Do We Treat Ourselves Better Than We Treat Others?

This question was posted on a meme this morning on FB (where I live some of my social life, I admit) in a gay men's touch group, and instead of scrolling past it, I responded to it. 

I answered...

That's a definite hmmm...maybe.

I treat myself better insofar as I am more aware of my needs and what works for me than I am of others' needs. So, I treat myself better because I have more opportunity to do so.

Every chance I get, though, I am very religioius about loving my fellow as myself and not doing to others that which is hateful to myself. I actively pray to be a channel for Divine blessings to flow to others.

I don't always like my responses to things (and I endlessly re-edit), but I liked how I responded this time, because it's basically true. My growing up into someone I consider a reliable adult manifests in two significant changes in how I behave:

1. I listen to my own body. I take the messages I get seriously. Examples include: I need sleep. I need exercise. I need touch. I need food. I need to close my eyes and listen to Vivaldi. 
2. I take seriously each opportunity to be a channel for Divine blessings to flow to others. I do this when I work as a pastoral counselor and when I see clients for bodywork AND I do this in personal conversations and when running errands. I don't just pray it once, I pray it throughout a session or an encounter. A gazillion times a day (someday I will actually count how often I do it). 

It's all about the Buber. It's always all about the Buber.

As a human being, there is always a chance that I will tilt to the wrong side of the dynamic and engage with the world in an I-It manner rather than I-Thou, as Martin Buber z"l explained the alternatives. Do I treat the living beings in the world around me as people of equal worth as myself whom I can know (the I-Thou relation)? Or conversely, do I passively or delierately write the world off as being beneath me and unworthy of my full presence and engagement (the I-It relation)?

In order to treat myself and others in the way I feel we deserve to be treated, I use the same prayers. I recite:

God, I pray that I may be a channel for Your spirit to flow to others.

May the words of my mouth, the meditations of my heart,

the deeds of my hands, and the life of my body

find favor with You, my Rock and my Redeemer.

These help me to trust myself to do well by myself and by others from moment to moment throughout a day.

Blessings to all, 

David 

Talking about masturbation in the time of quarantine

TALKING ABOUT MASTURBATION IN THE TIME OF QUARANTINE

Oy, the challenges of self-quarantine, or lockdown! We feel the loss of so much: security, company, income, professional identity, usefulness, sex, cuddles, hope, and the list goes on, differently for each of us.

How do we use this time? What is the opportunity here? 

We feel good when we can sew a mask or go shopping for others, show support to the front-liners, demonstrate good boundaries, and enact proper social distancing. 

We pay an emotional cost, though, for soldiering on through the loneliness and sadness. How do we feel about lavishing care on ourselves? Do we feel we're being indulgent, and therefore being bad? Do we imagine God gives us extra points for reinforcing some measure of austerity in our lives? Are we sinning or doing a mitzvah (a righteous deed) by mindfully generating pleasure for ourselves alone?

A verse in Leviticus 19:18 includes the famous instruction, וְאָֽהַבְתָּ֥ לְרֵעֲךָ֖ כָּמ֑וֹךָ  -- You shall love your fellow as yourself. Rabbi Akiva asserts this as a fundamental teaching of Torah (Jewish Scripture).

Truly loving another or our loving ourself is not a matter of sentiment. Forget the Valentine's Day hallmark card.  Loving is measurable in both our doing and our not doing. The original verse from Torah makes the meaning explicit: We shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge. Rather, we shall love our fellows as yourselves. We have to move beyond our resentments, and our compassion must flow as freely to another being as it flows within us as individuals. 

This prompts the question, are we generous and compassionate to ourselves? I hope we make love to others with consent, respect, and imagination, offering them as much pleasure as we can and as they want. Good lovers look for the sensitive spots and both ask, listen, and intuit how to touch them for maximum desired effect. We make love to others to make them feel good, to express our affection and care for them. Generous touch doesn't place expectation on our partners. They aren't obligated to cum. They aren't obligated to respond in any certain way -- although we are allowed to ask for "feelback." It's very ok to say "Let me know if this feels good." 

Especially in this time of relative isolation and fearfulness around contact with others, how do we make love as generously to ourselves as we would to a beloved other? In stressful times, it's easy to use masturbation as a sedative, a sleep aid, an emotional painkiller. Can we instead use it as "spa time," as a gourmet experience? Can we give ourselves an uninterrupted hour of our own attention? Can we treat ourselves to a new sex toy or sexy garment? Are our consciences clear about just making ourselves feel good. Can we say a blessing over our own bodies and desires? 

Jewish morning blessings include one fabulously ambiguous one,  ברוך שעשה לי כל צרכי , which translates as both "Blessed is the One who meets all my needs" and "Blessed is the One who creates all my needs." The same words can bless both our desire for sensation and gratification and bless the gratification itself. The yearning to feel good and the good feeling we yearn for are both from God. 

I point all this out because our circuitry is wired by our puritanical society to criminalize and demonize our erotic urge. The voice that says "Don't!" is already pre-programmed. We have to bring the voice that says "Do!" -- the voice  that says our desires are Godly. 

If we can't go out, if we are nervous about touching others, then we need to find the blessings in staying in and touching ourselves. Blessed is the Creative Force that makes me desire pleasure. Blessed is the Creative Force that allows my desires to be satisfied. 

Have a good lockdown, today, everybody!

In a time of chaos and precariousness, who am I, where do I stand?

The planet is fighting hard to stay alive, despite reckless human disregard for its health. We are all taking unprecedented measures to stay healthy ourselves and to keep our loved ones healthy. Many of us are witnessing the impact of the pandemic on our society, the effects of irresponsible and reprehensible government, and are feeling the fragility of our civilization. Things are tottering that we might well have thought were truly too big to fail.

Creation stories are often about the generation of order out of chaos, and here we are watching chaos emerge and engulf the order we knew and relied on (whether we approved of it or not). This liminal moment (scary as hell though it may be) makes  for an amazing opportunity to reflect on what stability each of us offers the world. What do we know confidently about ourselves? For what can we be relied upon by a world looking for glimpses of security? What do we see around us that gives us comfort and confidence while we are buffeted by physical, financial, and political storms? Whether we live another day, another decade, or to 120 years, it is always time to ask ourselves these questions and to articulate the answers. Take a breath, know what matters to you, know how you matter to others, and give thanks for both. 

Great blog post from "In the Parlor" by Tyler Smither, a Methodist Youth Pastor in North Mississippi

Smart, simple, necessary words.

http://intheparlor.wordpress.com/2013/12/19/what-you-believe-about-homosexuality-doesnt-matter

The Chutzpah of Homophobia (and the blessing of *good* anger)

Every now and again I fall for it. I look at my Queer life against the background of a homophobic, conforming world, and I think, "Oh shit, what if I'm wrong?"

It happens. After so much time of being marginalized, I slip into thinking I'm marginal. I have been patronized or demonized with such assurance by "people of faith," I start to wobble or to despair.

It happens.

Then I remember the beauty of my connection to God, the way my spiritual and religious life supports me, the beauty of the faith of all my Queer connections in this world, and I just get angry again. Good angry, though. By that I mean, anger at people who have the chutzpah (the audacity) to dismiss the religious life and faith of millions of Queer people.

Do they really think that our relationship with God is somehow compromised by our being Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, or Questioning? This is what comes from their just telling us about our connection to the Divine as opposed to asking us. We have knowledge of God. The world just hasn't come round to inquiring about it. Their loss.

Religious, anti-Queer bigots are seldom shy about sharing their beliefs. Let's be as audacious and as brazen as they, but let's do it right. We don't need to judge someone else's status with God in order to feel right about our own. We can celebrate our faith and share its validity without debating people about the meaning of scripture or the traditions of oppression that have become commonplace in our culture.

If you recognize the spark of God in your life, but haven't yet fanned it into flame because you were called "wrong" or "sinful" or "queer" by people who didn't know that Queerness is something sacred, take courage from your own inherent link to God. Have faith in your faith. Trust in your truth.

Whatever you believe, whatever name or names you have for God or Divinity, the imprint of your faith in your life, even the questions and doubts you feel, proclaim it loud. The one thing the anti-Queer forces of the world aren't prepared for is our faith. This Thanksgiving be grateful for your bond with God and be grateful you don't need to dismiss someone else's faith to celebrate your own.