Since I've been at college, I've escaped from the homeschool bubble so to speak. I'd always wondered what it was like to take classes with other people, guys and girls. To be around people a lot more than I had been during high school. And we talk about boys, and all that little stuff you'd think close friends would discuss.
Tess' post about emotional chastity is extremely relevant in that situation, in which I have more guy friends than ever before, and I'm spending a lot more time with guys because of classes, studying, and just the fact we're living on the same campus. And it truly is easy to get too close to a guy. I went there. I fell for it. I made mistakes, and despite knowing what I should be doing, still got hurt. But that's a story for another day. This whole episode did make me think, however, that sometimes, perhaps the hardest thing about waiting and purity and stuff is that we girls give ourselves the idea of something.
Come on, you know you've done it. Chatted with the girlfriends about her and so-and-so. Or even yourself and so-and-so. I continue to fall for this. It's harmless chatter and fun, right? But I think, especially for high school and college aged girls, we're so looking forward to the day we'll find our future husband, and we want that day to come sooner. As much as we tell ourselves we're content with waiting, we still imagine what would happen if someone asked us on a date. Maybe he's the one. Or he. Or he.
And I think it's planting this idea in our heads that's sometimes half the problem. It's good fun to tease, but it can become harmful. I know from personal experience that just having my girlfriends put the idea of me and someone in my head is enough for me to start paying more attention to him, looking at how I act around him, and imagining if maybe he does like me and maybe does want to ask me out on a date. Without even really realizing it, we begin to imagine and wish, maybe about a guy we normally wouldn't have thought about before. Even if this guy isn't the guy you'd normally go after, or just a close friend, there -- the idea is planted.
This is another facet of the idea of emotional chastity. We feel like God is calling us to marriage, and then we can't wait to get there. We tell ourselves we're content with waiting, but is that really what's in our hearts? It's fun when everyone else is dreaming and wishing and talking about the possibility of a relationship with someone. There's teasing and laughing, and then sometimes this idea causes us to try to put this guy at the front of our minds, or if we're already friends with them, to get a little too close. Truly though, why do we do this to ourselves? Drugging ourselves on romance novels can't be a good idea, nor can watching too many romantic comedies. These things in moderation aren't a bad thing, but we can't let our imaginations run away with us.
So, for me, as much as my friends like to tease me about certain guys, I don't want to necessarily plant an idea and run with it, as much fun as it is. It's like Eponine in the "musical phenomenon" Les Miserables (which I highly recommend), who wants to be stuck as the friend-zoned girl because she let her heart run away with her for a guy who was too blind? Besides, do I really want to be hung up on some guy when God sends my real Prince Charming around? This advice is hard to follow in real life -- I know, truly, and wish I could follow my own advice. But keep praying to God for purity if this is something you're struggling with, or if you know someone who is.
great post, thank you! but please remember, not all young women "feel like God is calling us to marriage" - some of us are discerning the call to religious life. i love this blog, but sometimes i feel that almost all the posts are about guys and marriage, when there are other vocations open to young women. i certainly don't mean to imply that the vocation to marriage is inferior or unimportant, it is SO important! but i just wanted put a reminder out there that as catholics we need to be open and supportive to the discernment of religious vocations.
ReplyDeleteRosalind, thanks for your comment. As you might know, what is posted on this blog is what is coming from the hearts and lives of three of our contributors. The focus the blog has on marriage is not due to a lack of care for the religious vocation. It is due to the fact that two of our contributors are going to be married in the spring, and others are in serious relationships right now. Because I'm going to be married in May, I don't have a great deal to offer in the way of pursuing the religious vocation. That is not where my life is.
DeleteWe LOVE every aspect of our faith here, however, and agree that the religious vocation is so, so essential and important. If you or another reader would like to write a guest article on the topic, we would more than welcome it. It's something I also wish were featured more on the blog, but the circumstances of life have veered us away from it at this point in time.
God bless you!
Clare gave a very lovely reply, and I agree. As maybe one of the only single not-in-any-sort-of-relationship contributor, and also one of the youngest, I definitely feel that all vocations for us women (religious life, singleness, or marriage) are all important and beautiful. I do write my posts based on how I'm feeling, and I don't want people to think I'm closed to vocations outside of marriage. I'm far from knowing my vocation, and pray daily for God to show me. Right now, I'm writing about aspects of the faith from a single perspective, and right now, I feel like maybe marriage is in my future, but I can't know for sure.
DeleteThank you for your words Rosalind. :)
i understand - thank you! and thank you for all your posts, they are fantastic.
ReplyDeleteYes, indulging in crushes and gossip can be distort feeling in a way that is damaging. Before I was married, I remember times of convincing myself I liked a guy because my friends were teasing me about him, only to realize I didn't and was leading us both on! That kind of fantasizing is useless and imprudent.
ReplyDeleteIn order to understand the context for this article, I went back and read the referenced post on emotional purity. Again, as I mentioned in a post a couple days ago, the post about "emotionally purity" reminds me of the "guard your heart" movement.
ReplyDeleteIn the opening story of Tess' post she tells a story of girl who suddenly realizes that she is in love with her male friend. He is dating someone else and she ends up brokenhearted. It is a sad story. But I wonder if this necessarily makes it "bad"?
When we look at the origin of the "guard your heart," a.k.a emotional purity movement, we find ourselves back with the Protestants. This in and of itself is not a bad thing, after all C.S. Lewis was Protestant and he kinda rocked. However, this idea of "emotional purity" comes from a very specific place in Protestanism, namely the Gotthard/Quiverfull movement. Why this is relevant is because they also believe in the Prosperity Doctrine. While this doctrine does specifically refer to wealth (if you are good Christine you will have wealth and poverty is a sign of a "bad" Christian), it also refers to emotional prosperity. In other words, only "bad" Christians suffer. A broken heart is viewed as a curse from God because the person was not "righteous" enough and failed in someway in their duties as a Christian.
Unlike us Catholics, they do not teach or even realize that the often righteous suffer through no sin of their own and that suffering in an opportunity for grace. We become closest to Christ when we join our suffering with His, not when we avoid all suffering. Suffering is an opportunity for spiritual growth and growing closer to God. The woman in Tess' story did not sin, from what we know. She did not intentionally fall in love, she did not lust, she did not act uncharitably out of jealously. Is it sad? Absolutely! Is this bad thing? I don't know. But I think that if she used this time to reflect on her relationship with this young man, to learn about her own heart, become a more emotionally mature and aware individual, and ultimately through her suffering deepen her relationship with God, then maybe it was Grace. How can this make someone "emotionally impure?"
Of course we want to be prudent in our friendships with men, I actually more aware of this now that I am married than I ever was as a single woman. But I think the thing that irks me about these posts (Well, not this actual post, so much as the one it referenced. I agree with most things in this post.) is that it seems so much that they are not about avoiding sin so much as about avoiding pain.
No one likes pain and suffering, of course! But they can be blessings and opportunities for Grace. Name a saint that never suffered? Even Mary suffered and she was God's chosen vessel; she was "full of Grace!" Many Saints considered suffering a sign of God's love for them.
Now, I do understand that part of this about not being a love-sick ninny of a school girl and throwing your heart at everything that walks by, but I really think we need to change the lingo.
Brenda, even though I first read your comments as criticism, I was very blessed. Because you see, I was like that girl in the story, and while I haven't shared my story on the blog, let me tell you that God has shown me much grace through my suffering. He let me make these mistakes so I can grow stronger in my faith and more aware of my relationships. And I could go through another breakup and suffer some more, whether intentionally or unintentionally--and He will only give me more Grace. These are such comforting thoughts!
DeleteI think the idea behind emotional purity is so we can be more aware. I think there are certain behaviors that can be construed as "leading on" that we can avoid if we know about them. I think friends can be too intimate with guys, even if, as you say, they don't sin. And I think there is something to be said about learning to avoid pain, rather than continuing on blind and getting hurt. It doesn't make us impure. It doesn't mean we sinned. It doesn't mean falling in love is bad. But I think changing our behavior and tuning our minds to Christ can help us grow in the future, and help us grow in Love, even if we fail.
So, you see, I do agree with what you're saying, and don't think your opinions and the opinions of these posts necessarily contradict. This is a topic that can be discussed again and again, and it is important.
---Liz
Tess' story about the young woman falling for her friend is about "emotional purity." The story is given as a cautionary tale of sorts, the resulting connotation is that this woman is now "emotionally impure." I reject that. I see no sin in that story, either Biblically or canonically. Whether or not their is sin in falling in love depends, simply, on whether or not one commits sin because of that love. Falling in love is what we are designed to do. In and of itself, intentional or not, it is not sinful. By indicating that a person who falls in love with someone that they do not ultimately marry has becomes "impure," we are saying that love is by its nature "impure" i.e. sinful. And since God is Love . . . .
ReplyDeletePerhaps I am being to legalistic here, but I think we need to prayerfully reconsider the words we use when we speak about this subject as Catholics.
And because I haven't been verbose enough, I think this (Protestant) blog on when courtship fails offers some interesting and important insights into the emotional purity movement.
ReplyDeletehttp://pursuethebeauty.com/2012/05/21/courtship/