Sex. Sex. Sex.

Sex. Sex. Sex.

So here is a good question: How much does sex mean to a relationship? I mean I know that sex certainly isn't everything, but to say that it isn't something seems quite ridiculous.

One of the questions that people ask a lot, and certainly one of the ones that I ponder quite often is: Can a person be perfectly compatible with another? I would like to think so, but I am not really willing to exclude anyone who doesn't exactly fit the bill from the potential dating pool. So if you assume that you should strive for that perfect connection, while allowing for some concessions on the road to finding happiness, where does sex fall?

Is it something as unimportant as them not liking Italian food? I hardly think so. But then again is it as important as them having the same goals in life as you? Hmmm. To complicate the issue even further, there isn't really a yes or no question with sex. Do you like it? Well, one would hope so. But it really extends far beyond that. Sexual compatibility has so many factors in it. Does it matter if it is just OK? What if so much about that person seems perfect, but the sex is OK? Or what if it is bad? And of course this takes into account that either is only in relation to you. For example, to me, kissing is important. If it isn't to them, that could be a problem. Moreover, if they are a tentative and peckish kisser, I am not going to like it as much. To others, this is perfection. Much the same as any other preference.

Part of how you have to look at this is how you are going to view sex. If you look at it for the enjoyment sake, on one hand you want it to be good, but at the same time are probably more likely to be able to overlook the fact that the love of your life doesn't give you better sex than you could provide on your own. You can still have fun. Of course if sex to you is love, then what exactly does it mean when you can't connect with the person you are with on that level?

This works in reverse as well. What if the sex is great? Lets take it a step further and say that you are madly in love with them, the sex is perfect, but your brain keeps saying no. Body and Heart vs. Brain. Hmmm.

Maybe that is why sex is so confusing. Your head is logical and preferential. Your heart is something you can't control at all. What your body feels is sort of a middle ground. It is like a third aspect that when evaluating a relationship we often completely overlook despite how much of a part of our life it is. Consider also that when referring to sex in this light, it can be the way you feel when your hands touch. While it is sexual pleasure, the impacts to your heart and mind are much deeper. With all this impact, how can it not be important?

As with much of this search for love, I haven't found the answers yet, but that won't keep me from searching, or from sharing these searches with you. More to come on this, I am sure.

Moral Values

I hate hypocrasy. I think that is one of my main beefs with the average Christian. Apparently, others can feel the same. And you know, for once, I don't think I could have said it better myself:

What Are Moral Values?
by Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers
Mayflower Church, Oklahoma City

Updated August 10, 2005


As some of you know, I am minister of Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City, a church in northwest Oklahoma City, and professor of Rhetoric at Oklahoma City University. But you would most likely have encountered me on the pages of the Oklahoma Gazette, where I have been a columnist for six years, and hold the record for the most number of angry letters to the editor.

Tonight, I join ranks of those who are angry, because I have watched as the faith I love has been taken over by those who claim to speak for Jesus, but whose actions are anything but Christian.

We've heard a lot lately about so-called "moral values" as having swung the election to President Bush. Well, I'm a great believer in moral values, but we need to have a discussion, all over this country, about exactly what constitutes a moral value -- I mean what are we talking about? Because we don't get to make them up as we go along, especially not if we are people of faith. We have an inherited tradition of what is right and wrong, and moral is as moral does. Let me give you just a few of the reasons why I take issue with those in power who claim moral values are on their side:

When you start a war on false pretenses, and then act as if your deceptions are justified because you are doing God's will, and that your critics are either unpatriotic or lacking in faith, there are some of us who have given our lives to teaching and preaching the faith who believe that this is not only not moral, but immoral.

When you live in a country that has established international rules for waging a just war, build the United Nations on your own soil to enforce them, and then arrogantly break the very rules you set down for the rest of the world, you are doing something immoral.

When you claim that Jesus is the Lord of your life, and yet fail to acknowledge that your policies ignore his essential teaching, or turn them on their head (you know, Sermon on the Mount stuff like that we must never return violence for violence and that those who live by the sword will die by the sword), you are doing something immoral.

When you act as if the lives of Iraqi civilians are not as important as the lives of American soldiers, and refuse to even count them, you are doing something immoral.

When you find a way to avoid combat in Vietnam, and then question the patriotism of someone who volunteered to fight, and came home a hero, you are doing something immoral.

When you ignore the fundamental teachings of the gospel, which says that the way the strong treat the weak is the ultimate ethical test, by giving tax breaks to the wealthiest among us so the strong will get stronger and the weak will get weaker, you are doing something immoral.

When you wink at the torture of prisoners, and deprive so-called "enemy combatants" of the rules of the Geneva Conventions, which your own country helped to establish and insists that other countries follow, you are doing something immoral.

When you claim that the world can be divided up into the good guys and the evil doers, slice up your own nation into those who are with you, or with the terrorists -- and then launch a war which enriches your own friends and seizes control of the oil to which we are addicted, instead of helping us to kick the habit, you are doing something immoral.

When you fail to veto a single spending bill, but ask us to pay for a war with no exit strategy and no end in sight, creating an enormous deficit that hangs like a great millstone around the necks of our children, you are doing something immoral.

When you cause most of the rest of the world to hate a country that was once the most loved country in the world, and act like it doesn't matter what others think of us, only what God thinks of you, you have done something immoral.

When you use hatred of homosexuals as a wedge issue to turn out record numbers of evangelical voters, and use the Constitution as a tool of discrimination, you are doing something immoral.

When you favor the death penalty, and yet claim to be a follower of Jesus, who said an eye for an eye was the old way, not the way of the kingdom, you are doing something immoral.

When you dismantle countless environmental laws designed to protect the earth which is God's gift to us all, so that the corporations that bought you and paid for your favors will make higher profits while our children breathe dirty air and live in a toxic world, you have done something immoral. The earth belongs to the Lord, not Halliburton.

When you claim that our God is bigger than their God, and that our killing is righteous, while theirs is evil, we have begun to resemble the enemy we claim to be fighting, and that is immoral. We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.

When you tell people that you intend to run and govern as a "compassionate conservative," using the word which is the essence of all religious faith -- compassion, and then show no compassion for anyone who disagrees with you, and no patience with those who cry to you for help, you are doing something immoral.

When you talk about Jesus constantly, who was a healer of the sick, but do nothing to make sure that anyone who is sick can go to see a doctor, even if she doesn't have a penny in her pocket, you are doing something immoral.

When you put judges on the bench who are racist, and will set women back a hundred years, and when you surround yourself with preachers who say gays ought to be killed, you are doing something immoral.

I'm tired of people thinking that because I'm a Christian, I must be a supporter of President Bush, or that because I favor civil rights and gay rights I must not be a person of faith. I'm tired of people saying that I can't support the troops but oppose the war.

I heard that when I was your age, when the Vietnam war was raging. We knew that that war was wrong, and you know that this war is wrong -- the only question is how many people are going to die before these make-believe Christians are removed from power?

This country is bankrupt. The war is morally bankrupt. The claim of this administration to be Christian is bankrupt. And the only people who can turn things around are people like you--young people who are just beginning to wake up t to what is happening to them. It's your country to take back. It's your faith to take back. It's your future to take back.

Don't be afraid to speak out. Don't back down when your friends begin to tell you that the cause is righteous and that the flag should be wrapped around the cross, while the rest of us keep our mouths shut. Real Christians take chances for peace. So do real Jews, and real Muslims, and real Hindus, and real Buddhists--so do all the faith traditions of the world at their heart believe one thing: life is precious. Every human being is precious. Arrogance is the opposite of faith. Greed is the opposite of charity. And believing that one has never made a mistake is the mark of a deluded man, not a man of faith. And war -- war is the greatest failure of the human race -- and thus the greatest failure of faith.

There's an old rock and roll song, whose lyrics say it all: War, what is it good for? absolutely nothing. And what is the dream of the prophets? That we should study war no more, that we should beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks. Who would Jesus bomb, indeed?

How many wars does it take to know that too many people have died? What if they gave a war and nobody came? Maybe one day we will find out.

Time to march again my friends. Time to commit acts of civil disobedience. Time to sing, and to pray, and refuse to participate in the madness.

http://www.mayflowerucc.org/

Oh the Thin Lines!

am of the opinion that "it's a fine line" should be removed as a phrase from our lives. Why? Well because it applies to EVERYTHING!

Why is it that everything is a shade of gray? Why are there not things that are just inherently good? Or for that matter inherently bad? Everything is a judgement call, and to people like myself, who are seekers of truth, that is just downright exasperating. Oh, now I know what you say, that there are SOME things that are indeed absolute, at least on the good-bad scale. I beg to differ.

Faith? Good... unless it becomes zealotry.
Caring? Good... unless it's smothering.
Intellect? Good... unless it takes you away from possibility.
Hatred? Bad... unless it helps you fight the good fight.
Lying? Bad... unless it saves someone to do so.

So many things that are ambiguous and up to interpretation. Moderation seems the key, and yet there are people such as myself that say with moderation comes mediocrity, and that there is no forward motion in the world. I agree that in extremes good things can become bad, but I almost wonder if they don't become something else in that process.

Some people might disagree with some or all the assumptions I made above. And the truth is, even the greatest philosophers of all time have never agreed that there is a moral truth to anything. Even in what are considered things set in stone, man's mind interprets. Let 10 people read the Bible, and they will tell you it means 10 different things.

I am not a scientist, but I love the clean truth that lies in it. It amuses me that math is my least favorite subject, and yet it seems that it is the only aspect of life which I can truly find the truth that I look for always. Math only becomes more complex and understood, it never changes. 2+2 ALWAYS = 4. No one ever changes it. Our understanding may change, and new methods may be found, but it is TRUE. Nothing else seems to be that way. Why on Earth would anyone like me be born with a desire to seek truth?

Well, that was a fun rant. Perhaps next time something more substantive.

Mind Over the Perception of the Human Heart

The mind is indeed an amazing thing. With the right frame of mind, people can accomplish things that would otherwise be impossible or endure hardships that should break a man. There is one thing that the mind has an incredible time overcoming: The Human Heart.

The heart seems to be one of the forces able to tear down all of our defenses and break through any control our mind is able to place on our world. You can overcome a lot with your mind, but when it comes to the affairs of the heart, even those who are a master of "mind over matter" can find themselves completely ill equipped for dealing with the power of the heart.

There is another force that makes the heart and mind particularly difficult to reconcile and control: Perception. Wow. That is an amazing thing. I have often said that one person's worst day is just as bad in their mind as anyone else, no matter what their relative problems may be. Someone who has never starved scientifically feels the same way after a single day without food that someone who is constantly starving feels after missing a week. To an outsider, they seem nothing alike, but to the human mind, which can only comprehend what it perceives, they are the same.

Moving to a more obnoxious example, is when you are presented with something that you didn't have, and then you lose it. Take when you are a kid, and you think that you are going to get this special toy for Christmas. When the day comes, you realize that you did not receive what you thought you had. Now logically, you can see that there was nothing actually lost to you. Your heart however doesn't feel this way and you feel loss that at such an early age may seem incredible. The same thing holds true throughout our lives. Say you meet someone and you think that you hit it off well. You think that there is potential there. Perhaps you even agree to another date. Later that date is canceled, and there is no further progress made with that person. Technically you really didn't lose anything. You didn't have a relationship, or even a date before, but that doesn't keep you from getting upset, and depending upon the strength of your affection, it doesn't keep you from getting really hurt. In your heart and mind, you perceived that you had gained something, and feel the resulting loss. Aggravating indeed.

I like to, and traditionally do, have a great outlook on life. It frustrates me when I can logically see the reason that I shouldn't feel some specific way, but can't seem to shut off the feelings that I don't want. Maybe I am just not yet a master of the craft. Or perhaps the stronger you are as a person the stronger your heart becomes as well, and so there really is no way to ultimately win. Eh, food for thought.

Your -ness Factor

Tonight I saw You, Me and Dupree. I know, a comedy. It was indeed funny, but that isn't what I am writing about. In the movie, Owen Wilson's character (Dupree) keeps talking to his friend (Carl) about his "Carlness." He explains that it is that part of him that won't back down and makes him the person he is. At the end of the movie, he is talking to many people, asking them what their name is, and asking what their -ness is. "It's just your name with "ness" at the end of it. It's who you are.

What a great idea. This simple thing speaks quite succinctly to what I fervently believe: that you should be the best version of yourself possible. How do you do that? Now I think I can easily say that you should find your inner -ness. Each person has that thing that makes them who they are. Deep down, what is the highest form of your own essence? What is your inner -ness?

I certainly am excited to carry this thought forward and see how far it takes me.

To Motivate the Motivator

I spend a lot of my life motivating and inspiring people. I like to think that I am good at it, but regardless, I have to do it all the time. In every aspect of my work, Boys State, my political work, and even with my friends, I am the guy that gets others to do things. Whether by chance to design, that is pretty much a central thing to my life. I also have a lot of energy and passion for what I do, which seems to help me out a lot when it comes to getting things done, and getting others to do them.

So here's the dilemma: What do you do when you are the motivator, but you have lost your motivation.

I am not sure exactly what the reasoning behind it is, but I have lost a great deal of my ever-present motivation and energy. I think I really started to notice when I got back from Boys State. I was extremely motivated there, and I realized going back to the rest of my life that somehow I had lost that feeling in my everyday life.

This is not good. With my job and the organizations, etc. that I am involved in, everything is based upon me wanting to do it. As the boss of a company, if I am not motivated to make positive forward motion, the company won't. As a leader in organizations, if I am not being innovative and inspirational, the organizations will flounder. But how can you motivate yourself?

It seems funny to me that someone who has such an easy time finding what will bring the best out in others can be so inept at doing it to myself. I have tried looking at a lot of different angles, but I can't seem to find the source... something I think would be vital in solving this problem. I have faced a lot of setbacks in the last few years, but I don't think that is it. It certainly isn't that I don't like what I want to motivate myself to do. It is kind of like motivating myself to work out. I LOVE the way I feel when I work out. I like doing it. Why then is it so hard to bring myself to do something that I actually like doing. It is the same with my company. I love what I do. It makes me happy. Why then has the inspiration and motivation left me? More importantly, how can I get it back?

There is really only one thing that I may be able to work on, and that is the fact that I feel many of the people that inspire me are not in my life as much any more. Maybe their influence on me is more important than I realized. There are three in particular that I know I miss, and maybe I miss their influence on me more than I was aware of. Christopher moving and going to school has left a huge philosophical gap in my life. Brock was always good at firing me up about so many things, and Chris had a similar ability. With two of these far away and another busy building a life, we do not have the same interactions, and I think that might be taking its toll.

I do notice that a lot of people I associate with, may not bring me to the level that I like to play at. Maybe its time that I start going back to those who bring out the best in me. It's funny. I give that advice to people all the time. Maybe I should take a dose of my own medicine.

I also wonder if I have been stagnant for too long. Sitting in one place and not accomplishing something isn't something I do often, or that I enjoy. Maybe there is a place (or many places) in my life that I need a change. Something that I don't even realize is having a major impact on me. Hmmm... more avenues to persue.

Of course, there could be a lot more to this, but I think this might be a good place to start. I am sure that the results of this issue will continue to be the subject of my thoughts, and therefore my writing, but I thank you for listening while I work through this.

Something Different

I have never done this on here, but I was experimenting with a new form of poetry (well, new to me anyway) called a Pantoum. I really like the style. It is unique and yet challenging. Every other line must rhyme, and as you can tell, each verse must contain the second and last line from the one before. You then have to end the poem with the first line of the poem. As I wrote thoughts and feelings came through, and since this is what I normally put on here, I suppose it can just be considered a new form for the entry. This is the first rough draft, and it is as yet untitled:

A casual glance turned lingering gaze,

from simple touch to terrifying heights,

the resulting emotion a powerful haze.

Fondly remember the heated nights.

From simple touch to terrifying heights,

the smile brought endless joy.

Fondly remember the heated nights,

as you venture without your boy.

The smile brought endless joy,

while thoughts of terror haunted eyes.

As venture without your boy,

know he give you more than money buys.

While thoughts of terror haunted eyes,

words of caring filled the car.

Know he gives you more than money buys,

as you think of him from afar.

Words of caring filled the car,

the resulting emotion a powerful haze,

As you think of him from afar:

a casual glance turned lingering gaze.

Distractions vs. Disappearance

Tonight I had an epiphany about my relationship to distractions. I have always been willing to "move the world"- as I put it- for something I care about. I have been called ambitious and driven by most everyone I know. I think about this as I hear stories, or even see movies where the people who normally match these descriptions and wonder how I relate to them. Often you see these people losing one thing that is "important to them" in favor of another. The typical symbol of this tie is the interruptive cell phone. Am I really that kind of person? There are times that I think my phone rings off the hook, and I fall head-long into that trap, but most of the time this doesn't seem to be the case. In The Devil Wears Prada there is a line that I think might apply. "The person whose calls you answer, that is who you are in a relationship with... I hope you are happy together."

How many times do we see or hear about the person who is "married to their work"? I certainly love my work, and feel no need to remove it from areas of my life. I consider my career as a part of me, as much- if different- as my friends, my philanthropic work, my family, and my activism. Each plays an important role in my life. Am I hooked on one more than another? Do I give up part of my life for another? If so, is it too much? These are all questions that I have asked myself for a long time, but I may know how I feel that I have a unique balance between the aspects of my life. Right or wrong, this is my discovery:

The flippant statement that I mentioned at the beginning about moving the world really is more true then I ever realized. I am willing to put nearly everything on hold for what is important, and I do more than I was aware of. This weekend is a perfect example. For many reasons that I won't go into at the moment, I felt I needed to be somewhere. I completely changed all of my plans, passed over some opportunities, etc. so that I could do what I felt needed to be done. Some of this was obvious. Today I realized the depths to which I go. If something is capturing my attention, I turn off all else. I don't take my cell phone with me, I cut myself off. Rather than be distracted, I chose to disappear.

The most obvious and hyperbolized example of this is Boys State. Clearly one of the most important things that I do, there are times when it consumes everything. For nearly two weeks every year, I don't answer my cell phone, I only make cursory checks of my e-mail, etc. A few years ago when my company was new, I tried to do it a little differently. I tried to keep up with both work and Boys State at the same time. While I feel like I did what I needed to, I could feel a dramatic difference. I have never tried to do that again.

This method of focusing on what's important really makes a lot of sense to me. I am a passionate, and fiery person. I also value the diversity in my life, and keep a lot of things going on at once. I like change. New things can sometimes draw my attention in a way that is almost A.D.D. How does all this mix? Like a fire that catches gasoline, all energy goes into the inferno before the fire calms down and looks for a new focus. I do exactly that. I give all my focus to what interests, and what is important to me. I think I have done this all my life, and if anything do it moreso now than ever before. This I know.

What I have yet to figure out is whether this is good or bad. On one hand, it can be really bad to those that people and things that are on the outside when I am focusing on something. I certainly know many people who have in one way or another been frustrated by my... flexibility. On the flip side, what would it mean to what is important to me if I were to change? When I have my friend crying on my shoulder and ignore my cell phone, how can that be wrong? How many times have we heard "give it your all"? That is often the only time that things really get done. Is that the right cost? Would it be better to chose with every ring of the cell phone? At this point I don't know. I bet some people will chose the traditional easy answer of "it depends." Really though, it doesn't. The way you are with what's important to you should be across the board. If not, something isn't really important.

For now, I am content with the knowledge of my reactions, and the questions it will now raise in me. As for the people and things in my life, for now they will have to be content with receiving all of my energy at times, and none at others. For good or ill, it's who I am.