So the main reason I’m planning on celibacy for the foreseeable future is just that I’m Catholic and lesbian and them’s the rules, bud.
I do not judge her salvation, that is Jesus call, but really look at the fruit. This is an article with an agenda. It has some nice words that we want to hear but be wise.
When she is ashamed to even discuss her past life, then she is truly broken, it will no longer be about her.
Here's a good quote:
"But I think gay Catholics can also offer a necessary witness to the broader society. By leading lives of fruitful, creative love, we can offer proof that sexual restraint isn't a death sentence (or an especially boring form of masochism)."
If Tushnet were attached to "gay" as her "real identity," she would take precisely the opposite tack: she would identify celibacy as "a death sentence" (this is killing my real self!) or an act of masochism (this is torturing who I really am!) But she doesn't do that, she does the opposite: see, I'm celibate and it didn't kill me. It didn't distort me. Because my sex drive is not the "real" "me".
Moreover, she's just got 1800 words here, and she can't put in everything she has felt, thought or believed. She's done a lot more writing, in which she develops her thoughts in more detail, and some of it is even linked to this article. For instance, in the hyperlink connected to the words "Bitter laugh," you find this:
"Becoming Catholic, I should say, was in part about accepting that I could be loved by Someone who genuinely knew everything about me. In order to be really Catholic you have to accept healing and love, and there are times when that's very hard for me, still."
So I'm reminding people that she's not a snapshot or a freezeframe: she's a video, a moving picture.
A Christian in the making, which is what I would like to claim, hopefully, for myself, in God's good mercy and in His good time.
[article:] So the main reason I’m planning on celibacy for the foreseeable future is just that I’m Catholic and lesbian and them’s the rules, bud.
How do you respond to the above? Perversion is still her main identity. Notice those words foreseeable future, she is still justifying and hedging her bets. I do not judge her salvation, that is Jesus call, but really look at the fruit. This is an article with an agenda. It has some nice words that we want to hear but be wise. When she is ashamed to even discuss her past life, then she is truly broken, it will no longer be about her.
First off, I cannot imagine her burden particularly, so I cannot speak to it perfectly. But I can associate it to my own. I still VERY MUCH would like to wrap my legs around a hawg and beat feet for Sturgis every year. I still LOVE a good tailgate party, and there is something in me that to this day, rises up in glee at the thought of battle. When the berries and cherries are in the rearview, my first reaction is to punch the 'git gone' pedal, and I would still to this day enjoy the ensuing pursuit, if it were to occur. I enjoy flirting with women, I cuss too much, and Sunday clothes make me itch.
That is still all my 'main identity. And I confess it loudly, and without shame, because those things I have done have been turned to victory in Messiah. No bow-tie preacher can begin to touch the sinners in Sturgis, but I can. No elder of the church is gonna get everyone around the campfire into a deep discussion about YHWH, but I can. Can the church reach the lawbreaker sitting in his cell? Really? But I can, because I been there, done that, and I know the road out of it.
Like her, I participate, but I am (mostly) abstinent. I don't drink no more, I don't tear down the bar no more, its been a couple decades since I was last in cuffs. But Yeshua has made me, by my confession, and His grace, the ultimate infiltrator. And I will preach him to those misbegotten folks who are what I was. In that, my past sins are turned to victories for him.
I will never be able to preach to the choir. Church ladies have that covered, and that is not what He has made me to do.