Me Again!

FATHER-MOTHER, SEX, FRIENDSHIP

O Father!  It’s me again.  Sorry to bother you.  I feel like I’ve spent my whole life bothering you.  I’m sorry for so many things.  If I knew how, if I had the power to make things better, to make things right, for myself and others, I would have.  But, I don’t have the power.  Maybe the power to make things a little better, to share the journey, to shoulder the burdens, but not to make it all right.  Believe me, I wish that I did.  I’m a poor, sad, old, mortal man.  What do you want from me?  What can you expect from me?  What do I even have to offer to anyone?  I’m old and tired and sad and lonely.  Thoughts linger on my mind.  Spirituality.  Writing.  Sex.  I love to think and pray.  I love to worship Father-Mother God.  To sing, to laugh, to dream, to walk in my own way and be alone, free, with an eye to see things as they are.  I’m tired, Father.  I’ve tried so hard with so many different things, and what have I accomplished?  Not much.  I am a mediocrity.  I am a little man, and I would be smaller still if I could.  I don’t even live a full, wholesome life.  I don’t live the good life that most other people seem to live.  I don’t even keep a clean house.  Sometimes, it feels like I’m barely keeping body and soul together.  I’m sick, tired, sad, and lonely.

I’m not especially concerned about sex, am I?  I’ve never let sex bother me too much have I?  I mean, I’ve always been a sexual deviant.  I’ve always been sexually attracted to other guys.  That’s nothing new.  Sometimes,  I do get fed up with sex and want nothing to do with it.  I’ve known all along that it’s not the be all and end all.  How could it be?  It isn’t the ultimate issue for anyone, whether they know it or not.  Sexual preference isn’t the ultimate issue for anyone, whether they know it or not.  What is the ultimate issue?  Do I know?  Do I know how to live my life?  Do I know how to help you to live yours?

O, Father-Mother, help me to be a whole and happy human being.  Help me to achieve my human potential, whatever it is.  Sex isn’t that big a deal.  We all adjust to it or with it, depending on our unique experiences and inclinations.  Most of us manage to assimilate it into a functional human personality.  It may not be normal, traditional, moral, or conventional, but it works for me.  It gets me through the day and night.  It has propelled me through my lifetime.  I had thought, and even hoped, that I might outgrow sex.  I didn’t want to have to deal with sex, especially my aberrant sense of it.  I didn’t want sex to be an issue for me, but it always has been, and I have not discovered the way to nullify it.  I’m tired.  I’m old and fat.  I’m discouraged.  Sex is not a pretty thing for someone my age.  It’s really not a pretty thing for anyone.  Sex is not kind, sweet, affectionate.  It’s selfish.  Sex tends to selfishness.  Sex is the highest form of affection and approval that some people know how to give to another.  People tend to understand or relate to sex.  People associate sex with affection, which can be an unfortunate assumption to make.  But, it’s easy and convenient to reduce affection to sex, and our popular culture does it all the time.  People do it all the time. Sex is like water:  Insidious, it seeps in and can be difficult to contain.

I tried over many years to hold myself and others to a higher standard.  I’m not sure what I accomplished by doing so, but I tried to distinguish affection, friendship, and relationship from sexuality in my own experience.  Quixotic.  Lonely.  Obsolete.  Counterproductive?  Narrow?  I don’t know.  Did I do the right thing?  What did I achieve?  How different would things have been for me if I had not been so narrow about sex?  How did we get to the point where sex became so determinative of individual experience?  How did we get to the point where sex became so powerful over human life?  Has it always been?  What is the significance of contemporary sexuality?  What does it mean?  How has it affected my life?  It’s kind of late for me to be experimenting with and exploring sexual potential.  I’m kind of old for that.  I’m kind of fat and unappealing for that.  But, after all this time, after all I’ve been through, sex is still here.  The thing I like about sex is that it brushes by personal idiosyncrasies to an intense personal engagement with the other.  Sex is not delicate.  Sex isn’t picky.  Sex covers a multitude of sins.  Sex isn’t shy.  Sex breaks through shyness.  Sex breaks through barriers.  Whether that is a good thing or not, I don’t know.  Aren’t reserve and circumspection good qualities for men and women to have?  Isn’t it good to keep some things private?  Can we balance the longing to connect with the dignity of privacy?  Can we connect meaningfully with other human beings and be dignified men and women?