Jesus says to me, "Do not commit adultery." How
quickly I agree with my friend, "I have observed this since my youth."
And in the pause that follows, I sink into the love in His
eyes and begin to see as He sees and feel the wounds that He feels. Wounds that
I have inflicted upon another, the least of these, landing on Him.
The sly, sideways glance that stops just short of a leer,
quickly looking away when the object feels the clammy projection of unspoken wanting.
The depersonalization involved in such a fantasy degrades us both.
The deliberate and "accidental" choosing of
entertainments that go well beyond art in their depiction of anatomy for the
sake of salacious excitements. How easy it is to rationalize - and how deadly
to the soul's health.
An unguarded conversation that crosses the line into
flirtation. Harmless? Innocent? Deadly.
For it plays with a snake, known for its poison and its strategy. A
moment of weakness crossed with a split-second of opportunity yields a lifetime
of sorrow.
An idealized and romanticized fantasy fed by the industries
of imagination producing a deep dissatisfaction with the gifts one has been
given in real relationship. That dissatisfaction breeds contempt, and soon the
death of desire for any but the romantic
unreal and impossible.
The desperate, adrenalinized, fear charged, furtive,
compulsive search through the dark alleys and back streets of the internet for
images that stick with force to the locker room walls of the mind's eye.
"Spirit of the Living God, fall fresh upon me. Search
my heart for all of the secret ways and hidden sins which I can barely
acknowledge even when I see them in the mirror. Give me the courage to lift
them up. Cleanse the poisons by your sweet, healing, soothing, Presence."
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