"Delaying Sex Makes Better Relationships"

This article references an interesting study done by Bringham Young University's School of Family Life comparing couples in their first year of marriage who were categorized by "early sex", "late sex", and people who waited till marrige. The study found that  people "are more comfortable letting people into their bodies than they are with them watching their cat." But also that couples who abstained till marriage rated relationship stability, relationship satisfaction, sexual quality, and communication significantly higher then those who had "early sex".

Mutal Dependency

"By hurting the beloved, the lover wishes to signal that their mutual relationship, and in particular their mutual dependency, should be modified. Hurting the beloved may be the last alarm bell that warns of the lover's difficulties; it is an extreme measure signaling urgency."

"Another consideration in light of which the lover may sometimes hurt the beloved is related to the lack of indifference in love. Since the lover greatly cares for the beloved and their mutual relationship, the lover cannot be indifferent toward anything that may harm the beloved, their relationship, or the lover's own situation. This lack of indifference toward the beloved may lead the lover to take measures which hurt the other when viewed within a partial perspective, but can be seen as beneficial from a global perspective. This is the painful side of care: a close connection exists between people who help and hurt as well. In the same way that improving the quality and happiness of our lives may demand some suffering, improving the quality and happiness of our beloved's life may require such suffering."

"Therefore, people in love prefer to be hurt by the beloved rather than be treated with indifference."
You Always Hurt the One You Love, Aaron Ben-Zeév, psychologytoday.com

Psalm 143: 1-11

Lord, listen to my prayer:
turn you ear to my appeal.
You are faithful,  you are just; give answer.
Do not call your servant to judgment
for no one is just in your sight.

The enemy pursues my soul;
he has crushed my life to the ground;
he has made me dewll in darkness
like the dead, long forgetten.
Therefore my spirit fails;
my heart is numb within me.

I remember the days that are past:
I ponder all your works.
I muse on what your hand has wrought
and to you I stretch out my hands.
Like a parched land my soul thirsts for you.

Lord, make haste and answer;
for my spirit fails within me
Do not hide your face
lest I become like those in the grave.

In the morning let me know your love
for I put my trust in you.
Make me know the way I should walk:
to you I lift up my soul.

Rescue me, Lord, from my enemies;
I have fled to you for refuge.
Teach me to do your will
for you, O Lord, are my God.
Let your good spirit guide me
in ways that are level and smooth.

For you name's sake, Lord, save my life;
in your justice save my soul from distress.

Cognitive Dissonance

The fox who longed for grapes, beholds with pain

The tempting clusters were too high to gain;

Grieved in his heart he forced a careless smile,

And cried ,‘They’re sharp and hardly worth my while.'

The fable follows this pattern: something is desired, it is determined that the thing desired is unattainable, the desired thing is mocked/critisized.

Cognitive dissonance is the uncomfortable feeling caused by simultaneous conflicting ideas. "I want that, but something's keeping me from getting it."

The connection between the spiritual life and the concept this fable illustrates is undeniable. Everyone has a desire for God, holiness, and happiness. But living it out can seem like a goal to high to reach. So to soothe our cognitive dissonance, we mock the thing we desire most but are too weak to have.

Abrahem

I'm giving a test in my moral theology class tomorrow which covers moral object, intention, and circumstance. For class I found several different scenarios to read where we'd identify each source. For the test, I decided to make my own and give it as an essay question. If you read this, see if you can identify each then write them in the comments.

Abrahem lives in a very poor town near the border of Israel where crime, death, and violence are an everyday occurrence. He needs money because he insists on taking his pregnant wife to the best hospital. There is another more affordable hospital he could take his wife to, but he does not trust it due to its bad reputation.



Abrahem knows an organization that will pay a large sum of money if he agrees to plant a roadside bomb that will instantly kill any person near it when detonated. The organization tells him that the bomb will be used to kill who they think may be a corrupt Israeli businessman. All Abrahem has to do is dig a hole, put the device in the ground, cover it, walk away, and he’ll receive enough money to provide the best care possible for his wife and child. No one will ever know what he did.


Even though he knows and believes that it is always wrong to kill an innocent person, he agrees to plant the bomb because he thinks he’s doing something good. He does the job, receives his payment and everything appears to be going well. The next day while in the hospital with his wife, Abrahem sees on TV that an innocent group of soldiers (who are helping his city and country) were killed by the bomb he planted!

The Social Network

Great film for all intensive purposes. It made me think about what success in our society demands and really means. Even though there seems to be some controversy over whether the film makers really got all the facts straight/added random false things to it, I think it's good timing for most American's today, especially males my age. It seems realizing the American dream today has necessary moral reservations. I came to my own personal conclusion that the most profoundly religious people and top business executives are mutually exclusive...at least in terms of profoundly Catholic religous people. It's kind of an intersting irony that reveals some truth about the practice of making large sums of money and having power over so many people's lives.

Job market for a BS in Psychology...

On the top is a pen about 80% completed that I was emptying of compacted ram dung, it was about 6 inches deep...on the bottom is the female pen which was about 8 inches deep. The male pen I did completely by hand, the female pen (which was about twice the size of the male) was mostly cleaned by a front-end-loader but still involved quite a bit of "pitch-forking".

It's humbling doing this kind of work when I've been told all my life getting a college degree will get you somewhere in life. There's something rewarding about it I have to admit. It's a male thing probably, but it seems doing manual labor is in my DNA. I get some kind of primordial pleasure out of it and I feel some kind of connection with my agricultural ancestors.

If nothing else it makes life seem more simple. Simply being in the country away from lots of people and noise has a kind of transcendent quality to it. Things make sense and there's a black and white answer to most everything. There's a closeness to the vitality of life and a connection with the rhythm of nature. The fresh air is nice too (that is, when my nose isn't a foot away from a pile of excrement).

I feel in command doing that kind of work, especially around animals. In some way it feels like I'm lowering myself to an insignificant level by stooping to cleaning an animals fecal matter. But viewing it from another angle, I'm revealing my own mastery over the animals. They can't serve themselves and don't know what's best for them, but I do. They don't notice they're wallowing in their own filth, but I do. They're scared of me. I have the power to manipulate them. I can decide whether they live or die and have no moral obligation either way. I self-reflect, and they don't.

Wow...a liberal arts degree allows one to experience the world deeply...even shoveling shit.

Metaphysical Thought

You're closer to God than you are to yourself.

"The Good Earth" Pearl S. Buck

I just finished reading The Good Earth. I was struck by a theme it addressed about relationships. It was written in a kind of a "this happened, then that happened, which resulted in this, but then this other thing happened" flow, yet the whole book was captivating.

Wang Lung, the main character, was born a poor farmer in rural pre-revolutionary China. He marries a slave woman, O-lan, from the richest family in the area. As with the land, the relationship Wang has with O-lan initially is extremely fruitful, silent, and harmonious. There's a famine that comes to the land so Wang and O-lan are forced to "go south." The family of five live in extreme poverty for a winter and Wang Lung can't wait to get home to his fields. They manage to leave when Wang demands money from a rich man during a revolt. They go back, Wang buys land, his harvests are plentiful, the "Great House" where his wife used to be a slave doesn't have any money so he buys some of their land, this leads to more money and power for Wang...etc etc Wang becomes rich and greedy. There's a lot more to the book but that's the very basics.

I was struck most by the relationship of Wang Lung and O-lan. O-lan is described as an average looking women, very healthy and fertile, big-boned, big footed, with a square face. Wang never describes her as beautiful and neither does the narrator. She's like super-wife for the time, at least as far as I could tell. She bears Wang three sons, two of which are the oldest, plus two other daughters. She'd be working in the fields with Wang, realize she had to give birth, go in to the house, make dinner, and give birth by herself in her room in silence. Non-stop worker, never complained, tough, and loyal. When the family is in the south she secretly finds jewels hidden in the palace wall during the revolt, these ultimately become the means to which Wang reaches his ultimate wealth and power. From the jewels she found, O-lan wanted to keep two pearls for herself, Wang Lung gives these two pearls to her and it clearly represents his love/and or respect for her.

It get's tragic though. Wang get's rich enough that he basically doesn't have to work anymore. So he's sitting around the house bored. For the first time he looks at O-lan not as a wife but as an object and is disgusted with her lack of beauty. Long story short, he buys a pretty whore from the local brothel, builds her a separate house, spends limitlessly on her, and takes the two pearls from O-lan to give to her.

O-lan is obviously crushed. Wang thinks he's been better than average to her as far as providing and not beating her. He also writes it off with a "hey, all the rich guys are doing it." There's a natural guilt Wang feels, but he doesn't understand it. He sees women as good to have around for work and to bear sons, but they're pretty much worthless besides that.

The way the book is written echoes this too. The story never plunges into the thoughts and feelings of O-lan like I wanted it to, it just keeps on trucking with what's happening with Wang. The story acknowledges the interaction between the two of them, but not much more than that. The story was un-phased that O-lan just accepted that she couldn't be loved because she wasn't beautiful. Even after having done everything a man could have wanted, she couldn't be loved because she didn't have good looks.

I wanted to know why. I wanted to hear O-lan's side. I wanted Wang to have a change of heart.

I think the author chose to tell the story this way because it reflects natures perspective. The story keeps moving just like nature doesn't stop for tragic events. It's a kind of neutral observer. Things grow, die, then get turned under so new things can grow.

But it's different with relationships. The reality of growth and renewal in the plant world contrasts love and the way I (and other people I'm assuming) view relationships. In a relationship, like growing plants, there's a planting time, cultivation, fertilizing, nurturing, growth, time for weeding, and eventually fruits. But it's fruit upon fruit with relationships, instead of a death to rising cycle.

There are some similarities: sometimes a relationship is planted on bad soil or sometimes one relationship must die for another to flourish. These, however, mirror with good gardening and weeding techniques rather than it does with some sort of relationship cycle.

A good relationship leads to other good relationships. A good relationship also affects people to nurture more their own relationships or start a new one. Relationships don't have a cyclical pattern where one must die for another to take it's place. There's an endless fertile field for planting.

This was a good thought provoking theme in this book. I still feel bad for O-lan though.

Starting the Garden

Broccoli Sprouting

Tomato Sprouting

I'm starting a vegetable garden. These are the only two that I have to start in doors to transplant. The others are lettuce, cucumber, zucchini, corn, and beans. The fun part was the exchange between my mom and I about getting the indoor seeds started. Ruth witnessed the whole thing. It went something like this:

I got home after I purchased the seeds and the small seed starting cups and realized I hadn't really gotten the stamp of approval from the woman of the house. Ruth was in the dining room probably musing over facebook. As I went downstairs to to the office both my parents were sitting at computers doing some kind of work.

"Mom", I asked, she turned around in the rolling captain's chair, "I need a place inside to start the seeds for the garden I told you about. It has to be in a place with a lot of sun, I was thinking Tim's room to keep it out of the way."

She looked at me with a please-be-careful-not-to-break-anything-or-make-a-mess face and said, "Do you think there'll be enough light in Tim's room?"

"Well the best place would be in the living room in that front window, but I don't know if you want it in there" She paused and it was clear she was struggling between her desire for a clean kept house while not trying to stifle one of the few productive things I've attempted to do.

"I'm going to put newspaper and all that stuff down. It's not going to be a mess" I said trying to reassure her.

"OK you can put it in the living room" she said with a sigh turning back to her work.

It wasn't a total acceptance of my proposal, but then again I first suggested to put it in Tim's room. But she was right. There really wasn't going to be enough sun in Tim's room, since it faces the North and is shaded by trees. I wasn't trying to be crafty by suggesting Tim's room and knowing the living room would obviously be better. I was just trying to keep it out of the way. None the less, she had said yes and I was satisfied enough and excited (pathetic, as planting seeds is hardly exciting) to head back up stairs to get the dirt and start planting.

I found an old piece of wood paneling in the shed brought it in and laid it on the small wooden desk with newspaper over it, then went back out with a bucket to get the dirt from the compost pile. When  I was coming back in with a bucket half full of dirt, I didn't notice mom standing with her hands on her hips at the sliding glass door until I opened it.

"You're not coming in my house with that dirt!" she said.

I knew the whole seal of approval exchange had been too easy and in the back of mind knew better than to bring a bucket half full of dirt into the house, but I wasn't expecting such a drastic change. I put the bucket down on the patio and as I was coming back inside mom said,
"The dirt needs to stay outside. Come here and tell me what you're doing"
"I'm putting it in the living like you said" I responded as I followed her through the house to the living room where my set-up was. Looking at the piece of wood covered with newspaper she said,
"How are you going to keep the water from running off?"
"The newspaper, it'll be able to soak it up."
She was frustrated but wanted to understand and not just say no to the whole thing. Putting her hand on my shoulder her voice changed to what sounded like a teacher to a first grade class,
"Let's think about this: what happens when you pour water on dirt?"
"Mom, it's not like I'm going to be pouring buckets of water on these things."

We were both almost laughing at how much difficulty we were having trying to make sense of what the other person was saying. We both stood thinking, not knowing what to do next. I grabbed the bag holding the stater cups that was under the desk. There was a pause..

"Oh you have these cups?" Mom said.

From the other room Ruth was laughing having heard this whole exchange.
"What did you think he was going to do mom?"
In an embarrassed laugh mom said,
"I don't know"
"What, did you think he was going to just pile it up on the desk?" Ruth replied, laughing at us both.
"I don't know, do the dirt outside and please try not to make a mess" was mom's reply as she left the room.

Ruth kept laughing and I couldn't help myself either.