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These are articles related to phyiscal, psychological, theological and spiritual places,, that offer a persepctive of observance that is worthy of consideration because for good or bad, we experience the power of it's presence in our society today.

A-PLACES-001- Falayta - True Love Waits--Robert Farrell

"Falayta." True Love Waits

Craig Wilson writing in USA Today (1) tells a marvelous story about the quintessential old lady dressed in tennis shoes who wintered in Florida. She and her girlfriends were notorious for emptying sugar bowls before the coffee even arrived. He calls them 'Depression era women' who were always saving for the future. Apparently, they were also known for emptying baskets of dinner rolls into their purses. They were for later use you see. Maybe with breakfast or maybe with tea. It didn't matter. They were "Falayta" rolls.

The girl friends of today are signing pledges of 'sexual abstinence'. The term might sound cold and clinical even stainless steel like, yet never the less hundreds of thousands are publicly indicating that they too are, 'saving for the future.' This time however, it's their virginity that is being well kept. The drive for sexual purity is gaining substantial momentum in North America, and the (2) "True Love Waits" organization is using the Olympic Games in Athens 2004, as a vehicle for making the momentum a global phenomena. May I bring two important questions to the campaign for sexual purity? First, is 'public pledging' the best way to achieve sexual purity? Secondly is this new 'Lifeway' producing the desired results?

These are questions being addressed by sincere critics of the campaign for sexual purity. Some of their banner statements are worthy of consideration. For example, (3)Debbie Ollis, one of the authors of (4) 'Talking Sexual Health', is reported as commenting about educating adolescents by saying: "It's not our position to tell them what is right and wrong; that isn't what education is about. Historically, sex education programs have been about teaching young people, and particularly young women, to say no to sex. The emphasis now is on helping them to say what they want. That might be no but it might be, I only want to kiss, or to hold hands." Another banner presented in the same article by Bagnel quotes (5) Susan Moore, professor of psychology at Victoria's Swinburne University as bluntly saying: "My work shows that virginity is a health hazard." The article continued that "Moore surveyed 220 teenagers aged 17 to 19 and found sexually active teenagers were likely to be 'better adjusted' than those who were virgins. Over all, she found a third were virgins, a third had safe sex, while a third had unsafe sex. She told the International Child and Adolescent Mental Health Conference in Brisbane last June (2003) that the young people who went to church were more likely to be virgins but those who were not virgins were no more likely to practice safe sex than unsafe sex."

Now you see what these two banners are saying don't you? First, who are we to declare what is right or wrong? There are no absolutes in what is the cultural norm. Secondly, that those who espouse what(6) Schaeffer referred to as biblical 'arbitrary absolutes' might retain some sexual purity in their ranks, but they are merely ignorant 'churchy virgins', in a somewhat oppressive health educationally ignorant subculture, which while it may limit 'sexual practice' for some, exposes the rest to unsafe sexual expression. Though I am extrapolating from this presupposition, which is always a dangerous thing to do, I conclude I am not unreasonable in saying that those opposing the "True Love Waits" campaign do so because in the end, they believe it produces naïve unsafe people, who are in fact health hazards to the rest of the world. So please, stop conning them with these fairy tale public professions of purity and pass out the condoms for goodness sake!

Pastors having to daily deal with the fallout within their congregations of sexual impurity from young and older alike, are not naïve, and know all too well that such public pledging of purity may be a good beginning but it is not the ultimate answer. I suggest we need to go deeper in presenting an answer to strong and healthy sexual desire. I believe Bagnel's marvelous article which I have quoted extensively from, does in fact contain the answer for Pastors and parents alike. Bagnel, quoting Emily Lawrence Gazal, a Sydney journalist aged 30, in response to some of Moore's observations writes,"Kids think that having sex will make them more grown-up, more cool and more desirable, and that is what they want to be….. Gazal is now married but confesses that not long ago, she was jumping compulsively from one bad relationship to the next, and miserable to boot, never achieving the intimacy she was seeking." In that statement I believe are the answers. Desirability and intimacy.

The question we all carry in our hearts that is most on the surface and sexually pronounced by the adolescent is this. Am I beautiful? Am I desirable? Does someone want me? I honestly believe that those of us who have examined these surface questions have traced them further to a longing deep in our hearts that actually says. (7)" Does God love me? (8)Does God want me?(9) Am I desirable to Him?" Of course the only expression to such a driving question is one of seeking the fulfillment of(10) true intimacy. Only there will we find the answer we seek in the forms of(11) peace, (12) ecstasy and the satisfaction of knowing and being known, loving and being loved. God the Father Biblically clothes all of these deep spiritual desires in sexual terms, and paints the intimacy He desires, in terms of (13)marriage and sexual intercourse. Pastors and parents need to lead their charges into this deep intimacy with God who truly desires to know them. I would propose that although public professions of purity are a great start, only this true intimacy with Jesus will produce the desired results, only intimacy with Jesus will provide young people with a stainless purity and steel like fortitude? However, whilst this is being cultivated in Pastor, parent and congregation alike, we can instruct our young people in the simplest of terms, of the wonderful truth that yes indeed, "True Love waits", and that when the opportunity and offer of sexual activity in all it's power and seductiveness invites them to participate, advise them to earnestly proclaim, "No thank you, I'm saving myself. You know,....'Falayta!'

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Sources Consulted:-

1) USA Today, Wednesday June 16th, 2004 Section D , Life, page 1D, 'The Final Word' by Craig Wilson Accessed at http://www.lifeway.com/tlw/
2) Diana Bagnel, The Bulletin with Newsweek, The New Virginity. Accessed at http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/bulletin/eddesk.nsf/All/737B6842A2C9DFBCCA256CA7002F6B7C
3) Accessed at http://www.latrobe.edu.au/cleu/debbie_ollis.htm
4) Accessed at http://www.swin.edu.au/sbs/staff/bios/moore.htm
5) Accessed at http://www.rationalpi.com/theshelter/freedom.html
6) Jeremiah 31:3-4 The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness. 4 I will build you up again and you will be rebuilt, O virgin Israel. NIV
7) Joel 2:12-13'Even now,' declares the LORD, 'return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.' 13 Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. NIV
8) Song of Solomon 6:4-5 You are beautiful, my darling, as Tirzah, lovely as Jerusalem, majestic as troops with banners. 5 Turn your eyes from me; they overwhelm me. NIV
9) John 17:3-4 Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. NIV
10) John 14:27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. NIV
11) 1 Peter 1:8 Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:KJV
12) Ephesians 5:25-33 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church- 30 for we are members of his body. 31 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." 32 This is a profound mystery-but I am talking about Christ and the church. NIV

A-PLACES-002- The Death of ‘Ilongitism’- What Christians Should Be Wearing

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" 22 Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. Matthew 18:21-22 (NIV)

The BBC's Oliver Conway reported on a list of 'the hardest words to translate' that was drawn up from a consultation with 1,000 linguists. At the top of the list, from the DR Congo came the word 'ilunga'. This word apparently means 'a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time but never a third time.' I read the article and thought to my self. "What a marvelous word. No, more than that, what a reasonable word. After all, it describes all that in most of our hearts we consider noble, even manly and most certainly merciful. This wonderful word encapsulates that response to sin against me which is both outwardly gracious and yet reasonable; realistic and yet practicable. Above all it a most reachable word." I liked it. I found it appealing.

You see, whatever, the sin, if I forgive you once, then to myself and others I can appear to be magnificently magnanimous. It may cost me; it may cost me dearly, but I, yes I have forgiven you. I feel better than you when I do this. Yes that's the right thing to do, yes that's gracious, yes that's reasonable and that's reachable. 'Ilunga!' Marvelous!

If you commit a sin against me a second time, then I can choose to tolerate it. My forgiveness would be less and every reasonable person, every true 'Ilongite' would understand why. "Yes that's right, yes that's kind of gracious, yes that's just about reasonable. My goodness friend you are patient to tolerate yet another strike against you. How wonderful of you to do this. It's bordering on disbelief in how gracious you appear to be. Yes Ilunga! How tolerant."

Sin against me the same sin, a third time, and I would be a fool to let it continue. To let my grace be stomped on, abused, even publicly raped by you. What a fool I would appear to be to my fellow 'Ilongites.' How weak, how stupid, how pitiful to allow myself to be abused a third time. No! Never! Three strikes and your out! That's reasonable friends. Very reasonable! As every true 'Ilongite' knows.

I long to be an 'Ilongite' because it magnifies my personal mercy, and justifies the preservation of my dignity, even my life. It seems to me in the western world, if I might use and old fashioned term, that every gentleman is in fact an 'Ilonigite' at heart. It is something we should all aspire to. This most reachable and reasonable of action and disposition.

Unfortunately the followers of Jesus find him to be a man of wild words, of unreasonable commands and unreachable teachings. Eating his flesh? Bah! Camels through eyes of needles? Humbug? Everyone who heard Jesus came to realize that they were not invited to follow a reasonable Master. Jesus favorite words were 'total', 'all', 'every.' No, the more they followed the more they realized that they had an unreasonable Master, with humanly unreachable commands. Jesus raised the bar far higher than any of them could possible reach by themselves. It was obvious that Jesus expected His followers in forgiveness to be godlike! To a man, they all baulked at the unreasonable and unreachable ness of this, for truly, us forgiving others is the hardest thing on earth. It cannot be done. I say again, it cannot be done without the grace of God o'er flowing our hearts, and us trusting totally on Him for help in this forgiving. For to forgive, deeply from the heart, is to be like God! Pastors are not called not to be like gentlemen, but to be like Jesus. No wonder the disciples, being slain by these words whimpered from the ground of their innermost beings to Jesus saying, "Lord, increase our faith."

Christians have a preferred platform and prime time, to proclaim and publish such 'living forgiveness.' God gives us the opportunity to face those who above all things, need to know the forgiveness of God. I suspect that many of yuo will have been sinned against, and have fet it most grieviously. Maybe a member of your own family is sitting there in front of you right now, armored with bitterness; yet needing a touch a your felt forgiveness. God has called us all to publicly put to death 'Ilongitism' by clothing ourselves with unreasonableness, and with winged feet, reach the unreachable, by forgiving those who have sinned against us four hundred and ninety times a day.