Ni Hao New Hampshire is a tumblelog.

deconstructing the rule book

In John Paul II’s mind, the opposite of love is not hatred. It’s use. We must resist every impulse in us that tends to treat other people as means to our own selfish gratification, so that we can learn to love others for their own sake.

Physical manifestations of affection, no matter where they fall on the “scale”—from just holding hands to kissing to having sex—are meant to be outward signs that express genuine inward realities.

We cross a line in the heart when we seek that physical and emotional satisfaction as an end in itself—when we treat another person, not as a person created for his or her own sake, but as a means to our own selfish ends. This can happen all too easily, even if we don’t cross “the line” on the “scale” of physical behaviors.

Admittedly, the meaning of holding hands or a kiss is not universal. At a minimum, however, these behaviors mean (or should mean), “I respect you deeply as a person, I have tender affection for you, and I want to speak to you of your goodness.” They should never be the expression of a desire to “get something” from the other for one’s own ends. They should instead be expressions of a disinterested desire to affirm the other person for his or her own sake. 

Such genuineness in expressions of affection is only possible as we surrender our whole selves to the transforming love of Christ. Without such surrender, we’ll inevitably be stuck in a habit of using others, and for lack of knowledge of anything else, we’ll make the tragic mistake of calling that “love.”

—The Good News About Sex & Marriage by Christopher West, pg. 74-76, (very) abridged by me :P

rules rules rules

last year on the IV catholic students retreat i read this really good book called Not The Religious Type. even though it covered pretty simple ideas, it kind of changed my perspective on experiencing your spirituality using boundaries and rules and laws as your guidelines vs. freedom from rules and laws.

lol the other day a friend was trying to do this sort of analysis of me and one of the first things he said was “since you were raised catholic and really conservative i think you’re pretty open to experiences and trying new things.” and i laughed and saw my life and realized that i actually am that stereotypical crazy (/confused) catholic schoolgirl.

my entire worldview, ideals, and standards for myself is/was built up within a system of rules. and those rules are for the most part built on top of each other. my morality comes from the teachings of the catholic church, and my faith in the teachings of the catholic church comes from this commitment to orthodoxy (i.e., it’s all or nothing - it doesn’t make sense to pick and choose beliefs from a set of teachings that are meant to be taken as a whole).

so that means my beliefs are like a jenga tower or dominoes or something. they only can function properly as a whole. pull one out - decide one little idea is illogical or arbitrary - and the entire system is necessarily thrown into a sea of doubt aka becoming a collapsed heap of jenga blocks.

people who don’t have a rigid outer system of rules don’t act like me (i.e. they don’t look at their college life and see a steady downward trend away from conservative behavior and everything they used to say they would never do) because their standards for themselves come from within. meanwhile, if i can’t find the answer to a question written in black and white by someone with the ecclesiastic authority to make statements on doctrine and morality…then i’ll just be like, “well why not??”

(tl;dr: i can’t deal with gray areas.)

so if the jenga tower falls apart, if the cage of rules that’s keeping me inside “good christian” zone collapses, i’m gonna need to rebuild on something instead of inside something. i need to have a firm foundation: a god i’m listening to because i WANT to because i LOVE him. not a set of laws i’m following cuz my mom made me read the pope’s encyclicals and it’s what all the good homeschoolers are supposed to do.

once a chastity speaker i heard (i know shut up i had to go to so many chastity talks in high school) answered the “how far is too far” question by saying something like, “instead of trying to go as close to the edge of the cliff as possible without falling off, you need to turn around away from the cliff and face jesus.” and i was like “what the hell does that mean? i mean i’m pretty sure the path from first base to home plate only goes in one direction” but i think i’m starting to understand what she was getting at. kind of. (except this concept applies to more than just sex obviously. i think.)

anyway………i just am hoping that the loverockfoundation vs cage-of-laws approach conveniently leaves me standing in the same place i would have been in anyways.  cuz damnfuckingshitfaceaaaugghhhhh if i end up somewhere else, shit’s gonna get real complicated. #donotwantidentitycritis #kthx #jesuswascatholicright?