Original posted to my old blog August 2007:

Ah, completion. Everyone wants to be completed by someone else. It’s a romantic ideal to believe that out there in the universe is someone who will complete us. We believe that something is missing within us as people that can only be found when we meet the perfect somebody. If the person were engaging doesn’t happen to be someone we find ourselves completed by, we seek someone else who can complete us more fully. We are often on the constant search to find the one person who fulfills us completely.

We rarely consider that everyone we meet, everyone we come into contact with, everyone we have any sort of relationship with has value and worth apart from completing us. Instead, we’d prefer to seek relationships on the basis of how we feel fulfilled. It’s cliche, but it’s reality. We want to say or at least think, “You complete me.” Sounds cheesy, huh?

But everyone we meet adds value and worth to our existence. Anyone can bless you by who they are and what they have to offer. Whenever two hearts collide and soul partnerships are formed, no matter if its for a brief period in time or for a lifetime, we add something to one another. We do not add something to each other, because we are incomplete. Rather, we amplify what’s already completed in someone else by what’s already completed in us.

Relationships, including marriage, shouldn’t be about selfish completion. It’s rather narcissistic when somebody desires a relationship to complete their self or fill what’s missing. Possibly, many relationships and marriages end when one partner senses that they are no longer completed by the other partner who once completed them. Was it their job to complete them in the first place?

Another old article from my original blogging days: October 2007:

Been wondering about the different sexual expressions of ethnic cultures. Latin-American culture seems to be more comfortable with sex, as does African. From the way we move, to the way we dress, to how we discuss sex, these two ethnic cultures seem more comfortable.

Sex History 101

North American cultures are highly influenced by European culture as a result of colonialism in the middle ages through the 1800’s . As a result, the North American sexual ethic has been influenced by Euro, Puritan and Victorian values and beliefs. An ethic that has been hard for North America to shake. When North America was colonized in the 1500’s, Native Americans mixed their sexual ethic with Puritan views of sex. As Africans were enslaved and brought to the north in the 1800’s, they held to strong values of family and child rearing, but exchanged their native sexual ethic for a Victorian view.

In the 1800’s, the European’s were highly influenced by Queen Victoria who seemed to model conservative, romantic views of sexuality and marriage. Native American and African culture had more liberal expressions of sex and even marriage, but couldn’t compete against the cultural influences of the Puritan and Victorian eras. Victorians were good at moralism, still influenced by Christian and Puritan thought. The sexual ethic of those colonized and enslaved was considered nothing less than savage and immoral. All the Victorian moralism led to all sorts of secret societal sexual issues, including increase in accepted prostitution, accepted infidelity, and rampant STDs.

How the Tribes did “It.”

* Some Native American tribes believed that marriage was not the primary relationship for intimacy. Spouses were often more intimate with friends. This was acceptable.

* In some African tribes, women who had more or equal power to men, took for themselves a wife and a husband.

* In both Native American and African tribes, sex was seen as something for social and physical pleasure.

* African tribes would sing songs about sex, dance provocatively, share sexual practices with one another, and enact sexual body movements to teach their youth about the art of having good sex.

Our sexual ethic today is a result of Puritan and Victorian thinking. We tend to hold up this sexual ethic over and against other ethnic sexual ethics frequently judging all others as immoral or evil. The prevailing sexual ethic also favors a very conservative Christian value and belief system, which defends sexual practice in heterosexual married relationships. Cultural discussions over homosexuality, sexual education, AIDS, etc. become hotbeds that threaten to altar the strong values and beliefs on sex in North America. Meanwhile, much like the Victorian culture, our own culture wrestles with its own societal sexual issues.

I wrote this originally in August 2007 over on my old blog:

“Why does this make us nervous? Marriage needs revision. If the current model of marriage provides married couples with a 50/50 percent chance of success, why are we not advocating for a different way. 50% success rate is just not good enough and equates marriage to a game of Russian roulette. I just care too much about my marriage to accept a 50/50 guarantee. No thanks.

We’re too nervous to have conversations about the marriage institution. Religion, moralism and the Church complicates the issue, preventing any sort of revisions from being made. We might agree revisions are needed, but I’m not sure any of us are gutsy enough to actually start conversing about revised expressions of marriage or what marriage 2.0 actually means.

The Church is the worse, failing to be honest about it’s failure to marriage. The Church hasn’t championed a bold new vision for married life in the 21st Century and instead insist on advocating for a model of married life that’s broken and at best provides a 50% chance. Married couples are too quickly blamed for the failure or demise of their own relationships We rarely consider the fact that marriage itself might need some major improvements. Maybe couples aren’t to blame. As the Church has attempted to protect marriage and the family, I’m not sure it has offered any new hope.”

Originally posted on my old blog and reposted on Facebook.

I’ve been taught that marriage is a commitment between myself, as a man and my wife, as a woman for better for worse, till death do us part. To be honest though, when I married at the age of 22 I didn’t fully comprehend what the purpose of marriage was. Maybe I still don’t know, even after almost 9 years of marriage, performing pastoral marriage counseling, and marrying a handful of couples. I know I was taught that I should marry to have kids (the Catholic in me), a family, and a home life. I’ve been taught by the church that marriage for Christians is God’s will and part of his master elaborate plan (I assume to take take over the world and evangelize the hell out of it, literally).

I’ve been taught that I should never divorce and if I did, well at least in my fundamentalist days, I should never remarry. I’ve been taught that if I do remarry that I should never pastor. If I was single, I should never wed anyone who had been divorced less I commit adultery.

I’ve been taught that I am an incomplete person and need to find my other half. She happened to be out there looking for me, as well – her other half. Finding her would complete us, fill us, and give us life for the rest of our days. I was taught that being single meant to be incomplete. God even has a wife, His church. I should have a wife too, that is unless I’m above God.

I’ve been taught fidelity. There must be faithfulness to each other. I must fight and deny any thought, feeling, desire, wet dream, or unexpected erection I have towards anyone other than my wife. Not only that, but I was taught that I should save my virginity for her. I should not have any kind of sex before marrying – oral, anal, or in the ear. If I remained single, I must never have sex or experience any sexual gratification my entire life.

I am happy being married and see myself as a husband the rest of my life. However, I wonder if what I was taught… if what we’ve been taught… pressures people into marriage before there is the capability, responsibility, and maturity required. I wonder if what I was taught, including abstinence, places pressure on those who are single into married life sooner than necessary. I believe it does.

The most important principle I’ve been taught is to never question any of the things I’ve been taught about marriage. Do not think about them, never question marriage, and never discuss marriage problems or the problem with marriage publically. Never. Advice I never took.