I had a friend who used to say that whenever someone said something that embarrassed her. Sometimes we’d do it on purpose just to see her turn red and sink into her chair.
I’ve been thinking about her lately as I watch the almost circus-like spectacle that is going on over birth control and women’s rights. We’ve all latched on to our own particular limb of the discussion which is threatening to rip the whole apart.
Thanks to my old friend, I think I understand what Rick Santorum and his ilk are trying to say. However, in their “I’m right, you’re wrong” style, they are doing a lousy job of communicating it to others, except for those who already happen to agree with them.
Indeed, very little is sacred anymore. Anything is available to us anytime. We wait for nothing. We want for nothing. To describe it in simplistic terms, my peers and I sometimes talk about how we long for the days when we had to wait all year long for “The Wizard of Oz” to be on TV. It only showed once, at a specific time on a specific day and if you weren’t there to watch it, you missed it until next year. Now, we can own the movie and watch it anytime we want. Where’s the anticipation in that?
We’ve become addicted to gratuitous pleasure. We can even watch pornography any time of the day or night without bearing the shame of renting a salacious video at the store. We’ve come to see sex as a throwaway guilty pleasure rather than the incredible process it is for the creation of life.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m not a crazy pro-lifer or anything but I wonder if we shouldn’t pay more attention to this subject. I may step on some toes by not being able to completely explain myself here, but I’m trying to look at the larger issue rather than get mired in the minutia.
What message are we sending to our kids about the honor it is to create and raise children? Where is the line between sexual prudishness and basic common sense about how we discipline ourselves to restrain our most basic instincts until we are emotionally prepared to deal with their consequences? When did we give up on the idea that “no means no” — but in case I change my mind I’m protected? And why is all this about religion?? Isn’t this a human issue? Isn’t this an issue of basic respect, not just for each other but for the life that our actions might create?
We need to be having better conversations, where women are invited to the discussion about how birth control affects their lives and where gay people can sit down with those who don’t understand and have a clear discussion about what the real issue actually is rather than what others think it is. All of us are so much more than what we do in bed. Why does the discussion always seem to devolve to that?
We need to figure out how to rediscover a sense of the sacred, not just in a religious sense, but in a human sense, so that we don’t continue demeaning one of our greatest sources of meaning by turning it into nothing more than a stress release.
I hope that each of us will find enough meaning and sacredness in our own lives that we trust that there is a reason we are asked to wait….
