DEAR ALIZARIN: Virgins, Sex, Paul, and the Today Show

This morning, feeling the effects of my hermit-like habits on vacation, I decided to watch the Today Show to check the pulse of the nation. Thankfully, the big news that President Bush did not see Brokeback Mountain has died down. Today, the feature story, highlighted in two segments, one in each hour of the show, was about "What Women Really Want from Men." The conclusion: men want sex, woman want intimacy.

Last night I attended the weekly discussion group from my church. I arrived thorougly confused about how these verses fit together ( Jonah 3:1-5, 10, Ps 62: 5-12, 1 Cor 7:29-31, Mk 1:14-20). Something about Jonah telling a city they would all die. The entire city fasts and God saves them. A psalm about suffering and God's mercy. Then Paul's letter about how virgins should stay virgins and, if you were unfortunate enough to marry, well, stay married, but don't remmarry because pleasing your spounse just distracts you from your mission for God ( not God's word, just his opinion). Then Mark telling us about Jesus rounding-up his disciples, who dropped all their work and possessions to follow him. I'm not buying a lot of this and can't think how it applies to us today (unless you are a right-wing ultraconsertive Christian who likes to take this like this passage without saying it is not God's word, but only Paul's opinion).

My point?

Detachment. After discussion, I concluded this is the common factor. Refer back to the mystifying, and, initiall,y for many of us, I think, disconcerting assertions of Paul . Really, though, it is about detachment from worldly concerns in order to allow the holiness of your life come forth, a concept that I think is more clearly explained by Buddha. In my limited study of Buddhism, detachment is the key to end suffering as it is our attachments to material things (including people) or concepts (including who we want to be and what love should looked like) that distracts us from our true divine nature. Thus, Paul might have been a bit short-sighted in his advice, since it is not sex or marriage in itself that keeps us from connecting to the divine within us, but our attachment to either of these things. Thus, if we could enjoy them in each moment rather than attaching greater meaning to them, elevating them above the love of God, then both are compatiable with our nature as divine beings first and earthly beings for the moment. (In discussing this concept of detachement with my students as an introduction to Siddhartha -- an admission in email which might cost me my job if Bush and his wiretappers are alert -- their number one questions was, "Does that mean that if you are a Buddhist you never have sex or can have sex with anyone and not have any obligation to them?" For the record, I said something like, "No. Because they also believe in non-violence and harmony and sex with out consideration for another would be creating disharmony." Then I quickly shifted the topic back to our overview of Buddhism.) Anyway, sounds a lot like Psalms and Paul's letter.

Thus, as this Today show story distracts our media's attention from creating a national dialogue about how to create peace in our world, it metaphorically shows how our empahsis on our attachments in this world (in this case, our attachment to finding someone to partner with to feel loved and valid) distracts us from nuturing our relationship with God and the peace and love we have within ourselves as divine beings. Instead of a story exacerbating the dichotomy between men a women (a dichotomy much created by such media coverage) and the reinforcing the social expectation that our purpose is to find a partner despite this dichotomy, why not cover the grandmas who have been arrested in NYC and Arizona trying to join the army so they can go to Iraq and meet with Iraqi grandmas to negotiate peace (see current issue of Ms. Magazine for that story)? Asked another way, why can we not accept our worth as part of God's universe without attaching ourselves to others or things or concepts of value to this world.

Namaste,
Lychee