These are some thoughts that started about a week ago when a TV show I was watching reminded me I was single. That was not a good day.
I don't know what my vocation is. Either it's marriage or it's some sort of consecrated single life (Holy Orders in that case, probably.) Anyway, I realized that day that I wasn't happy being single. I'm not sure why that is. Could be because I'm called to marriage, or it could be that I'm so afraid of turning into this guy* that I can't stop watching myself whenever I make a new friend of the female persuasion. Maybe I'm called to the Priesthood, but I'm really in denial (some of my reasoning for discerning away from the clerical state doesn't quite seem to hold up, to me.) Some days (not today especially) it's enough to make me want God to just slam one door shut, and open the other one wide. Just some kind of obvious sign. That'd be great.
Sometime, when I find and fulfill my vocation, I have a feeling that dealing with the fact of sexuality is going to get a lot easier. Because then I'll have a state I can accept, and live with; no more nebulous single-hood.
It'll come in God's time. In the meantime, please pray that I would be less neurotic when I meet women, and know when to relax and when to be vigilant. (Wojtyla's Love and Responsibility was a huge help in the way of a philosophical framework for living; book recommendations on the subject are good if you can think of any.) But if nothing else, prayer for discernment--in the immediate and in the vocational sense.
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* If this is your first XKCD comic, you might not want to browse the site. Sometimes it's a little less spiritual and a lot more offensive than that one. But that comic itself should be fine.
2 comments:
The single thing is for SURE rough. But I appreciate the sentiment here, because it is true to all of the wholesome dudes out there who are single. I freak out like that and I date around LOTS. A good hand to show though, man, Thanks...
Still, dating might be worse, because you are on a precipice. The next girl you date could be your last and so there is this great hope that forms, and then it slowly fades as you realize she isn't the one... All this hope, wasted! Frustrating? Yes. Worth it to keep a lot of hope in your heart? Definitely...
All of us somehow need to learn that there is no "One" except God. It is dangerous to face another person instead of being shoulder-to-shoulder, facing God. A great novel that I thought did this well was Two From Galilee. Kinda a teenage romance novel about Mary and Joseph. Simple, but damned deep. But man oh man, would I have been jealous and frustrated if I was Joseph. But jealous of God? Pretty interesting situation, if you ask me...
She will come man. Or Christ will arrive for you in the calling to celebrate the Mass. Hope is key in both situations...
Thanks again buddy. I liked this one.
-kj-
There's always "Man and Woman He Created Them," Wojtyla's theology of the body.
Other than that, I have nothing to contribute, since I've never spent any great deal of time being single for over 2 years.
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