From Lisa Graham McMinn’s Sexuality and Holy Longing: Embracing Intimacy in a Broken World (pp. 6-8):
1) We were created by God to long for relationships, and yet are incapable of satisfying our longings in relationships.
2) Living in grace bridges the chasm between our longings and our inability to satisfy those longings.
While we wait for completion in eternity, we love and learn and find easement from our loneliness in relationships with others. When we acknowledge that our yearnings will never be fully satisfied, we can welcome God into our disappointment and then turn toward the abundance yet available through the temporal blessings of relationships, knowing they were never intended to completely satisfy our longings.
May 2, 2008 at 3:35 pm
I would like to confirm the statements made above. In my extensive field research I noticed that when engaged in carnal pleasures some women will utter: ” …oh God…oh my God” Though it is questionable whether they are “fully satisfied” it is widely agreed that they express their longing for “completion in eternity” (Hadley et al. 1982). My colleague Rafael D’Amato,
Università degli Studi di Milano, wrote a paper recently about men who while engaged in carnal pleasures etc. exclaim ” God…God..I am coming!”
According to D’Amato such men demonstrate a complete identification with the Lord and “…(the) yearnings for His second coming”. (D’Amato, 2007)
Thank you
HS
May 2, 2008 at 11:09 pm
I’m leaving this up, 1) because it’s funny, and 2) because it’s a nice little illustration of how the Gospel is “foolishness to the Greeks.”
Thanks for contributing, HS!
May 3, 2008 at 4:17 am
I would like to thank the person who owns this blog for leaving my entry up. In my extensive field research I noticed that many blog owners exclude contrarian opinions (“The Paradox of The Contrarian Chronicles”, Spiegelman, 2006). I take off my sombrero in honor of this blog’s owner.
señor? señora?
Cariñosos saludos!!!
May 3, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Hello, this is Horacio again. The learned owner of this blog saw in my original post an illustration of how the Gospel is “foolishness to the Greeks.” In my extensive field research I noticed that the Greeks indeed consider many things to be “foolish” and I found myself in total agreement with them (“what? Horacio! you are leaving the taverna?! no way! it’s foolish! let’s have another round of ouzo.”) So, Paul thought that the Greeks and the Jews just don’t get it (1 Corinthians 1:22 — 24). It took him only a second to realize how “foolish” are the ideas that he is promoting (seeing the lads having fun in the taverna and frolicking at the beach) when he comes up with this semi-infantile statement : For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength (1 Corinthians 1:25).
Come on, Paul! a my-dad-can-kick- your-dad’s-ass argument ? Sit down, relax have another shot of ouzo and, by the way, we are so glad that you too can see that your God can be foolish. And what did you say? His foolishness is wiser than ours? Oh, ok…whatever. (see also “ouzo and bliss”; Arvanitaki, 1912)
ευχαριστίεσ,
HS
May 3, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Ichsteh, in a way, I think that sex may serve as a sort of Christian homework, placing a person in a situation where she may either demand, “tell me again how hot I am, baby” or revel in another person’s otherness and kiss his backne. It is practice in selflessness, made more challenging by the temptation to be selfish.
Horatio Sanchez, you make a good point about the second coming. The question is, if we take Christianity as a celebration of the godly man who could come twice, is this a slap in the face of singularly orgasmic mankind, or would the practice of Christianity- with all its attempts to be Christlike- eventually facilitate a second coming of one’s own?
May 3, 2008 at 10:45 pm
Hello, this is Horacio again. I would like to thank Vashti for being the first one to look into my revolutionary insights which are based on my extensive field research and comment on them. Saludos! I am sure that memories of Xerxes are still haunting you and I have a hunch that your notion of “singularly orgasmic mankind”, stem from those memories.
In my recent archival research in Krakov (Uniwersytet Jagiellonski) I came across a fascinating work by Tomasz Kukurba (“Twoje oczy są jak dwa księżyce, dupek”; Kukurba, 1959). In this masterpiece Kukurba chronicles the 16 years of sex therapy (centered mainly around issues of low self esteem).
In chapter 15 (there is a chapter for each year of therapy), titled “dokonać przełomu” (making a breakthrough) he is describing his decision to visit his priest and tell him about his problem (I always get teary eyes reading the dialogue between them) and I quote (loose translation):
Priest: Did you say your name is Kurva?
Kukurba: No, his Holiness, it’s Kukurba.
Priest: Ah…ok, much better! so, what seems to be the problem, Kurva?
Kukurba: You can call me Tomasz, Father. Well…it takes me 3hrs and 22
minutes to have a second coming, and Agneta, the woman I’ve
been seeing, calls it:popaść w niełaskę [an interesting choice of
words by Agneta, can be translated loosely as "falling from
grace", HS]
Priest: Agneta?! Kurva Agneta?!
Kukurba: Yes, father
Priest: Yes…yes…I know that “suka”. Well…let me tell you this, it’s been
taking our Lord almost 2000 years to come again and you think
YOU have a problem?
Kukurba:wielki !! I am better than Jezus Chrystus ! I am cured! [this is where I ususally burst into uncontrollable sobbing, and cannot continue reading; HS]
I hope Vashty that I was able with this quote to shed some light on the poignant question you are raising.
Dobranoc,
HS
May 4, 2008 at 12:05 am
HS (how ironic that your initials are, in English, those of the Holy Spirit):
- you may not have gotten this from this blog’s title, about page, or skeletons up at the top, but relaxation is not at the top of my, or Paul’s, list of priorities.
- I Cor. 1 is not an attempt to convince non-Christians of anything; it’s addressed to believers. As is this blog, for the most part, though I welcome participation by my non-Christian friends and others of good will.
May 4, 2008 at 1:26 am
I would like to thank you señor/ señora ichsteh for taking the time and commenting directly on my postings. I just thought that in an earlier posting of yours I was the “Greeks” and I just wanted to point out that Paul thinks that God is foolish (1 Cor. 1:25).
Here’s an anecdote: based on my extensive field research on my family history I found out that my grandfather, Agustin Agapito Sanchez was a missionary in Ethiopia. It so happened that he befriended Haile Selassie. and when he (my grandfather) returned to Tarifa he made a vow that all the Sanchez offspring’s names will start with an “H” in honor of Haile Selassie.
By the way, my brother Heliodoro made Ethiopia his home.
Thank you,
HS
May 4, 2008 at 8:13 pm
I am fascinated by the question of what other “extensive field research” HS has done… The dude is, indeed, thorough! And, admittedly, very funny.
I’m glad you left all those posts up 
.
May 4, 2008 at 8:14 pm
P.S. Sorry, that wasn’t anonymous. That was me.
May 4, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Hello, this is Horacio again. I would like to thank the Anonymous KG for expressing interest in my work. Needles to say that I receive hundreds of requests from scholars around the world for further references, permission to quote my findings and some even take the time to let me know that they included me in their most sincere prayers where they wish for me to die in agony (see “Can prayer facilitate spontaneous combustion?” This is a fascinating 19th manuscript by Bogomil Georgiev Draganov which I stumbled upon during my extensive field research at the Bălgarska pravoslavna cărkvain Sofia, Bulgaria. Some of you surely recognize Bogomil from his, now classic, “az sam tvoia tatko – gladen li si?” – I am Your Father – Are You Hungry? This is one of the thoroughest manuscripts on the issue of Eucharist and cannibalism. Actually, I wish this blog would have a thread on this topic which I researched extensively. Oddly enough on November 14th, 1893, 10:19 pm, when he bowed down in front of the cross in his bedroom reciting the bedtime prayers, he knocked over his night-lamp and was reduced into a pile of hot ash in a matter 2 minutes and 49 seconds).
In any case all I meant to say anonymous KG is that my sister Helena and my nephew Hector are visiting me so I don’t have the time for a lengthy response that you deserve, but I am so it will come before Christ.
Mnogo blagodaria!
HS