I recently broke up with someone. It wasn't necessarily my choice, but we didn't date for a very long period of time, and while I mourn the loss of the possibility, I think I'm coping fairly well. I say this, not to continue to bemoan the break-up (my journal carries those sentiments for me), but rather because I feel like I have all of these random possibilities coming out of the woodwork. It's a bit disconcerting, and I keep thinking that maybe I'm just making it up. Part of that is due to the fact that I've not dated much before, and I guess I had just come to the conclusion that people just weren't interested in me. It'd be nice to meet someone though. I miss being in that type of relationship (especially with an amazing man). It'll come along though. I hope.

There's so much in more conservative theology that limits understanding of how these types of relationships are supposed to work. My heart seems firmly rooted in this longing to have someone--someone amazing and who fits me just right--to have until I die. I understand that I can't expect that of the next person I date, at least not at first. It's hard not to though. It's hard not to expect that of anyone I become involved in relationship with. Part of it is due to the fact that I'd prefer to avoid the potential pain of a broken relationship. Part of it is due to the hope that I hold for a healthy marriage and family life someday. Most of it is the former though.

I wish in the church we had a more authentic understanding of romantic relationships and sexuality. It's sexuality in a romance that is cast in such a dark, mysterious and to a point, evil light. It saddens me that we've vilified this sacred act of two becoming one. There's a beautiful power in the erotic, something that speaks to the embodiment of love and mutual giving and receiving.

It's a thought I've been exploring, very, very recently, this idea of the way of the masculine versus the way of the feminine (not to be confused with gender exclusive roles assigned according to biology--I wish there were better words for these things). The way of the masculine has placed so much emphasis on transcending life, by achieving some form of immortality--through the building of kingdoms, the creating of art, the productivity of life. There is a disconnect here, between the spirit (of work, life, love) and the body (of relationship, life, love). Certainly, this could be illustrated in the difference of sexual release in a man in difference to the sexual release of a woman. For a man, the orgasm releases energy, physically spilling seed which yearns to be planted. For a woman, the release is more focused internally, it is a grasping and holding onto (in the case of coitus with a man, of the seed). This receiving of a woman becomes a giving of human life, in the gestation of a new life.

There needs to be coupling of both masculine thought, but the feminine perspective needs to take these thoughts, add it's own, and birth something new, something that is not a spirit (though spirit is part of it), these new "concepts" would be more than just abstractions, but rather they would be the embodiment of life and fresh answers to all these questions that plague us.

In another train of thought, it seems to me that the church has failed to equip it's youth in a variety of ways, one of the most significant is a way to harness the power of the erotic and the surge of hormones. There needs to be some open, non-rigid way to speak with people of how sensuality (which includes sexuality, among other things) needs to be harnessed. Part of my problem is I find the forbidding of an appropriate exploration of sexuality before marriage is naive and often harmful to the development of healthy relationships. I would never wish to make the case that a relationship should revolve around sexuality, I think that extreme would be dangerous. But to try to make a relationship revolve around the "spirituality" (i.e., emotional connection) is just as dangerous. There needs to be a growth of both together.

These are just some of the thoughts rambling around in my head. Loose threads that I'll eventually weave into something...I hope.