives, offering up the needs and concerns of the church and dedicating their lives to service to the poor and forgotten because they do not have a family to take care of. Their lack of family can become their great asset, not downfall. i feel like we should maybe take this a little more seriously and accept the paradigm shift that is going to necessarily come with it. when i think of long-term singleness, i am frightened. i don't want to be. i want to be okay dedicating my life and body to the church and to God without needing to dedicate them to any other person. But i fear this. i can't keep my mind from making me posture and position myself and "keep one in the hopper," as Alec Ellis says. again, marriage is not bad. it is very good. but i don't want to accept a call to be married until i break through the fear of singleness. no matter where i end up relationally, i want to be able to stand before God singly and alone, as a unit of one that can therefore be extended to those outside of me, my family (whatever it may look like), my church, my community. i don't want to find my energy in anything but the life that God makes available to me.