Institutions are made up of people.
People hurt people.
Somebody in this group hurt somebody in that group. Somebody at that school or in that office wronged somebody else. And they haven’t done the work to apologize and make amends and work through it. When I meet someone who has been burned by an institution, my first question is, “What was the person’s name?”
We’ll never heal until we can identify who did what when. Only then can we begin the process of being set free.
People who move from relationship to relationship, church to church, group of friends to group of friends, may do this because they have a hard time connecting and committing. Some people refuse to humble themselves and do the difficult work of learning how to forgive and reconcile, and so whenever a relationship hits a bump or turns sour, they leave it. They move on to the next one.
Perhaps we should call this what it is: sexual dysfunction.
A friend of mine who is celibate makes it very clear that her vow of celibacy is not to go without love, but it’s a vow to what she calls “universal love.” I’ve realized over time that she is a deeply connected person. There is a certain potency to her presence that is hard to describe. She owns no property and she lives as simply as she possibly can because she committed early in her life to give everything she had to making the world the kind of place God dreams it could be. It is a joy to be with her because everything matters in her life. Nothing is shallow or trite or superficial. She’s very funny and smart and compassionate—a magnificent human. Because she’s been exploring her own soul for so long, she knows herself inside and out. She’s at peace, and it’s contagious.
You can’t be connected with God until you’re at peace with who you are. If you’re still upset that God gave you this body or this life or this family or these circumstances, you will never be able to connect with God in a healthy, thriving, sustainable sort of way. You’ll be at odds with your maker. And if you can’t come to terms with who you are and the life you’ve been given, you’ll never be able to accept others and how they were made and the lives they’ve been given. And until you’re at peace with God and those around you, you will continue to struggle with your role on the planet, your part to play in the ongoing creation of the universe. You will continue to struggle and resist and fail to connect.
The other day my five-year-old son asked my wife, “Mom, what does sexy mean?”
She thought about it for a second, and then replied, “Sexy is when it feels good to be in your own skin. Your own body feels right, it feels comfortable. Sexy is when you love being you.”12
Because it all starts with being sexy on the inside.
CHAPTER THREE Angels and Animals
This past year my family and I stayed at a wildlife lodge in Africa. We would wake up early each morning and climb into a Land Rover with our guide, who drove us all over the “bushveldt,” as the Africans call it, looking at animals in their native habitats. Rhinos, cheetahs, giraffes, elephants, birds that had flown to Africa from Russia for the winter—we saw it all. In the afternoon of our second day, as we pulled into a large clearing, we saw two lions lying out in the open.
A male and a female.
The female would periodically get up and walk back and forth in front of the male, then she would roll on her back and side, then she would lie still for a while, then she would go through her routine all over again. Our guide explained that it was—you guessed it—mating season, and the female was going through this ritual to get the male ready for their “encounter.” Our guide then launched into an extended explanation of the male-female relationship and how they attract one another and how the one relates to the other.
When you see the biological need up close, so raw and so primal, you can’t help but notice how strong it is. These animals are going to mate because it’s in their DNA, their blood, their environment. They aren’t lying out there in that field, thinking, I just really want to know that you love me for more than my body. They aren’t discussing how to make a difference in the world. One isn’t saying to the other, “I just don’t feel you’re as committed to this relationship as I am.”
Other than basic biological functions, there’s nothing else going on.
Pure instinct.
No higher plane,
no greater cause, no transcendent purpose.
Biology. Period.
Those lions reminded me of when I was in high school and my sister and I were visiting some relatives in Florida during our spring vacation. We decided to go check out the “scene” at Daytona Beach. I’m assuming you know the scene I’m referring to. It happens all over the place every spring. Cancun or the Caribbean or an island off the coast of Texas or whatever spot is “the spot” for that particular year is invaded by thousands and thousands of students from all over the country to drink large amounts of alcohol and have sex with lots of people.
The vibe is the same regardless of the year or the location or even the weather. This is your week to let yourself go, to lose yourself, to give in to whatever cravings or desires or urges you have. Because whatever happens in (choose a city), stays in (that city).1
Perhaps you’ve been there, you’ve seen the footage, or you’ve heard the stories. There’s the pervading sense that if something feels good, it takes precedence over everything else. And so how do the stories that are brought home begin?
“I can’t believe I . . .”
“We totally lost our minds . . .” “It was so out of control . . .” “The next morning I couldn’t . . .”
These scenes aren’t just about partying and having a good time and hooking up with someone, they raise questions about what it means to be fully human. The temptation is to ignore your conscience or sense of higher purpose, sacrificing what it means to be human. Which leads a person to act much like . . . an animal.
Are we just the sum of our urges?
Think about some of the phrases that get thrown around:
party animal we attacked each other she’s a tiger basic instinct
They’re all an acknowledgment of the primal, base nature of the person’s behavior. As if there are these incredibly strong forces down in there that are usually repressed but for these few days are going to be allowed to take over. And when they’re given the reins, you have no idea what might happen.
Food for the Stomach
In the ancient Greek world, people used a phrase to describe this understanding of what it means to be human. They would say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food.”2 They understood a person to be a collection of physical needs—you’re hungry and there’s food to satisfy your hunger, you’re tired and there’s sleep. They concluded that sex is just like food, so when a man was “hungry,” he would go to a prostitute, saying, “Food for the stomach . . .”
There’s a passage in the book of First Corinthians where one of the writers of the Bible addresses this worldview. He confronts his audience with a challenge: Can they live for a higher purpose than just fulfilling their urges? He then claims that their bodies are “temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God.”3
This is provocative language. A temple was a holy place, a place where the gods lived, a place where heaven and earth met. The writer specifically uses this image to challenge them with the idea that a human isn’t just a collection of urges and needs but is a being whom God resides in. He’s trying to elevate their thinking, to change their perspective, to open their eyes to a higher