Karen's Clan

• God, I have decided, is not on call...He is all powerful so I suppose He could be on call if He wanted to be, and maybe, on rare occasion, He is. But in general, God doesn't turn up when you page him. He is right where he always is, and what regular, daily maybe twice prayer gives us is some more hint of  of just where that is, and how to get there, and one of the things liturgy gives us is a way to get there when all our ways have given out. When I am unable to pray, the prayer book gives me the words. Liturgical prayers, Edith Stein wrote, "support the spirit and prescribe to it a fixed path." And all this time I have been so scathing of liturgy...O God. Now I get it, I see it, and I am bowled over by the beauty of liturgy.
• She quotes from Diana Eck's Encountering God: The Latin credo literally means "I give my heart". The word believe is a problematic one today, in part because it has gradually changed its meaning from being the language of certainty so deep that I could give my heart to it, to the language of uncertainty so shallow that only the "credulous"would rely on it. Faith... is not about propositions, but about commitment. It does not mean that I intellectually subscribe to the following list of statements, but that I give my heart to this reality. Believe, indeed, some to us from the Old English belove, making clear that this too is meant to be heart language. To say, "I believe in Jesus Christ is not to subscribe to an uncertain proposition. It is a confession of commitment , of love."

Saved the best for last. I cannot recommend this book highly enough for married women or brides-to-be. It is a frank, honest, lovingly written book that answers 21 questions Christian women most want answered. Pintus and Dillow are mature married women who write this book in very down to earth fashion. Their book is divided into three sections: Simmering Questions (really laying a true Biblical foundation for sex eg How can I be Godly and Sensuous, Where Can I go to Buy a New Body, How do I make Love with Children Wrapped Around my Knees); Smoldering Questions (How Can I get over the Guilt of past sexual sin, What do I do when He has a headache, Is it Possible to get Beyond the Pain of Sexual Abuse?); and Sizzling Hot Questions (How can sex go from Boring to Sizzling?, What's the Big Deal about Orgasm?). You can read some of my reflections here and here.

(Please read this post here to see where this story begins, and this one for the first chapter's nuggets...)



"How can I be godly and sensuous?" is the question at the heart of Dillow and Pintus' second chapter, and one that I think possibly can reverberate in the heads of Christian women. Can a godly wife be sensuous? Have Christian women denied their sensuousness in a quest to become godly?

Webster defines sensuous as "pertaining to the senses; appealing to the senses, alive to the pleasure received through the senses''. Sensuous is a positive term whereas sensual, on the other hand, is most often used in the negative, referring to an unrestrained sexual appetite, which is always wrong and ungodly (Gal 5:19).

When God created us female, he integrated our sexuality and our spirituality -  He meant for the spiritual and sexual to melt together. Why else would God take the ultimate sexual act, sexual intercourse, between a husband and wife, and liken it to the ultimate spiritual experience, the union of Christ and the Church? (Eph 5: 31-32). Many women have thanked God that He knit them together in their mother's wombs, that he made them fearfully and wonderfully (PS 139:13-14) ...but what they fail to acknowledge is that their sexuality is part of their physical make up. Have you ever thanked God that when he knit your physical make up together, part of His embroidery was your sexuality? Our sexuality and spirituality and not separate and divided - Vonette Bright beautifully describes it: "It is as important to be filled with the Spirit in bed with your husband, ministering to him, as it is for you to be filled with the Spirit when you are teaching the Bible or ministering.

"Intimate Issues" is the title of  a brilliant book I picked up whilst in Ballito (and echoes something of the heart of what I wrote here -Taboo or Not Taboo?). Written by Linda Dillow and Lorraine Pintus, (Christian women have been married for over 45 years), it is an incredibly heart warming look at christian women and the way they view sex, and answers to some twenty one of the most pressing questions asked.



I've chosen, again, to share the nuggets that have stood out for me. They've been deep, light bulb moments, illuminating the recesses of my heart where I have just grown tired of asking the same questions and not hearing God answer. But I have reached a turning point, and as I look steadily into his face and take his hand and follow where he leads, I am renewed. Refreshed. Hopeful. And I want to take you along - so that you too can be refreshed...

Chapter One is a very necessary foundation all of us should examine: What does God really think about sex? The authors begin by outlining some of the most common voices women listen to when asking what sex is all about...these conflicting voices cause such confusion! Can you recognize any of them?

• the voice of Victorian era eg "Don't talk about it; stay under the covers with the lights off" (laughable now, but imagine, this was so many women's reality!)
• the voices of sexual pioneers like Freud, Kinsey, Virginia Johnson whose tone offended our sensibilities eg do x, y and z, program your body and it will orgasm.
• voices of certain church fathers like Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and even Martin Luther said things like as long as sex was without passion or enjoyment, then it wasn't considered a sin (gulp - can you imagine? I'm mighty glad I was born when I was!)
• voices of mothers - some give wise advice, others have given negative messages like "Only those kinds of girls enjoy sex"or "Sex is  man's thing, you just endure it", or simply, sadly, silence.
• Voices of some older married women - "Wait until you've been married twenty years, it gets old"
• Voice of the media - the greatest lie of all, sex just happens naturally. Both the man and the women know everything, do everything just right and are instantly perfect lovers. Sigh.