Sensual pleasures

Flik: I think in the Screwtape letters, he (C.S. Lewis) talks about the pleasures of a shower, being entirely from God and something that is envied by the spirit world!

I have often noticed, with amazement, how changing ones heart can take us from long-suffering martyr, to happy and contented homemaker, without really much change to the workload.

When I read the title 'Water and begin again' I thought you were going to write about your wonderful garden! But I'm glad it was about showering, because I want to talk about sensual pleasures and the joys of having a body, and a husband with a body too! (Buckle up!)

As you mentioned we have spent some time praying and fasting for our marriages this summer. And I have noticed a correlation. Here is my graph of time spent praying for marriages and fasting against S.E.X. and physical affection over here at my place:

Whoppie! So life is good. God is good. God wants good things for us. Prayer and fasting bring us closer to God. God goes to work in our hearts. He makes us more trusting, more open to what is good, more giving, more receptive, more loving.

But recently it happened again that a complete random stranger said to my husband, 'you need to get yourself a TV'  after counting up our children and attributing them to him... I think that must be the fifth time, he's heard that line.

Now what I like about this comment is that it's quaint, catholic even, in its confidence that sex leads to babies. But that's where my affection for it ends. Most recently, the comment came from a fellow campervan driver at an aire, on our way 'home' to France. I felt like telling him, 'It's not better. Strictly come dancing is not better than sex and babies. The six o'clock news is not better than sex and babies...' (actually I'm running out of examples, clearly we don't have a TV, haha!) But I didn't reply to him. Mainly because I'm British. But also because that man knew it already. He already knew that sex and babies, love and family are the real deal; TV is just how we spend our time... why do we do that? I might not have a TV, but I have a phone, which I obsessively unlock just to check if anyone has sent me their love or needed me since five minutes ago when I last checked. Why do I do that?

They say that if you want to know what is really important to a person, don't ask them. Just check their calendar and their bank account. I actually don't put sex on my calendar, but let's take that pearl of wisdom to mean, "check an accurate, if unrecorded, log of their time"! And I think we should own sex's importance to us in these basic ways. We should spend the time in bed with our spouses (after the kids have gone to bed, natch) not even thinking about all the other coulds and shoulds there are for doing. We should practice fasting occassionally, from food or caffeine or alcohol and when we start to think, 'I've given up all this good stuff, what is there left to enjoy?' Buy a massage bar! Give him a foot rub, ask for a back rub. These things are amazing. They feel great, they bring us together as couples and they make our marriages stronger.

I have read the Theology of the Body 'in simple language'. I remember very little of it. Mostly I remember the echochamber spin-off posts about the feminine genius and the male genius - which are gross -  emphasising the theory that women are fundamentaly made to be 'receptive' because it's written into their bodies, and conversely male strength lies in sallying forth! In men going out of themselves to make things happen, be virile, give life.

I ask you! Can you imagine any normal women (outside of the catholic bloggosphere) using the term 'receptive' to describe themselves? No. We are much more likely to be go-getters, finishers, people who deliver results. And men I find, will only leave their figurative sheds under extreme pressure. Like boys in sixth form who, for two whole years reason that their time has not yet come, they may yet be saved the effort by an alien invasion, an incendiary bomb, or an act of God. It's not until the final term that they throw their weight behind their studies and come up with the goods.

I would argue that rather than being our male and female geniuses... these traits are lofty goals to aim for. Hard things for men and women to do. Trust, giving over control to our husbands or ultimately to God, whether in regard to our fertility or finances or child rearing; these are hard things. Does the Lord know how important these things are to us?

[At this point I was tempted to contrast with the male experience, but I think I'll show a little respect and stay in my wheelhouse. I have, after all, never been to Mars.]

Catholics talk a lot about Mary's fiat - the moment when Mary says 'yes' to being the mother or our Lord. And yes to a whole ton of suffering. I was shocked, SHOCKED, to learn recently that she was never actually asked. I have read the passage from Luke and heard it read many times. I have meditated on the joyful mysteries of the rosary, dozens of times. But it took a Father K homily for me to realise that Mary was never asked, she was told. And she received the news saying, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to thy word." Sit with that.

Today I prayed the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary and I thought about how in this prayer, Jesus' passion and the drama of redemption, is held in the repetition, in the scaffolding that is, Sancta Maria, mater Dei... Just as on calvary Mary knelt at the foot of the cross holding Jesus' gaze, and holding space for his suffering. 

Receptivity is a lofty goal. But we can give it our time and our resources, we can lean in to our marriages, that path we have been given to holiness: and with a little sugar, a little spice, and hundreds of Hail Marys, we might just get there!

I'm praying for you, and I'm so grateful for your prayers. Lots of love.