Last Saturday I went to Christ’s Karaoke in the Valley, called CCV here in Phoenix, with my friends from work and their son. I was with my coworkers because I am their son’s irresponsibility mentor and had taken him to a movie earlier in the day. Someone has to help this kid off the straight and narrow minded path on which his biological father set him.
His mother is an English teacher and I had to really think to make sure that last sentence did not end in a preposition. This page ends up passed around between teachers and I intensely aware of the possibility my grammar and usage will be judged. Judge not, lest ye be judged. I used to have a sticky note that from one of them apologizing for correcting my grammar that read, “I hope your [sic] upset that I corrected your grammar. I’m an English teacher and its [sic] my job.” I was going to frame it but I think they took it back. His step father is one of the kinesiologists and at our school; if I know one thing it’s: you don’t tug on superman’s cape, you don’t spit into the wind, you don’t pull the mask off the old lone ranger and you don’t mess around with a kinesiologist.
Of course, these are the nicest people you could hope to meet and exceptional parents. They had been meaning to bring me to church for some time now because I really need to be on a steady diet of fire and brimstone. CCV may receives a whole heap of bad press from people anxious to say anything bad about any Christian but what they have in population leaves them lacking in what the world usually dislikes in the Church. I have no major problems with CCV beyond only baptizing adults and then only by immersion and then there is the tiny issue of the front and center of attention rock band that is less humble than Dave Groh. As a Lutheran those two things are antithetical to our belief and practice. That having been said, Lutherans are more concerned about other Lutherans and would never deign to care about other Christians.
Their topic for their discussion that night was sex. The pastor and his wife had been conducting a series on their church’s view on human sexuality. I was surprised that it wasn’t the usual fare of gay bashing or the alternate of ‘everything is okay as long as everyone consents to it.” I had on the tip of my tongue what my good friend Jeff said, “I want my heart to be full of peace, love and tolerance – like the Southern Baptists,” himself a recovering Baptist of some flavor, or what Peter says, “like any good member of the UCC I am tolerant and accepting of other people’s ideas that agree with my own and everyone who disagrees with me is a philistine or a bigot.” I have no first hand knowledge of denominational misgivings, due to the aforementioned Lutheranism.
It was all well thought out and hard for anyone reasonable to disagree with; their basic premise was that a sexual relationship should be based on respect and communication as well as love and commitment. To wit: how can you have love and commitment without respect and communication? They really didn’t talk about sexual orientation – unless it was during the parts when I was covering my ears, crying or giggling out of nervousness.
The only thing I disagreed with was their hard line on masturbation and then only because I drove my coworker’s kids home where this topic was what their son wanted to talk about further. I handled this well by swerving to hit the imaginary raccoon in the street to change the subject. Sudden, random erratic driving resolves awkward car moments but I’m not sure anyone noticed my driving as random or erratic. Ashley reminded me that there are no raccoons in Phoenix. There are also no sex talks in my car.
I did take notes and statistics during the discussion. In the later: I wanted to throw up twenty-four times, Tyler twenty-two; I threw up in my mouth three times, Tyler not at all; there were three instances of questionable touching between the grandma and grandpa on the stage. Old people talking about sex is only slightly less disgusting than ‘tweens talking about sex from experience. It’s wonderful that after forty years of marriage they were still actively intimate but I could have lived without details. I especially did not need to know how long it took for people to warm up before exercising or what their ‘signal was.’ One if by land, two if by sea?
While my notes were destroyed in the wash – I had left them in my pocket – I do remember some of the questions and their answers. I take copious notes of the world around me, all the time - "observe, pass judgment, rinse, repeat, report."
Is there anything that is inappropriate to bring into the bed I share with my wife? A good rule to follow is, “feathers good, chickens bad.” The birds of the air and beasts of the field are our friends; leave them alone. Is it okay to have sex before church? No, as long as you don’t block the aisle. What’s wrong with masturbation? Nothing really, beyond talking about it in public or while I am operating a vehicle, it is pretty much okay. Why did someone’s thirteen year old have to talk to me about masturbation? Because you are a bad Karma check just waiting to bounce; have someone ready with a camera or video recorder when your karma is called in.
It wasn’t as bad as I feared and I was actually a little disappointed that it wasn’t worse – its hard to write a story when everything goes well. I need a little mayhem, some shenanigans in my diet – teaching this year is much too tame for the weekends to go as planned.
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